Resumen de Professional translations of non-native English:: ‘before and after’ texts from the European Parliament’s Editing Unit
Michaela Albl-Mikasa, Giovanni Fontana, Laura Fuchs-Eisner, Lena Meret Stüdeli, Aline Zaugg
Since English has become the dominant global language, research efforts have mostly concentrated on spoken English as a lingua franca (ELF). Written ELF is largely under-researched both in relation to translation and otherwise. This study examines ‘before and after’ texts made available by the European Parliament’s Editing Unit. The original texts were written by non-native English speakers (before) and subsequently revised by native English editors (after) with a view to delivering consistent edited source texts as a basis for translation into different EU languages. In a pre-study, 12 texts (and their edited versions) were scrutinised for potential translation problems. In the main study, three of the 12 originals and their three edited counterparts were translated by six professional translators. A mixed-method approach was adopted: product-based analysis of the translations for actual translation problems combined with screen-recording-prompted retrospective translator comments and screen-recording-based indicators for the time taken to translate edited and non-edited segments. The results suggest that there is a sufficiently large number of challenges arising from non-standard source segments to prolong translational decision-making and provoke inadequate solutions.
