Conde, Tomás. 2012. Quality and Quantity in Translation Evaluation: A Starting Point. Across Languages and Cultures 13/1: 67-80.

Type of publication: 
article
Type of analysis: 
quantitative
Other population: 
Translation teachers
Language: 
English
Authors from TREC: 
Data collection (type of instrument only): 
Questionnaires
Texts
Translations
Abstract in English: 

In academic environments, the question of quality is often related to that of quantity. This paper presents a quantitative analysis of translation evaluation quality by focusing on several issues: a) the amount of actions performed by evaluators as related to quality judgments; b) evaluator coincidence in mistakes detected (saliency of phenomena) as related to their nature; and c) quality judgment as related to the presence or absence of the most salient phenomena in the translated texts. Four groups of subjects evaluated 48 translations; the results discussed derive from their actual performance. Evaluators exhibiting a minimum level of detail in their work should be thorough in their evaluative work. For if they are not they run the risk of being too generous in their evaluations. Among the error judgments for which there is the highest degree of coincidence are those on divergent interpretation, terminology, syntax, use and misprints. Conversely, evaluators do not usually coincide in pointing out punctuation, format, proper nouns, clarity, cohesion or appropriateness phenomena. Finally, texts including the most salient phenomena receive worse grades than those without them; this points to an implicit hierarchy of phenomena according to the extent towhich evaluators coincide in pointing them out.

Population: 
Translation and/or interpreting professionals
Translation and/or interpreting students
Other students
Other
English keywords: 
Evaluation
Translation quality
Quantitative analysis
Empirical research
Errors

 

Project initiator:        
https://wa.amu.edu.pl/wa/en/
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
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