Editorial

JoSTrans: 20 years of diamond open access publishing in Translation and Interpreting Studies
Łucja Biel, JoSTrans Editor-in-Chief, University of Warsaw

1. Reflecting on JoSTrans’ journey

This 40th issue of JoSTrans marks our 20 years of publishing translation and interpreting (TIS) research. The founding Editorial Board of JoSTrans was established in February 2003; it was chaired by acclaimed translation scholar Peter Newmark (2004-2011) with Lucile Desblache as a general editor and mastermind behind the journal, who continued in this role till 2018. The first issue of JoSTrans – The Journal of Specialised Translation was launched in January 2004 as a web-only diamond-open-access journal focusing on specialised (non-literary) translation, and translation and interpreting as a market practice. Our very first contributors included Peter Newmark, Anthony Pym, Javier Franco Aixelá, Jorge Díaz-Cintas, Łukasz Bogucki, Matthew Leung and Chris Durban. Issue 2 comprised our first non-English paper contributed by Nicolas Froeliger in French. Although the majority of our content is in English, as a translation journal we strive to publish contributions in other languages, most frequently in French and Spanish. The second issue of JoSTrans also introduced our new feature — recorded interviews with translation scholars, trainers and practitioners, which evolved into videos and was managed by Robin Scobey.

In 2006, the journal launched its first special issue on audiovisual translation guest-edited by Jorge Díaz-Cintas, alternating thematic and non-thematic issues on an annual basis. Since that time we published special issues on: revision and technical translation guest-edited by Louise Brunette (2007), technical translation edited by Jody Byrne (2009), Chinese translation and interpreting edited by Deborah Cao (2010), interpreting edited by Jan Cambridge (2010), translator training edited by Michail Sachinis (2011), terminology edited by Margaret Rogers (2012), machine translation and translation technology edited by Louise Brunette (2013), translation of multimodal texts edited by Carol O’Sullivan (2013), crime in translation edited by Karen Seago, Jonathan Evans and Begoña Rodriguez de Céspedes (2014), translation and lesser-used languages and cultures edited by Debbie Folaron (2015), professional translation edited by Helle V. Dam and Kaisa Koskinen (2016), quality in legal translation edited by Hendrik J. Kockaert and Nadia Rahab (2017), translation in the creative industries edited by Dionysios Kapsaskis (2018), taking stock on specialised translation edited by Juan José Martínez Sierra (2018), post-editing in practice: process, product and networks edited by Lucas Nunes Vieira, Elisa Alonso and Lindsay Bywood (2019), experimental research and cognition in audiovisual translation edited by Jorge Díaz Cintas and Agnieszka Szarkowska (2020), translation and plurisemiotic practices edited by Francis Mus and Sarah Neelsen (2021), communities of practice edited by Patrick Cadwell, Federico M. Federici and Sharon O’Brien (2022), and — most recently —universalist, user-centred, and proactive approaches in media accessibility edited by Gian Maria Greco and Pablo Romero-Fresco (2023).

This long list of special issues best illustrates shifting research foci of the field, evolving from the prototypical topics of technical translation and terminology to more nuanced aspects of translation. Throughout the past two decades, our journal has witnessed an evolution of the concept of ‘specialised translation’ itself. As aptly observed by Margaret Rogers in her study of JoSTrans 2004-2017 publications, they “shift away from what has traditionally been considered as the core of specialised translation, namely, the interlingual translation of texts in non-fictional subject fields, with professional and training issues, as well as audiovisual translation now achieving higher numbers of articles” (2018: 3). This observation still stands true today — a considerable number of publications explore audiovisual translation and accessibility, plurisemiotic practices, professional aspects of translation and interpreting, with the growing importance of translation technologies, machine translation and post-editing. Recent publications increasingly more focus not only on translation products but also on processes and people — translators and translation users, covering not only the prototypical expert-to-expert but also expert-to-lay communication addressed to the general public. Given the just published ISO standard 24495-1:2023 Plain language — Part 1: Governing principles and guidelines (ISO 2023), the latter may be projected to continue to grow in prominence in future.

In 2009 JoSTrans was accepted to be indexed by the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). The journal has been committed to open science principles from its early days (cf. Desblache 2004). As commercially published journals have eagerly embraced the profitable hybrid open access model (cf. Butler et al. 2022), where readers do not pay for access to content if authors pay expensive article processing charges, we are one of very few top TIS journals — alongside Linguistica Anverpiensia and Translation and Interpreting — which publish in diamond open access. This means that, relying on volunteer efforts of the TIS community, we publish JoSTrans for free without charging either authors for publishing or readers and libraries for accessing our content. Open access means that research is not hidden behind the paywall and is freely accessible, it has better discoverability in the Internet, guarantees higher citations of papers and is more likely to reach wider audiences beyond the academia, contributing to the democratisation of knowledge. In 2022 we endorsed the Action Plan for Diamond Open access (Ancion et al. 2022).

Our commitment to open science covers not only open access. We have become a member of the recently established Council of Editors of Translation and Interpreting Studies for Open Science (tisopencouncil.eu) and in line with the Council’s recommendations we introduced a new requirement for authors — a data availability statement in 2022 to improve research transparency and replicability. In 2023, we successfully tested open peer reviews for our new feature — video essays (see Brown 2023a, 2023b).

The journal is currently run by the Editorial Board led by Łucja Biel as editor-in-chief and Jonathan Evans, Sarah Maitland and David Orrego-Carmona as deputy editors, Maria Rosario Martín Ruano as reviews editor, and Mikołaj Deckert as peer-review editor.

Our 20-year anniversary is also an excellent occasion to celebrate the most frequently cited JoSTrans papers. The tables below (1-2) show the most cited papers in Scopus and Clarivate/Web of Science.

	Paper details	# citations in Scopus
1.	Díaz Cintas, Jorge and Pablo Muñoz Sánchez (2006). “Fansubs: Audiovisual translation in an amateur environment.” The Journal of Specialised Translation 6: 37–52.	166
2.	Mangiron, Carmen and Minako O’Hagan (2006). “Game localisation: Unleashing imagination with ‘restricted’ translation.” The Journal of Specialised Translation 6: 10-21.	79
3.	Koponen, Maarit (2016). “Is machine translation post-editing worth the effort? A survey of research into post-editing and effort.” The Journal of Specialised Translation 25: 131-148.	62
4.	Ozolins, Uldis (2010). “Factors that determine the provision of Public Service Interpreting: Comparative perspectives on government motivation and language service implementation.” The Journal of Specialised Translation 14: 194-215.	62
5.	Szarkowska, Agnieszka (2011). “Text-to-speech audio description: Towards wider availability of AD.” The Journal of Specialised Translation 15: 142-162.	61

Table 1: The most frequently cited papers according to Scopus.

	Paper details	# citations in Web of Science
1.	Montgomery, Scott L. (2009). “English and Science: realities and issues for translation in the age of an expanding lingua franca.” The Journal of Specialised Translation 9: 6-16.	161
2.	Díaz Cintas, Jorge and Pablo Muñoz Sánchez (2006). “Fansubs: Audiovisual translation in an amateur environment.” The Journal of Specialised Translation 6: 37–52.	116
3.	Mangiron, Carmen and Minako O’Hagan (2006). “Game localisation: Unleashing imagination with ‘restricted’ translation.” The Journal of Specialised Translation 6: 10-21.	55
4.	Szarkowska, Agnieszka (2011). “Text-to-speech audio description: Towards wider availability of AD.” The Journal of Specialised Translation 15: 142-162.	48
5.	Fiederer, Rebecca and Sharon O'Brien (2009). “TI Quality and Machine Translation: A realistic objective?” The Journal of Specialised Translation 11: 52-74.	46

Table 2: The most frequently cited papers according to Clarivate/Web of Science.

2. Journal metrics

Journal metrics reflect how frequently papers are cited in a short span of time — usually 2 or 3 years after the date of publication. In principle, this is not a representative measure of research quality in such disciplines as Arts and Humanities and Social Sciences, where papers are rarely cited instantly and require more time to be noticed but, on the other hand, are more long-lived as they do not become quickly outdated. This is clearly confirmed by our most cited papers in Tables 1 and 2, which include two contributions (Díaz Cintas and Pablo Muñoz Sánchez 2006; Mangiron and O’Hagan 2006) published nearly twenty years ago. Additionally, both Arts and Humanities and Social Sciences have the lowest coverage among the disciplines in indexing platforms, such as Scopus (20.75% and 32.81%, respectively; Elsevier 2019: 17), which means that quite a lot of TIS research activity and citations is not captured by the indexing platforms and in consequence TIS journals’ impact is not reflected in a representative way. Yet, journal metrics are often important for contributing authors who may be assessed or promoted by their national institutions based on the metrics of journals where they publish.

Having said that, it is nevertheless pleasing to note that our metrics remain strong. JoSTrans applied and was accepted for inclusion in Scopus and Clarivate/Web of Science (AHCI, SSCI) in 2018. We have been ranked as a Q1 journal in Scopus and Q1/Q2 journal in Web of Science.

As for the Scopus 2022 metrics, we are a Q1 journal with our SJR 2022 of 1.168 and CiteScore 2022 of 4.4 (growing from 3.4 in 2021). We rank #51 out of 1001 Language and Linguistics journals in the Arts and Humanities category and #58 out of 1078 Linguistics and Language Journals in the Social Sciences category. We continue to be a top ranking TIS journal in Scopus in a very good company:

The Journal of Specialised Translation (CiteScore 4.4)
Interpreting (CiteScore 4.0)
Perspectives (CiteScore 3.0)
Interpreter and Translator Trainer (CiteScore 2.9)
Translation Spaces (CiteScore 2.9),

followed by other Q1 journals, such as Target; Translation Studies; Translation, Cognition and Behaviour; Linguistica Antverpiensia; Translation and Interpreting, Translation and Interpreting Studies, etc.

As of 20 June 2023, the 2022 JCR (Web of Science) ranking is not available yet. Our journal impact factor (JIF) for 2021 was 1.561, ranking us in Q2 in the Linguistics category of the SSCI edition while our journal citation indicator was 1.46, classifying us in Q1 in both the Language and Linguistics category of the AHCI edition and the Linguistics category of the SSCI edition. Together with Interpreting (JIF 2021 = 1.63), we were the only TIS journals ranked in Q2 (SSCI), followed by Q3 journals: Across Languages and Cultures, Interpreter and Translator Trainer, Target, Perspectives, Translation Studies, Linguistica Antverpiensia, Translator, and Translation and Interpreting Studies.

The visible improvement of TIS journals’ metrics attests not only to the changing publication patterns of Translation and Interpreting Studies but also to its growing visibility as a field. As a small non-for-profit community-driven and academic-owned journal, we are proud to be able to successfully compete with big commercial publishing houses.

3. Introducing Issue 40, July 2023

We are pleased to present a non-thematic issue of the Journal of Specialised Translation (Issue 40), which features a broad range of papers, reviews and interviews, covering theoretical, methodological and practical aspects of specialised translation.

We received 106 papers for issue 40, of which 13 were accepted for publication; hence, our acceptance rate was 12%. Issue 40 comprises a versatile selection of papers covering a range of domains, such as audiovisual translation, legal translation, technical translation, medical interpreting, diplomatic translation/interpreting and professional aspects of translation. The opening paper by Herbert, do Carmo, Gough and Carnegie-Brown investigates the effects of translation workflow automatition. Naranjo focuses on the impact of anger on translation trainees’ decision making process when they are confronted with offensive stereotypes. Su, Liu and Cheung address the concept of epistemic modality in Hong Kong’s translated and non-translated English court judgments whereas Charalampidou and Meex focus on multimodal technical storytelling as a marketing tool in localised corporate websites. Zhang studies the status of 19th-century diplomatic translators at the British Legation in China. Wang’s paper explores the healthcare interpreting policy in China. It is followed by Atkinson’s survey of L2 translation in Brazil. The next two papers focus on the domain of news: Wang explores how Chinese social media recontextualise Russian strategic narratives whereas Lardelli and Gromann focus on translating non-binary coming-out reports.

The final section covers our traditionally strong area of audiovisual translation and audio description. Secară and Chereji explore lexical complexity, gender bias and structural elements in theatre audio introductions. Arias-Badia and Matamala present a corpus-based study of audio descriptions through the lens of easy-to-understand (E2U) language principles. The final two papers evolve around dubbing: Spiteri Miggiani investigates the concept of quality, its metrics and errors in translation and adaptation for dubbing in professional practice whereas Barrera-Rioja studies text-on-screen translation strategies in dubbed audiovisual products. The issue is accompanied by two interviews on related topics: one with Jonathan Evans, conducted by Jinsil Choi, on interdisciplinary research on audiovisual translation and the other one with Lindsay Bywood, conducted by David Orrego-Carmona, on co-created audio description in museum settings.

Thanks are due to the JoSTrans Editorial Team, in particular, Jonathan Evans, David Orrego-Carmona and Sarah Maitland for their assistance with paper selection; Jonathan Evans for assistance with desk review and copy-editing; and Mikołaj Deckert and Vera (Mengxue) Zhao for managing peer reviews. I also wish to thank all the peer reviewers who devoted their time to provide constructive feedback on the papers submitted to this issue.

Last but not least, our reviews section presents five reviews of books commissioned and coordinated by our editor Maria Rosario Martín Ruano. They include: Séverine Hubscher-Davidson and Caroline Lehr’s Improving the Emotional Intelligence of Translators reviewed by Penet, Dorothy Kenny’s Machine translation for everyone: Empowering users in the age of artificial intelligence reviewed by Koponen, Fernando Prieto Ramos’ Institutional Translation and Interpreting: Assessing Practices and Managing for Quality reviewed by Svoboda, Chuan Yu’s Online Collaborative Translation in China and Beyond: Community, Practice, and Identity reviewed by Lu and Callum Walker’s Translation Project Management reviewed by He and Lyu.

4. Changes in the composition of the Editorial Board

Finally, we would like to announce changes in the composition of the Editorial Board. Alessandra Rizzo is stepping down from the position of Secretary and will be replaced by Maria Luisa Pensabene of the University of Palermo. We wish to thank Alessandra for her dedicated work for the journal.

References

Ancion, Zoé et al. (2022). Action Plan for Diamond Open Access. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6282403.
Brown, William (2023a). “A review of Kate Dangerfield, “An essay film: ‘Thinking with water’”. ” The Journal of Specialised Translation 39: 174-176.
Brown, William (2023b). “A review of Irene Hermosa-Ramírez, “Embracing community-based participatory research in Media Accessibility”.” The Journal of Specialised Translation 39: 185-186.
Butler, Leigh-Ann et al. (2022). “The oligopoly’s shift to open access publishing: How for-profit publishers benefit from gold and hybrid article processing charges.” Proceedings of the Annual Conference of CAIS / Actes Du congrès Annuel De l’ACSI. https://doi.org/10.29173/cais1262
Desblache, Lucile (2004). “Editorial.” The Journal of Specialised Translation 1: 1-2.
Díaz Cintas, Jorge and Pablo Muñoz Sánchez (2006). “FanSuBS: Audiovisual translation in an amateur environment.” The Journal of Specialised Translation 6: 37–52.
Elsevier (2017). Research Metrics Guidebook. Elsevier B.V. https://www.elsevier.com/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/53327/ELSV-13013-Elsevier-Research-Metrics-Book-r12-WEB.pdf (consulted 23.06.2023).
ISO (2023). ISO 24495-1:2023 Plain language — Part 1: Governing principles and guidelines. Geneva: International Organization for Standardization.
Mangiron, Carmen and Minako O’Hagan (2006). “Game localisation: Unleashing imagination with ‘restricted’ translation.” The Journal of Specialised Translation 6: 10-21.
Rogers, Margaret (2018). “Specialised translation today: a view from the JoSTrans bridge.” The Journal of Specialised Translation 30: 3-12.