?Call for book chapters

The reality of revision

Dear colleague

Ilse Feinauer (aef@sun.ac.za) and Amanda Marais (alourens@sun.ac.za) are planning an edited volume under the title The reality of revision. The book will be a peer-reviewed volume of full-length contributions showing the real-life actions of revisers. We are currently in discussions with the John Benjamins Publishing Company regarding the potential publication of the book.

We would like authors to give account of everyday, normal ways of action to make meaning of the terms reviser and revision. Investigations could also include what the agent performing the revision looks like and what the role of this agent is in any specific finished product. Authors could also consider the role of AI as agent in all their revisionary activities. In this book, we group all revisionary activities (currently referred to using the terms revision, editing, proofreading, post-editing, fuzzy matching) under revision as the umbrella term. We request authors to investigate professional practices to advance theoretical approaches regarding revision; in turn, practice may draw on these new theoretical perspectives, e.g. project managers understanding the complexities of the social networks in which the various agents operate in order to generate a specific product.

The research framework used will be data-based, drawing on patterns that emerged from the analysis of real-life data. Authors will follow a more sociological approach in researching publishing projects, since sociological theories may provide the background against which we can explain the very complex patterns in the actual revisionary activities. At this stage, very little is known about the way revision takes place, but empirical data on the actual genesis of published texts will describe the various roles, power relations, as well as the socio-cognitive aspects operative in revision.

The styles and applications of revisionary activities may vary from project to project, and also from agent to agent, depending on the nature of the text and individual working style and personality of the agent at work.

We therefore invite contributions on the following topics:

• workplace and classroom revision practices
• revision agents (author, translator, reviser, reader, reviewer) and their agencies (habitus, processes, networks, power relations, gender, post-colonialism)
• revisionary practices in various genres (e.g. literary, technical, academic) either generically or in specific publications
• revisionary practices in manuscript development in various genres
• revisionary practices in all types of (sign language) interpreting

Reference list

Buzelin, H. 2005. Unexpected alies: How Latour’s network theory could complement Bourdieusian analyses in Translation Studies. The Translator, 11(2):193-219.

Gagné, A. 2023. Multiple constraints, multiple avenues: Exploring the sense of agency in a revision project through a multi-method approach. Translation in Society, 2(2):167-187.

Koponen, M., Mossop, B., Robert, I. and Scocchera, G. (eds.). 2021. Translation Revision and/or Post-Editing. London & New York: Routledge.

Linguistica Antvrepiensia, New Series: Themes in Translation Studies, 14. 2015. On Generic Translation Studies.

Mossop, B. 2014. Revising and editing for translators. 3^rd edition. London & New York: Routledge.

Confirmation and abstract submission