Long distance revisions in drafting and post-editing

Abstract. This paper investigates properties of translation processes, as observed in the translation behaviour of student and professional translators. The translation process can be divided into a gisting, draft-ing and post-editing phase. We find that student translators have longer gisting phases whereas professional translators have longer post-editing phases. Long-distance revisions, which would typically be expected dur-ing post-editing, occur to the same extent during drafting as during post-editing. Further, both groups of translators seem to face the same translation problems. We suggest how those findings might be taken into account in the design of computer assisted translation tools.