The value of translation feedback for professional translators

翻译反馈对专业译者的价值

2020-01-22 01:30 Star Transit NXT

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All professional translators and translation agencies will, or at least should, set great store by the quality of their work. After all, translations are not just words on a page; they are a means of spreading a message. Whether the translation contains important safety information or will be used for the marketing launch of a new product, mistakes can be costly. Translation feedback is therefore vitally important for professionals in the industry, both from their customers and from translation colleagues. The importance of this translation feedback has been enshrined in the ISO 17100 translation quality standard. The ISO 17100 standard stipulates that all translations should receive a review by a separate translator, with translation feedback being shared with the original translator. It also lays out a requirement for language service providers to handle client feedback in a defined process. The 4-eye principle The translation philosophy across the STAR Group is built on the 4-eye principle. It might sound strange, but this basically means that four eyes take a look over every project. Two belonging to a translator, and two belonging to a reviewer. In other words, every project is reviewed and there is the opportunity for translation feedback on every piece of work that a translator submits. In practise, this works in one of two ways. Either two translators either work in conjunction on a project, such as display texts, or translation projects undergo a separate review by a second translator before being delivered to the client. Where a separate review step is carried out, the reviewer (or reviser to use the ISO 17100 terminology) completes a translation feedback sheet to list all changes made to the text. What are we actually checking when we review a translation? In essence, we are checking that the translation is fit for its intended purpose. That means that it must contain no errors, either of spelling or grammar, but also that it should be suited to its intended audience. The translation of a medical report shouldn’t use any slang words for body parts, for example. As part of our standard workflow at STAR, we also include a string of quality checks into every project. Therefore, in addition to reading through the translations and checking for misunderstandings, the reviewer also checks terminology, spelling and formatting to ensure that the end text is fit for purpose. The translation feedback sheet is a form detailing the type of error found in the project and provides examples of each. We have 20 categories ranging from mistranslations and terminology errors through to grammar and punctuation mistakes. This might be overkill, but we don’t think so. It can be really useful to the translator to see if they make the same type of error over and over again. Every translation feedback sheet is automatically made available to the translator, whether part of our in-house team or a freelancer. Our translation feedback process aims to share a list of changes made due to errors being made, but also changes that were made for other reasons, such as to comply with terminology preferences or an in-house style guide. By sharing the feedback sheets, we ensure that key customer knowledge is shared across the team and that each translator is able to see any errors that they make frequently, allowing them to fix this.
所有专业的翻译和翻译机构都会,或者至少应该,以他们的工作质量为基础,建立良好的存储。毕竟,翻译不只是页面上的单词;它们是传播信息的一种手段。 无论翻译是否包含重要的安全信息或将被用于新产品的营销发布,错误都是昂贵的。 因此,翻译反馈对于来自客户和翻译同事的行业专业人员至关重要。 这种翻译反馈的重要性已经体现在 ISO 17100翻译质量标准中。 ISO 17100标准规定,所有翻译都应接受单独翻译人员的审查,并与原始翻译人员分享翻译反馈意见。它还规定了语言服务提供商在定义的过程中处理客户端反馈的要求。 4眼原则 STAR 集团的翻译理念是建立在四眼原则之上的。 听起来可能有些奇怪,但这基本上意味着四只眼睛要看一看每个项目。两个属于翻译,两个属于审稿人。 换句话说,每个项目都会被审查,并且有机会对译者提交的每一件作品进行翻译反馈。 在实践中,这是两种工作方式之一。两位译者要么在一个项目(如显示文本)上一起工作,要么在交付给客户之前,由第二位译者单独审查翻译项目。 在执行单独的审阅步骤时,审阅者(或使用 ISO 17100术语的审阅者)完成翻译反馈表,以列出对文本所做的所有更改。 当我们查看翻译时,我们实际上要检查什么? 从本质上讲,我们正在检查翻译是否符合其预期目的。这意味着它不能包含任何错误,无论是拼写还是语法错误,而且它应该适合预期的受众。例如,医学报告的翻译不应使用任何俚语单词作为身体部位。 作为我们在 STAR 的标准工作流程的一部分,我们还在每个项目中包含了一系列质量检查。因此,除了阅读翻译和检查误解之外,审阅者还检查术语、拼写和格式,以确保最终文本适合用途。 翻译反馈表是一个表单,详细说明在项目中发现的错误类型,并提供每个错误的示例。我们有20类别,从误译和术语错误到语法和标点错误。 这可能太过分了,但我们不这么认为。翻译人员一遍又一遍地查看他们是否犯了相同类型的错误,这是非常有用的。 每一份翻译反馈都会自动提供给翻译人员,无论是我们内部团队的一部分还是自由职业者。 我们的翻译反馈流程旨在共享一份由于错误而做出的更改列表,同时也共享出于其他原因所做的更改,例如遵守术语首选项或内部风格指南。 通过共享反馈信息,我们确保了团队中的关键客户知识共享,并且每个翻译员都能够看到他们频繁发生的任何错误,从而使他们能够修复这些错误。

以上中文文本为机器翻译,存在不同程度偏差和错误,请理解并参考英文原文阅读。

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