Editing Non-Native English

By Amanda M. White | Student Member

As globalization and offshoring become ever more the norm, many technical writers and editors are finding themselves faced with editing documents by writers for whom English is a second, or even third, language. These remote writers may have extremely varied levels of expertise in the English language, and the native-speaking editors often have little to no knowledge of the writers’ mother tongues. This can be an intimidating situation for those of us spoiled by being born into the lingua franca of English, but it doesn’t need to be. Editing non-native English can be as satisfying as, and no more difficult than, editing the work of your own countrymen.

As a former English as a Second Language (ESL) instructor, both in the United States and abroad, my first editing experiences were with non-native speakers, teaching writing to everyone from Harvard researchers and high-ranking business executives to teenagers preparing for the TOEFL exam. Since moving on to technical writing and editing, I’ve realized what a valuable skill this is in so many of the situations we are faced with in the workplace. Junior-level technical writing is increasingly outsourced to countries where standard American or British English is not widely spoken (or where writers have pasted together some hybrid of the two). Foreign writers might hire native English speakers to clean up their papers before publication. Subject matter experts (SMEs) can hail from any nation. Whatever your specific situation, your red pen is about to get more of a workout than ever. But don’t let that intimidate you. Here are a few guidelines to help you as you expand your potential client base to the entire world.

You don’t need to speak the language

You don’t need to speak a foreign language. A good understanding of linguistics can help, of course, but bilingualism is not a requirement. Rather, the skill that will come in handy is the ability to pick up on patterns of speech that differ from English. If you were editing a text written by a Japanese person, it would be nice if you spoke Japanese. If you didn’t, it would be good if you knew that Japanese contains no articles, so Japanese writers often struggle with where to use a definite article, an indefinite article, or no article at all. If you didn’t know that, you would hopefully realize early on in the job that the writer is making mistakes with articles and keep an eye peeled for all instances where article confusion might come into play—both to make sure you don’t miss any errors and to “fill in the blanks” when something doesn’t make sense.

You are a subject matter expert on the English language

You’ve probably heard this said about technical communicators in general, but the description is even more apt when you’re the native speaker in the proverbial room. The reason you can get away with monolingualism is your built-in expertise of English. Having expert status by default is a nice feeling, but it’s still your responsibility to know the rules. As in all editing, a true professional not only makes the necessary corrections, but also explains their reasoning behind each one. Most writers from other linguistic backgrounds are eager to improve their English writing and will want grammar and usage rules explained to them so that they can avoid future errors. While your existing knowledge of grammar from your editing background will often apply, you might encounter confusion over words that you never thought to question. How will you explain the difference between “borrow” and “lend,” which in some languages are the same word? How is a “chore” different from an “errand”? Why do we say “I can do it” instead of “I can doing it” or “I can to do it”? You might want to review some English as a Second Language materials before getting started (see sidebar).

Non-native writers are more open to criticism than native speakers

Common wisdom tells of inherent tension and antagonism in the writer-editor relationship, and editing literature is full of advice on conflict avoidance (see, for example, Mackiewicz and Riley’s “The Technical Editor as Diplomat”). Generally speaking, non-native writers are much more welcoming of criticism. This is partly due to your undisputed status as subject matter expert. There is no question in the minds of most non-native writers that you know the language better than they do, and if you tell them something is wrong, they will usually take your word for it (although a solid explanation is still a good thing to have). They are also less likely to be caught up in the details and subtlety of their word choice, as they spend most of their energy looking for the objectively “right” word, not the subjectively “perfect” one. This decrease in defensiveness can greatly simplify the working environment.

Lack of fluency does not make a person unintelligent or childish

While you can feel comfortable correcting a non-native speaker on their English, you must remember that you are (usually) dealing with an intelligent adult. Although, at a cognizant level, we are aware that we are dealing with an equal (or a superior), when a person struggles with the English language, it is easy to subconsciously consider them an underdeveloped person. So much of how we weigh intelligence is based on the way we speak and write that when a person does not do so well (in our language), we might register them as inferior. A great scientist might have an extremely high IQ but speak English at a third-grade level. Don’t slip into the trap of thinking that they are mentally underdeveloped just because they haven’t had the exposure to English that you have.

Expect to be occasionally baffled

It can be even harder to keep your client’s competence in mind when faced with what appears to be complete nonsense, but sometimes you will read a sentence that is utterly incomprehensible. “The non-native-English editing experience can be quite amusing. Every once in a while you come across a phrase that makes you wonder, ‘How could that have ever meant anything in any language?’” says Daniel Geist, senior editor at Tehran Bureau, a website dedicated to independent Iranian news. While most foreign writers have the ability to translate the words in their heads, and make a good stab at correct grammar, they usually lack the fluency to read a passage back to themselves and “hear” when something is not right. They are often caught up micro-translating the words in their heads and miss the larger structures they’ve created. This leads to conundrums such as this one cited by Geist: “It seems we in Iran have a sort of something for a possible few.” It’s easy to imagine a writer straining to translate vague words like “sort of,” “something,” “possible,” and “few,” while forgetting to include the point. If you can’t make sense out of something you’ve read, and you don’t have access to the author, it can help to have a native speaker of the same language “translate” for you.

Writing structures vary between cultures

Not only does literal translation leave grammatical holes, but sometimes the flow of ideas doesn’t ring true for an Anglophone audience, either. When you edit something for an English-language audience, remember that not only the sentence structure has to be appropriate, but so does the structure of the work as a whole. Different cultures have different styles of conveying information (explored most famously in Kaplan’s theory of contrastive rhetoric). Some styles are direct, some are subtle, some are linear, and some are circular. Consider the audience for the document. If it is intended for an Anglo-American audience, you might have to do some comprehensive editing to make the information more digestible. If it is just an English-language translation of something that will only be used in the country of origin, you might have to make a conscious effort not to reshape it.

It’s not a different job, just a different kind of client

The above advice will help you adjust to the ESL aspect of your editing career, but don’t feel overwhelmed. For the most part, the differences between editing native and non-native English are surface level. Freelance technical writer Reuben Thomas writes, “I find there’s no sharp distinction [between editing native and non-native English]; more of a continuum. For example, a native speaker who writes poorly will make similar sorts of errors to a non-native speaker; only by confusing spoken and written English, rather than English and their native tongue.”

Geist agrees. “In specific, technical terms, I don’t experience it as that different.…

It tends to be more frustrating, more emotionally taxing, so one needs to be prepared for that. On the other hand, it sometimes offers the satisfaction of cracking a particular author’s expressive code and finding that voice in English for which they were aiming.”

Keeping these guidelines in mind, any skilled technical editor will find that they have all the tools they need to transition to editing non-native English. And it’s a great ability to have. Globalization isn’t going away any time soon, and as long as English remains top linguistic dog, good editors of non-native English are going to be in high demand for years to come.

Amanda M. White is a musician and teacher turned writer. She is a tech columnist for Classical Singer Magazine and is currently pursuing her master’s degree in technical writing at Utah State University. She can be reached at amanda@notjustanotherprettyvoice.com or through her blog at http://exploringtechwriting.wordpress.com.

References

Geist, Daniel (senior editor, Tehran Bureau). Skype interview, 3 April 2012.

Kaplan, R. Cultural Thought Patterns in Intercultural Education. Language Learning 16.1-2 (1966): 1-20.

Mackiewicz, Jo, and Kathryn Riley. The Technical Editor as Diplomat: Linguistic Strategies for Balancing Clarity and Politeness. Technical Communication 50.1 (2003): 83–94.

Thomas, Reuben (freelance technical writer). Skype interview, 3 April 2012.