Evaluation And Translation

The definition of value or quality with respect to work in translation has historically been a particularly vexed issue. Today, however, the growing demand for translations in such fields as technology and business and the increased scrutiny of translators' work by scholars in many disciplines is giving rise to a need for more nuanced, more specialized, and more explicit methods of determining value. Some refer to this determination as evaluation, others use the term assessment. Either way, the question is one of measurement and judgement, which are always unavoidably subjective and frequently rest on criteria that are not overtly expressed. This means that devising more complex evaluative practices involves not only quantitative techniques but also an exploration of the attitudes, preferences, or individual values on which criteria are established. Intended as an interrogation and a critique that can serve to prompt a more thorough and open consideration of evaluative criteria, this special issue of The Translator offers examinations of diverse evaluative practices and contains both empirical and hermeneutic work. Topics addressed include the evaluation of student translations using more up-to-date and positive methods such as those employed in corpus studies; the translation of non?standard language; translation into the second language; terminology; the application of theoretical criteria to practice; a social?textual perspective; and the reviewing of literary translations in the press. In addition, reviews by a number of literary translators discuss specific translations both into and out of English.

In this book, Jeremy Munday presents advances towards a general theory of evaluation in translator decision-making that will be of high importance to translator and interpreter training and to descriptive translation analysis. By ‘evaluation’ the author refers to how a translator’s subjective stance manifests itself linguistically in a text. In a world where translation and interpreting function as a prism through which opposing personal and political views enter a target culture, it is crucial to investigate how such views are processed and sometimes subjectively altered by the translator. To this end, the book focuses on the translation process (rather than the product) and strives to identify more precisely those points where the translator is most likely to express judgment or evaluation. The translations studied cover a range of languages (Arabic, Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Spanish and American Sign Language) accompanied by English glosses to facilitate comprehension by readers. This is key reading for researchers and postgraduates studying translation theory within Translation and Interpreting Studies.

The definition of value or quality with respect to work in translation has historically been a particularly vexed issue. Today, however, the growing demand for translations in such fields as technology and business and the increased scrutiny of translators' work by scholars in many disciplines is giving rise to a need for more nuanced, more specialized, and more explicit methods of determining value. Some refer to this determination as evaluation, others use the term assessment. Either way, the question is one of measurement and judgement, which are always unavoidably subjective and frequently rest on criteria that are not overtly expressed. This means that devising more complex evaluative practices involves not only quantitative techniques but also an exploration of the attitudes, preferences, or individual values on which criteria are established. Intended as an interrogation and a critique that can serve to prompt a more thorough and open consideration of evaluative criteria, this special issue of The Translator offers examinations of diverse evaluative practices and contains both empirical and hermeneutic work. Topics addressed include the evaluation of student translations using more up-to-date and positive methods such as those employed in corpus studies; the translation of non?standard language; translation into the second language; terminology; the application of theoretical criteria to practice; a social?textual perspective; and the reviewing of literary translations in the press. In addition, reviews by a number of literary translators discuss specific translations both into and out of English.

This book offers a theoretical framework for assessing translation quality grounded in supportive argumentation. The volume outlines a systematic framework for translators and translation critics to substantiate their decisions and judgments on a translation’s quality and in the case of negative criticism, put forward a more effective translation solution. The book traces the decision-making process underpinning translation practice, considering the different factors surrounding a particular translation to inform the most appropriate translation strategy, such as the temporal and geographical relationship between source and target texts, special provisions required by clients, timeframe, qualifications, and sociocultural and political issues. The framework posits that such factors should underpin any arguments used by the translator in adopting a given strategy and in turn, that any criticism of a translation’s quality must be in line with the same argumentative structure. Applied to a corpus of translation examiners’ reports of translation, the book demonstrates how this framework can act as a tool to be scaled to fit the needs of the different actors of a translation – translators, critics, and scholars. This book will be of interest to scholars in translation studies and practicing translators.

The development of translation memories and machine translation have led to new quality assurance practices where translators have found themselves checking not only human translation but also machine translation outputs. As a result, the notions of revision and interpersonal competences have gained great importance with international projects recognizing them as high priorities. Quality Assurance and Assessment Practices in Translation and Interpreting is a critical scholarly resource that serves as a guide to overcoming the challenge of how translation and interpreting results should be observed, given feedback, and assessed. It also informs the design of new ways of evaluating students as well as suggesting criteria for professional quality control. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as quality management, translation tests, and competency-based assessments, this book is geared towards translators, interpreters, linguists, academicians, translation and interpreting researchers, and students seeking current research on the new ways of evaluating students as well as suggesting criteria for professional quality control in translation.

This collection of scholarly articles asks the question How useful is translation technology? Pointing to the need for a widely used and reliable way to test the efficiency of language translation programs, the presenters show that commercial tools such as translation memories and translation workbenches are popular, and their developers find them useful in terms of productivity, consistency, or quality. However, these claims are rarely proven using objective comparative studies, and this group describes several new statistical approaches to more rigorous evaluation methods. -- Product Description.

Nurse-led intervention research is a core component of the global initiative to improve quality of care. Though research in this area has already contributed much to the advancement of patient care, future strides depend on the dissemination of practical, how-to instruction on this important area of research. Design, Evaluation, and Translation of Nursing Interventions aids in this endeavour by presenting both general approaches and specific methods for developing nursing interventions. Logically organized to facilitate ease of use, the book is divided into four sections. The introduction provides a firm grounding in intervention science by situating it within the broader topics of evidence-based practice, client-centred care, and quality of care. Section Two describes each step of intervention design, including correct identification of the health issue or problem, clarification of the elements comprising an intervention, and application of theory. Section Three is centred on implementation, highlighting such topics as development of the intervention manual, training interventionists, and intervention fidelity. The book concludes with methods to evaluate interventions enacted and suggestions for their translation into practice. Design, Evaluation, and Translation of Nursing Interventions distills the authors’ years of expertise in intervention research into comprehensive, easy-to-follow chapters. It is a must-have resource for students, researchers and healthcare professionals wishing to impact the future of patient care.

This is the first volume that brings together research and practice from academic and industry settings and a combination of human and machine translation evaluation. Its comprehensive collection of papers by leading experts in human and machine translation quality and evaluation who situate current developments and chart future trends fills a clear gap in the literature. This is critical to the successful integration of translation technologies in the industry today, where the lines between human and machine are becoming increasingly blurred by technology: this affects the whole translation landscape, from students and trainers to project managers and professionals, including in-house and freelance translators, as well as, of course, translation scholars and researchers. The editors have broad experience in translation quality evaluation research, including investigations into professional practice with qualitative and quantitative studies, and the contributors are leading experts in their respective fields, providing a unique set of complementary perspectives on human and machine translation quality and evaluation, combining theoretical and applied approaches.