Editing: Problems of Terminology

Taking into consideration the fact that editing is considered to be a field of scientific knowledge, a sphere of practical activity, and a discipline, problems of terminology appear. The aim of the research is to reveal definitions and statements that tend to take the role of terms and contain conflicting statements obstructing the scientific comprehension of terms. The research focuses on the comparison of different definitions of the term “editing” and of its types given by Russian and foreign theorists and practitioners, as well as on the analysis of new terms introduced into scientific discourse. The author touches upon various definitions of the concept of editing, considers its types as well as differences between the notions of editing and literary editing, compares the interpretations of these concepts in Russian, British, and American (editing, copyediting), Ukrainian and Polish scientific discourses, offers his vision of the problems. Textbooks and reference books do not always provide proper differences between the two main components of editorial activity—editorial analysis (evaluation) and editing. There are significant developments of Russian researchers in the direction of the history of editing ahead of the Western research. One can state that Russia has a school of editing history, and university researchers make a great contribution to its development. The author suggests adhering to the established traditions in the interpretation of editing and using it in journalism in the same sense as in book publishing, since initially it was the publishing of books that caused the need in editing as a professional activity. The result of the research demonstrates that it is impossible to refer editing as a sphere of scientific knowledge only to book publishing or philology. The author proposes his own definition of editing, tries to optimize the number of types of editing (particularly, duplication of the notions “editing” and “literary editing”, “editing” and “copyediting” is stated), and introduces a terminological combination “history of editing” into scientific discourse. The author proves that the replacement of the concepts “editing” and “editorial analysis” with such notions as “text activity” and “criticism of speech”, respectively, is not justified in scientific terms.