Investigating the Variations among Translation Assessors when Assessing the Translation Quality of Trainee Translators

Abstract

This paper addresses a very important topic in the field of translation training and translation quality assessment from academic and professional perspectives. It aims at investigating the assessment variations among the translation assessors. Moreover, there are two objectives of this paper, namely; to identify the variations among translation assessors in assessing the translation quality of the trainee translators and to identify factors might affect the process of assessing the translation quality. The assessment of translation quality has not taken much luck in translation studies. Because of the importance of this field, that has many contradictions, and the existence of several divergent views on the assessment of translation quality, this research tackles two tests: written and simultaneous interpreting. Their purpose is to collect data for statistical processing by using SPSS statistics. Thereafter, a t-test was carried out to specify the differences in mean values of the assessment for each trainee translator. The results of the research revealed inevitable and obvious variations among translation assessors when assessing the translation quality of trainee translators/interpreters. This paper recommends further studies deeply goes into its important topic. It also recommends studying factors that might affect the assessment process of the translation quality.