ABSTRACT

Translation quality assessment (TQA) represents one of the most productive lines of research in Translation Studies (TS), with scholars proposing different TQA models. In parallel to these theoretical models is the emergence of a diverse array of assessment methods trialled and used to evaluate translation quality in different settings (e.g., error analysis, corpus-based evaluation, rubric scoring, calibration of dichotomous items, Thurstonian comparative judgement). Despite these developments, it seems that little effort has been made to bring to the fore methodological aspects of the TQA practices. Against this background, this methodological review sets out to track the developmental trend of the TQA methods, hoping to bring clarity to the nature of the methodological pluralism, driving forces behind methodological evolution, as well as promises and constraints of each methodological choice. The review also attempts to interrogate the TQA practices, focusing on three overarching issues of reliability, validity and practicality. By doing so, we hope to highlight their merits and demerits, and occasionally challenge their legitimacy. Finally, the review describes some gaps in TQA practice and research, and suggests potential directions to move forward the enterprise of TQA.

摘要

翻译质量评估（TQA）代表了翻译研究（TS）中最具生产力的研究领域之一，学者们提出了不同的TQA模型。与这些理论模型并行的是，出现了各种各样的评估方法，这些方法已试用并用于评估不同环境中的翻译质量（例如，错误分析，基于语料库的评估，专栏评分，二分项的校准，瑟斯顿比较判断）。尽管取得了这些进展，但似乎几乎没有做出任何努力来将TQA实践的方法论方面带到最前沿。在此背景下，本方法论综述着眼于追踪TQA方法的发展趋势，希望使方法论多元性的本质更加清晰，方法论演进背后的驱动力，以及每种方法选择的承诺和约束。审查还试图审视TQA做法，重点是可靠性，有效性和实用性这三个总体问题。通过这样做，我们希望突出他们的优缺点，并偶尔挑战他们的合法性。最后，这篇综述描述了TQA实践和研究中的一些空白，并提出了推动TQA企业发展的潜在方向。