Márta Lesznyák: A longitudinal investigation of translation trainees’ translation and post-editing competence development I
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1 Literature review
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1.5 Machine translation, post-editing, and post-editing competence
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1.5.3 Translation competence vs. post-editing competence

1.5.3 Translation competence vs. post-editing competence

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Although many researchers suggest that translators must acquire new skills in the 21st century if they want to survive in the labour market (e.g., Gaspari et al., 2015; Ginovart Cid & Antoni, 2020; Hao & Pym, 2021; Pym, 2013; Sánchez-Castany, 2023), the literature on post-editing competence is surprisingly scarce. A combined Scopus search in titles, abstracts and keywords (August 2024) brought only 8 results for the search term “post-editing competence”, with the earliest hit coming from 2016. In 2023 and 2024, two studies were published on the topic in both years, but before that, only one publication appeared in 2019, 2020, and 2021.

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Google Scholar shows a more promising trend. The search term “post-editing competence” brought 4 results for 2018, 20 hits for 2020, 28 for 2022, and 42 articles were found for 2023. Researchers’ interest in post-editing competence is clearly growing, but it is not in its full bloom yet.

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These findings support Lu’s results (Y. Lu, 2022), who performed a bibliometric analysis of publications on MT post-editing between 2012 and 2021. She concluded that “quality” and “effort” were the most common key concepts authors concentrated on in the studied period. She predicted, however, a rise in “NMT”, “translation quality assessment” and “MTPE skills and training” (Y. Lu, 2022). This last concept is very close to post-editing competence.

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In this section, a brief summary will be given of the most important dilemmas concerning post-editing competence and then the best-known model will be presented together with its forerunner.

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The first dilemma that researchers and trainers face is the nature of the relationship between translation, translation revision and post-editing. Most scholars agree that the three phenomena, and accordingly, the competencies behind them and the models of those competencies share certain elements, but there are also processes and elements specific to each competence (Çeti̇Ner, 2021; Do Carmo & Moorkens, 2020; Mellinger, 2017; Nitzke, Hansen-Schirra, et al., 2019; Robert et al., 2022, 2023; Sulyok, 2023).

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Another dilemma concerns the nature of post-editing, in other words, whether it is a translation process augmented by MT or a revision process of MT-created texts (see also 1.1.3 Post-editing on defining post-editing) (Do Carmo & Moorkens, 2020; Rico Pérez, 2024). Whereas the translation profession and researchers explicitly take sides on the translation view (e.g., Do Carmo & Moorkens, 2020; Robert et al., 2022), the industry, with its financial interests and the general public seem to be more on the revision side – even if it is more an implicit attitude than an explicit declaration (Rico Pérez, 2024).

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It should be noted here that an interesting paradox arises from the “translation view” of post-editing. If post-editing is seen as text-creation in which the role of the MT output is just to provide ideas or alternatives that can be used in the final version, then requirements to minimise changes in the post-edited texts are irrelevant and cannot be justified from a theoretical point of view. Even the term “preferential changes” becomes irrelevant, as the translator is the creator of the text and, as such, can write and change whatever they deem correct in a particular context. In this respect, the post-editor’s role is markedly different from the revisor’s role, and this difference is closely linked to the unfinished nature of the text to be post-edited (as opposed to the text to be revised). Obviously, post-editing guidelines in the industry may limit the freedom of the translator-post-editor and can push them into the revisor-post-editor role.

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The third dilemma is related to training post-editing competence. Whereas there seems to be agreement that post-editing competence can and must be trained, there is no agreement on when it should be trained (at the beginning of courses or at the end, before or after teaching traditional translation, etc.) and in what form (should it be integrated into translation classes or should it be taught separately) (O’Brien, 2021). O’Brien stresses that it is not the when and the how that matter, but the simple inclusion of post-editing in training programs.
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