On drafting and revision in translation: a corpus linguistics oriented analysis of translation process data

This paper reports on a study which investigates prototypical characteristics of the drafting and revision phases of the translation process, mapped onto the sequential unfolding of micro translation units into macro translation units (MTUs). By using Litterae, an annotation and search tool designed to mark, annotate and extract XML files of key-logged translation process data, the paper analyses the performance of 12 professional translators and classifies their output as MTUs grouped into three categories: MTUs containing micro units which are processed solely during the drafting phase (P1 type), MTUs containing micro units which are processed once in the drafting phase and finalized in the revision phase (P2 type), and MTUs containing micro units which are processed during the drafting phase and taken up again during the revision phase (P3 type). The analysis points to a hierarchical structure in which P1 is more predominant than P2 which, in turn, is more frequent than P3.