THE ROLE OF GRAMMATICAL COMPETENCE IN POST-EDITING SPECIALIZED MACHINE TRANSLATION

Abstract

The increasing use of machine translation in professional settings has significantly transformed contemporary specialized translation practices. As a result, post-editing has emerged as a core translation activity that requires not only technological literacy but also advanced linguistic competence. This article investigates the role of grammatical competence in the post-editing of machine-translated specialized texts from a translation studies perspective. The study aims to demonstrate that grammatical competence constitutes a central component of translator competence and plays a decisive role in ensuring grammatical accuracy, semantic adequacy, and functional coherence in post-edited translations. The research is based on qualitative analysis and draws on theoretical insights from translation studies and applied linguistics. The methodology encompasses descriptive analysis of relevant theoretical frameworks, comparative analysis of machine-translated and post-edited texts, and translation-oriented linguistic analysis, with a focus on grammar-related issues. The findings indicate that machine translation systems frequently generate grammatically plausible but functionally inadequate structures, particularly in relation to tense-aspect forms, voice, modality, and syntactic cohesion. Effective post-editing, therefore, requires interpretative judgement grounded in grammatical competence rather than mechanical error correction. The study also highlights the implications of these findings for translator training, emphasising the need to integrate post-editing as a translation-oriented practice in educational programmes. Overall, the article confirms the continued relevance of human grammatical competence in ensuring translation quality in increasingly automated translation environments.