{"id":1515,"date":"2011-04-19T10:00:32","date_gmt":"2011-04-19T08:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/elanguage.net\/blogs\/booknotices\/?p=1515"},"modified":"2011-04-04T09:53:35","modified_gmt":"2011-04-04T07:53:35","slug":"testing-and-assessment-in-translation-and-interpreting-studies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/?p=1515","title":{"rendered":"Testing and assessment in translation and interpreting studies"},"content":{"rendered":"
Testing and assessment in translation and interpreting studies:<\/strong> A call for dialogue between research and practice. Ed. by Claudia V. Angelelli<\/strong> and Holly E. Jacobson<\/strong>. (American translators association scholarly monograph series 14.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2009. Pp. vi, 386. ISBN 9789027231901<\/a>. $143 (Hb).<\/div>\n

Reviewed by Taras Shmiher<\/strong><\/a>, Ivan Franko National University, L\u2019viv, Ukraine<\/em><\/p>\n

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\u2019 introductory chapter, \u2018Introduction: Testing and assessment in translation and interpreting studies: A call for dialogue between research and practice\u2019 (1-10), and three parts that cover eleven articles.<\/p>\n

Part 1 is entitled \u2018The development of assessment instruments: Theoretical appliations\u2019,\u00a0 Reviewing literature from translation studies, testing, and second language acquisition, Claudia V. Angelelli <\/strong>in Ch. 2, \u2018Using a rubric to assess translation ability: Define the construct\u2019 (13\u201347), explores sub-components of a rubric to examine the construct of translation competence. <\/strong>In Ch. 3, \u2018Moving beyond words in assessing mediated interaction: Measuring interactional competence in healthcare settings\u2019 (49\u201370), Holly E. Jacobson<\/strong> focuses on the assessment of the community interpreter\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

In Part 2, \u2018The development of assessment instruments: Empirical approaches\u2019, the researchers analyze empirical methods for developing assessment instruments. In Ch. 3, \u2018The perks of norm-referenced translation evaluation\u2019 (73\u201393), June Eyckmans<\/strong>, Philippe Anckaert<\/strong>, and Winibert Segers<\/strong> have elaborated a norm-referenced method for translation assessment that is independent of subjective conditional\u00a0 judgments about a source text and oriented at identifying those text fragments that have discriminatory power. Elisabet Tiselius<\/strong>, in Ch. 4, \u2018Revisiting Carroll\u2019s scales\u2019 (95\u2013121), presents the assessment of interpreting through the application of scales originally designed by John B. Caroll for machine translation. Mira Kim<\/strong> 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, \u2018Meaning-oriented assessment of translations: SFL and its application to formative assessment\u2019 (123\u201357). Assessment tools on the basis of comparable corpora are suggested by Brian James Baer<\/strong> and Tatyana Bystrova-McIntyre <\/strong> in Ch. 6, \u2018Assessing cohesion: Developing assessment tools on the basis of comparable corpora\u2019 (159\u201383). 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<\/strong>, in Ch. 7, \u2018Assessing software localization: For a valid approach\u2019 (185\u2013222), argues that localization quality assessment should focus less on the localized software and more on the customer\u2019s preferences and expectations. .<\/p>\n

Part 3, \u2018Professional certification: Lessons from case studies\u2019, deals with professional certification. In Ch. 8, \u2018The predictive validity of admission tests for interpreting courses in Europe: A case study\u2019 (225\u201345), \u0160\u00e1rka Timarov\u00e1<\/strong> and Harry Ungoed-Thomas<\/strong> 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<\/strong> and Jemina Napier<\/strong> surveyed sign language interpreters on their perceptions of the efficacy of interpreter education in Australia in Ch. 9, \u2018Getting it right from the start: Program admission testing of signed language interpreters\u2019 (247\u201395). 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, \u00a0Ch. 9, \u2018Standards as critical success factors in assessment: Certifying social interpreters in Flanders, Belgium\u2019 (297\u2013329) by Hildegard Vermeiren<\/strong>, Jan Van Gucht<\/strong>, and Leentje De Bontridder<\/strong>, and Ch. 10, \u2018Assessing ASL-English interpreters: The Canadian model of national certification\u2019 (331\u201376) by Debra Russell<\/strong> and Karen Malcolm<\/strong>, \u00a0highlight professional procedures for assessment and certification.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Testing and assessment in translation and interpreting studies: A call for dialogue between research and practice. Ed. by Claudia V. Angelelli and Holly E. Jacobson. (American translators association scholarly monograph series 14.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2009. Pp. vi, 386. ISBN 9789027231901. $143 (Hb). Reviewed by Taras Shmiher, Ivan Franko National University, L\u2019viv, Ukraine Assessment and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1515"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1515"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1516,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1515\/revisions\/1516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.linguisticsociety.org\/booknotices\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}