The need for reliable and valid assessments of translator and interpreter skills has been widely acknowledged inside and outside these professions and the (language) testing community. Despite this agreement, the actual assessments which serve as gatekeepers for professional translators and interpreters do not always live up to the expectations. The focus of the volume is on the assessment of translator and interpreter skills leading to authorization, accreditation, registration and certification in different countries of the world. Apart from the description of the different assessment systems, the chapters shed light on the intricate social, political and financial issues influencing the choices that lead to a specific kind of assessment.
Testing and Assessment in Translation and Interpreting Studies examines issues of measurement that are essential to translation and interpreting. Conceptualizing testing both as a process and a product, the collection of papers explores these issues across languages and settings (including university classrooms, research projects, the private sector, and professional associations). The authors have approached their chapters from different perspectives using a variety of methods, some focusing on very specific variables, and others providing a much broader overview of the issues at hand. Chapters range from a discussion of the measurement of text cohesion in translation; the measurement of interactional competence in interpreting; the use of a particular scale to measure interpreters’ renditions to the application of a specific approach to grading or general program assessment (such as interpreter or translator certification at the national level or program admissions processes). These studies point to the need for greater integration of research and practice in the specific area of testing and assessment and are a welcome addition to the field.
The need for reliable and valid assessments of translator and interpreter (T&I) skills has been widely acknowledged inside and outside these professions and the (language) testing community. The focus of the volume is on assessment of T&I leading to authorization, accreditation, registration and certification in different countries of the world.
This collection brings together new insights around current translation and interpreting practices in national and supranational settings. The book illustrates the importance of further reflection on issues around quality and assessment, given the increased development of resources for translators and interpreters. The first part of the volume focuses on these issues as embodied in case studies from a range of national and regional contexts, including Finland, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and the United States. The second part takes a broader perspective to look at best practices and questions of quality through the lens of international bodies and organizations and the shifting roles of translation and interpreting practitioners in working to manage these issues. Taken together, this collection demonstrates the relevance of critically examining processes, competences and products in current institutional translation and interpreting settings at the national and supranational levels, paving the way for further research and quality assurance strategies in the field. The Introduction, Chapter 7, and Conclusion of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license.
As a research area, education in the fields of translation and interpreting has received growing attention in recent years, with the increasing professionalization of the language-mediation sector demanding ever more highly trained employees with broader repertoires. This trend is evidenced in the present collection, which addresses issues in pedagogy in a variety of translation and interpreting domains. A global range of contributors discuss teaching, evaluation, professionalization and competence as they apply to an array of educational and linguistic situations. Translator and Interpreter Training: Issues, Methods and Debates presents an in-depth consideration of the issues involved in this area of translation and interpreting studies, and will be of interest to all students and academics working and researching in the field.
Selected papers from a lively conference on the state of the art in translator and interpreter training. Topics range from culture specific problems (in Iran, South Africa and Canada, for instance) to the internationalization of the profession. The book is brim-full of teaching ideas and strategies: problems of assessment, teaching translators to be professional and business oriented, using cognitive methods, terminology management, technical translation, literary translation, theory and practice, simultaneous/consecutive interpreting, subtitling and many other related topics.
This book provides a detailed introduction and guide to researching translator and interpreter education. Providing an overview of the main research topics, trends and methods, the book covers the following six areas: training effectiveness, learning and teaching practices, assessment, translation and interpreting processes, translated and interpreted texts, and professionals’ experiences and roles. The book focuses on explaining the issues and topics researched in each area, and showing how they have been researched. As the first book to provide a comprehensive overview of translator and interpreter education research, it has important implications to developing its areas at the theoretical and practical levels. In addition, it offers an invaluable guide for those interested in researching translator and interpreter education areas, and in educating translators and interpreters.
This volume contains selected papers from the 4th Language International Conference on 'Teaching Translation and Interpreting: Building Bridges' which was held in Shanghai in December 1998. The collection is an excellent source of ideas and information for teachers and students alike. With contributions from five continents, the topics discussed cover a wide range, including the relevance of translation theories, cultural and technical knowledge acquisition, literary translation, translation and interpreting for the media, Internet-related training methods, and tools for student assessment. While complementing the volumes of the previous three conferences in exploring new methods and frontiers, this collection is particularly strong on case studies outside of the European and Anglo-American spheres.
Second language assessment is ubiquitous. It has found its way from education into questions about access to professions and migration. This volume focuses on the main debates and research advances in second language assessment in the last fifty years or so, showing the influence of linguistics, politics, philosophy, psychology, sociology, and psychometrics. There are four parts which, when taken together, address the principles and practices of second language assessment while considering its impact on society. Read separately, each part addresses a different aspect of the field. Part I deals with the conceptual foundations of second language assessment with chapters on the purposes of assessment, and standards and frameworks, as well as matters of scoring, quality assurance, and test validation. Part II addresses the theory and practice of assessing different second language skills including aspects like intercultural competence and fluency. Part III examines the challenges and opportunities of second language assessment in a range of contexts. In addition to chapters on second language assessment on a national scale, there are chapters on learning-oriented assessment, as well as the uses of second language assessment in the workplace and for migration. Part IV examines a selection of important issues in the field that deserve attention. These include the alignment of language examinations to external frameworks, the increasing use of technology to both deliver and score second language tests, the responsibilities associated with assessing test takers with special needs, the concept of 'voice' in second language assessment, and assessment literacy for teachers and other test and score users.
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.
