Reviewed by Taras Shmiher, Ivan Franko National University, L’viv, Ukraine

Assessment and testing, key notions in translation and interpreting studies, face a range of dilemmas concerning the criteria of equivalence/adequacy, reader response, textual variables, and discourse functions. The present collection of papers, published under the auspices of the American Translators Association, aims at contributing to this field of inquiry. It consists of the editors’ introductory chapter, ‘Introduction: Testing and assessment in translation and interpreting studies: A call for dialogue between research and practice’ (1-10), and three parts that cover eleven articles.

Part 1 is entitled ‘The development of assessment instruments: Theoretical appliations’,  Reviewing literature from translation studies, testing, and second language acquisition, Claudia V. Angelelli in Ch. 2, ‘Using a rubric to assess translation ability: Define the construct’ (13–47), explores sub-components of a rubric to examine the construct of translation competence. In Ch. 3, ‘Moving beyond words in assessing mediated interaction: Measuring interactional competence in healthcare settings’ (49–70), Holly E. Jacobson focuses on the assessment of the community interpreter’s performance in US healthcare environments. The author studies discursive competence in the framework of interactional sociolinguistics and conversation analysis, and proposes the use of analytic rubrics for assessing interactional competence.

In Part 2, ‘The development of assessment instruments: Empirical approaches’, the researchers analyze empirical methods for developing assessment instruments. In Ch. 3, ‘The perks of norm-referenced translation evaluation’ (73–93), June Eyckmans, Philippe Anckaert, and Winibert Segers have elaborated a norm-referenced method for translation assessment that is independent of subjective conditional  judgments about a source text and oriented at identifying those text fragments that have discriminatory power. Elisabet Tiselius, in Ch. 4, ‘Revisiting Carroll’s scales’ (95–121), presents the assessment of interpreting through the application of scales originally designed by John B. Caroll for machine translation. Mira Kim discusses how meaning-oriented criteria, which are devised using a text analysis approach based on systemic functional linguistics, are applied for assessment in teaching English to Korean translation in Ch. 5, ‘Meaning-oriented assessment of translations: SFL and its application to formative assessment’ (123–57). Assessment tools on the basis of comparable corpora are suggested by Brian James Baer and Tatyana Bystrova-McIntyre in Ch. 6, ‘Assessing cohesion: Developing assessment tools on the basis of comparable corpora’ (159–83). In this chapter, the authors uncover three features of textual cohesion (e.g. punctuation, sentencing, and paragraphing) that can encourage novice translators to consider the target text in the global way, including various traits above and beyond lexis. Keiran Dunne, in Ch. 7, ‘Assessing software localization: For a valid approach’ (185–222), argues that localization quality assessment should focus less on the localized software and more on the customer’s preferences and expectations. .

Part 3, ‘Professional certification: Lessons from case studies’, deals with professional certification. In Ch. 8, ‘The predictive validity of admission tests for interpreting courses in Europe: A case study’ (225–45), Šárka Timarová and Harry Ungoed-Thomas discuss general principles of admission testing, emphasizing its predictive validity measuring aptitude. The authors argue that ideally, tests should be based on evidence-based research rather than solely the intuition and interpretation of the educator. Karen Bontempo and Jemina Napier surveyed sign language interpreters on their perceptions of the efficacy of interpreter education in Australia in Ch. 9, ‘Getting it right from the start: Program admission testing of signed language interpreters’ (247–95). Based upon their findings, the authors designed an admission test to include elements that are considered to be potentially predictive of performance. The final two chapters,  Ch. 9, ‘Standards as critical success factors in assessment: Certifying social interpreters in Flanders, Belgium’ (297–329) by Hildegard Vermeiren, Jan Van Gucht, and Leentje De Bontridder, and Ch. 10, ‘Assessing ASL-English interpreters: The Canadian model of national certification’ (331–76) by Debra Russell and Karen Malcolm,  highlight professional procedures for assessment and certification.

Two indices of authors and of subjects end this substantial book. A systematic response to the above-mentioned issues from teachers, practitioners, and researchers will advance the discussion to much higher theoretical understanding.