Measuring the Translatability of Simplified English in Procedural Documents

The use of a controlled or restricted subset of English for creating documentation is becoming more common in industry as companies attempt to improve the quality of technical documents, especially those that need to be read and understood by non‐native speakers of English. This chapter reports the results of a study that tested the translatability of a restricted language, called Simplified English (SE), as used in maintenance procedures in the airline industry. The study examined the effect of document type (SE versus non‐SE) and procedure (procedure A versus procedure B) on the quality and ease of translation for native speakers of Spanish, Chinese, or Japanese. The results reveal that SE may be more effectively translated by native Spanish speakers than by Chinese speakers. The chapter also presents a discussion of methodological issues that researchers should consider when running such translation studies.