Editing Strategies

Shibu Simon, India

Shibu Simon teaches at India’s ‘National Defence Academy’ at Pune under the Ministry of Defence. He has published seven books on ELT and is an active researcher in TESOL. E-mail: ambatshibu@rediffmail.com

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Introduction: Ambivalent attitude to editing
Grammatical editing
Stylistic editing
Structural editing
Conclusion
Notes
References

Introduction: Ambivalent attitude to editing

In the popular concept, editing is the process¹ of faithfully converting a source text (ST) into a target text (TT) by the labour of a human editor. Since this process of conversion invariably involves a host of regulatory steps like preparing, planning, directing, arranging, sequencing, condensing, modifying, removing and changing, the concept of editing has come to connote a prescriptive attitude. This confers on editing an ambivalent status: on the one hand, editing is secondary to original writing since sequentially it comes later than the original product and is functionally obliged to retain the form, content and accuracy of the original. On the other hand, the prescriptive element in the concept of editing confers on editors superiority in terms of their mastery over language and better insight into the cultural, social and historical nuances of the native community speaking the language. This article proposes to classify and analyse different strategies involved in editing² and reserves its comments on the ambivalent status of an editor in relation to the original writer.

Grammatical editing

Grammatical editing is editing at the primary level. Here the editor is basically engaged in checking the text for errors in relation to the rules of grammar and conventions of its language use. Besides, it checks the text for such basic submission requirements, prescribed by the editorial board, as its length, specifications related to font, margins, titles, references, diagrammatical representations, paragraph alignment, spacing and indentation. Source text interference/presence will be the highest in this kind of editing since the editor more or less retains the form of the source text along with its lexical choices and syntactic patterns as long as the edited text’s comprehensibility is not compromised. Consequently, editor interference will be the lowest since grammatical editing doesn’t offer much scope for editor interpretation³ and negotiation⁴. However, domestication⁵ will be a casualty if the ST was originally written by an author for whom source language (SL) was a foreign tongue and with whose culture the writer has limited familiarity.

In the examples given below, illustrating different strategies of editing, the source text is taken from the profile of an educational organisation which runs four institutions. The source text is written by a writer for whom English is a second language.

Source Text

(153 Words)
(Changes underlined)

Edited Text 1
(Grammatical Editing)

(153 Words)

The edited text (1) illustrates aspects of grammatical editing. The editor interference is minimum here, he interferes only when the source text breaks rules and conventions of language use (the High Ranges which has, in Kerala as well as in Asia, the students who complete their education, and substituting the redundant The Mar Athanasius College Association with The association), where orthography and punctuation can be improved (various examples of capitalisation and the comma before the word namely) and where better formatting is desirable (preferring justified alignment to left alignment in the text as a whole). The edited text (1) also illustrates a salient feature of editing in general – explicitation⁶. To ensure reader comprehension, the edited text makes explicit by expansion what MA College Association stands for in the source text (first line). The edited text retains practically all the features of the source text – its length (both texts count 153 words), form, and most importantly its lexical and syntactic choices. This limited editor interference, especially when the source text is drafted by a writer for whom the given language is a foreign tongue, may result in higher source text interference and corresponding lower domestication. The foreignness⁷ of the original is evident in the monotonous repetition of its sentence patterns which divests it of the fluency of the native tongue.

Stylistic editing

Stylistic editing includes grammatical editing and is considered as an editing strategy at an advanced level. At this stage, the editors are primarily concerned with the stylistic options available to them in the place of the lexical and syntactic choices exercised by the ST writer. The edited text (2) given below illustrates a model of stylistic editing. Restricting our detailed discussion to the introductory part of the text, see how in the stylistic version, the editor combines the first two sentences and substitutes ‘trailblazer’ for ‘pioneer’ and ‘flagship institution’ for ‘most important arts and science college’ along with making other stylistic changes which effectively foreground the key information and subordinate the relatively unimportant background information. Use of italics puts further spotlight on the topics of discussion (Mar Athanasius College, Mar Athanasius College Association). Besides improving cohesion and reading comprehension, stylistic editing strategy enhances domestication by focussing on the general style and force of the native tongue.

Edited Text 2
(Stylistic Editing)

(133 Words)

Increased editor presence correspondingly reduces the source text interference. Unlike in grammatical editing, the stylistic editing resorts to less explicitation and this helps reduce the length of the text – in the present example from 153 words to 133 words.

Structural editing

Structural editing includes stylistic editing but is considered hierarchically the highest and the most radical form of editing strategy. It is necessitated when the source text doesn’t respond adequately to the text type⁸, target audience and the purpose of editing. It involves mostly subordination and/or coordination of ideas and the corresponding changes in syntactic patterning coupled with summary/rewording/expansion of the source text as the situation demands. Edited text (3), given below, illustrates structural editing.

Edited Text 3
(Structural Editing)

(122 Words)

In this example, in contrast to stylistic editing, additional information pertaining to the parent body and sister institutions of Mar Athanasius College are subordinated and condensed⁹ in one sentence succeeding the topic sentence. The topic sentence justifiably highlights Mar Athanasius College, its topic, since the source text is an exclusive write up on the profile of this college. Effective editor presence reduces source language interference and increases its domestication. The table below attempts a comparative reading of the three strategies of editing.

Table: Strategies of Editing Compared

Conclusion

The strategies of editing identified here need not be seen as opposed to one another. In fact, they are complementary and any given edited text will contain aspects of grammatical, stylistic, and structural editing even though their percentage of representation may vary from text to text. A bi-polar perspective (Steiner 1998) will be eventually counterproductive since it does not encourage further analysis of contextual constraints which affect editing and editing strategies. At best, the strategies examined in this paper may be considered as a cline rather than as poles.

Editing and translation are parts of language studies though traditionally they were not studied as comparable. This paper shows in an uncanny way how certain language concepts such as ‘source text interference’, ‘domestication’, ‘foreignization’, ‘explicitation’, ‘negotiation’, ‘interpretation’, and ‘referential equivalence’ are common and applicable to both the domains. Especially striking is the parallel between intralingual translation and structural editing. In his seminal paper “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation”, Jakobson (1959/2000), while making a very important distinction between different types of written translation speaks about intralingual translation as “interpretation of verbal signs by means of other signs of the same language.” In other words, it is translation within the same language involving rewording or paraphrase. While defining the (three) types of translation, Jakobson uses the word ‘interpretation’ thrice, thereby emphasising the importance of interpretation in translation. See how the concept of interpretation (of the source text) becomes basic to both translation and editing and how the definition of intralingual translation comes strikingly closer to the definition of structural editing.

In teaching languages, editing has a vital role to play as a humanising communicative task in CLT classrooms where the interactive process of authentic and meaningful communication in tension free learning environment receives priority. Since the editing strategies discussed in this paper have been found to be hierarchical in nature, it is possible to develop a framework for assessment of language skills based on the hierarchy of these editing skills.

Notes

1 It is possible to make a distinction between editing as a process and as a product. As a process, it is the act or instance of editing. As a product, it approximates to the meaning of ‘edit’ where it refers to ‘a change or correction made as a result of editing’ or to ‘edition’ where it refers to form (compare expressions such as cheap/pocket edition) or number of copies used (compare first/revised edition).

2 The present article is specifically concerned with editing of texts written in English language and uses examples exclusively from English for illustration. However, the general editing principles discussed here can be equally applicable to texts written in other languages as well.

3 Editing, like translation, is basically a form of interpretation where an editor must aim at rendering (Eco 4-5) “not necessarily the intention of the author but the intention of the text” – the intention of the text being the outcome of an interpretative effort on the part of the editor, as is the case with any reader, critic, or translator.

4 Negotiation is a process (Eco 6) in which “in order to get something, each party renounces something else, and at the end everybody feels satisfied since one cannot have everything.” If editing is viewed as negotiation, the editor is the negotiator between the source text (ST) and the target text (TT) – between their linguistic, cultural and social meanings.

5 Domestication is making a text’s meaning transparent and making its language fit with the expectations of the TT audience (Venuti 21). This strategy involves downplaying the foreign characteristics of the language and culture of the source text by adopting a transparent, fluent style. In contrast, foreignization or foreignizing strategy attempts to “bring out the foreign in the TT itself, sometimes through calquing of ST syntax and lexis or through lexical borrowings that preserve SL items in the TT” (Hatim, Basil, and Jeremy Munday 230).

6 The common tendency of the editors to resort to explanation in the edited text to render the sense of the source text clearer or more explicit.

7 Refer to note (5) under domestication.

8 Different text types like narrative, persuasive, and expository require different yardsticks odf editing (Reiss 2000).

9 As a result of condensation, the structural editing leaves the text shorter (122 words) than the other edited versions.

10 In simple terms, referential equivalence refers to conveying in the TT “the same things and events as the original” (Eco 62).

References

Eco, Umberto. Mouse or Rat? Translation as Negotiation. London: Phoenix, 2003.

Hatim, Basil, and Jeremy Munday. Translation: An Advanced Resource Book. New York: Routledge, 2004.

Hymes, Dell. On Communicative Competence. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania Press, 1972.

Jakobson, R. “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation”. In R. Brower, Ed. 1959.

- - -. On Translation. Cambridge MA: Harvard UP, 2000. 232-39.

Newmark, P. A. Textbook of Translation. London: Prentice Hall International, 1989.

Reiss, K. Translation Criticism: Potential and Limitations. Trans. EF Rhodes. Manchester: St Jerome and American Bible Society, 2000.

Steiner, G. After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation. London, Oxford, and New York: OUP. 1998.

Štulajterova, Alena. “The Place of Translation in English Language Teaching.” Humanising Language Teaching 10.6 (2008): 1-2.

Venuti, L. The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation. London and New York: Routledge, 1995.

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