TARBETEKSTIDE KEELETOIMETAMINE: KAS MASSTOOTMINE VÕI RÄTSEPATÖÖ?
Sub-editing non-literary texts: mass production or tailor-made?

Summary/Abstract: This article offers insight into the work of a professional Estonian sub-editor of non-literary texts, a field that has not been widely studied. For this, seven non-literary texts which varied widely in terms of style and target audience were analysed for level of change (primary, secondary), type of intervention (“Addition”, “Replacement”, “Deletion”, “Translocation”), type of change (“Style” (e.g. replacing obscure words), “Content” (changing the meaning), “Language” (e.g. punctuation), “Formatting” (e.g. correcting titles and headings of tables), type of the fragment affected by the change and the range of change. Even though conclusions are made as cross-case analysis, we also present results for each case so as not to leave the reader to make hasty conclusions. For example, the types of changes sub-editors made were stylistic in five texts, linguistic in one and formatting in another text, so to say the most frequent (overall 43.7%) type of changes are stylistic is true, but nevertheless misleading. On some occasions, a sub-editor’s changes and corrections are provided with the explanations by the same sub-editor. These were collected during semi-structured text-based interviews. Sub-editors were also asked to describe the text they were editing, their work process and comment on the communication with the text’s author. The results exhibit the importance of normative but also communicative understanding in sub-editing non-literary texts.

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