NEW PERSPECTIVES IN ASSESSMENT IN TRANSLATION TRAINING: BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL ASSESSMENT

Transcription

1 NEW PERSPECTIVES IN ASSESSMENT IN TRANSLATION TRAINING: BRIDGING THE GAP BETWEEN ACADEMIC AND PROFESSIONAL ASSESSMENT University of Westminster 4 September 2015 ABSTRACTS & SPEAKER INFORMATION (in alphabetical order) 1

2 Assessing Student Learning on a Professionally-Oriented University Programme Keynote Speaker: Prof. Dorothy Kelly - University of Granada dkelly@ugr.es Dorothy Kelly is a professor of Translation at the University of Granada (Spain), where she is also Vice Rector for Internationalization. She obtained her B.A. in Translating and Interpreting at Heriot- Watt University, Edinburgh (Scotland), and her doctoral degree from the University of Granada. Her main research interests are translator training, directionality in translation and intercultural competence, interests she has combined over the years with intense international activity, coordinating international mobility and joint degree programmes, as well as studies into the impact of mobility on intercultural competence and the learning environment. She is author of numerous journal articles and book chapters in all these areas, and of the highly cited Handbook for Translator Trainers (2005), She is currently editor of the Interpreter and Translator Trainer (Routledge), the only indexed journal devoted specifically to translator education, and was editor of the Translation Practices Explained series (St Jerome Publishing). She was a member of the European Master s in Translation Expert Group appointed by the Directorate General for Translation at the European Commission. As Vice Rector she was a member of Spain s national Bologna Experts Team until 2013, chairs the Working Group on International Mobility at the Spanish Rectors Conference, and has been Chair of the Executive Board of the Coimbra Group of Universities since Efficiency and Employability: The Cooperation of Market Players and a Translator Training Institution A Case Study Ban, Miklos - Hungarian Association of Professional Language Service Providers (Proford), miklos.ban@proford.huchairman Dr Fischer, Márta & Beták, Patrícia - Budapest University of Technology and Economics marta.fischer@inyk.bme.hu; betak.patricia@nyi.bme.hu In October 2014 The Budapest University of Technology and Economics and the Hungarian Association of Professional Language Service Providers set out to create a brand new curriculum for the university's translator and interpreter training centre. The talk we propose is a case study introducing the idea of market-university cooperation in translation training design, showing how totally different backgrounds and perspectives contribute to the creation of a novel and innovative translation training programme. The initiative was brought to life by two distinct needs: translation market players, mostly LSPs need translation graduates whose learning curves upon hiring will be steeper, while the university aims to provide training, which will make its students suitable for well-paid language industry jobs, or ready for a flourishing freelance translation career. Language service providers clearly need young translators who are not only trained to be able to create good quality target language text, but who also understand the nature and the workings of the translation business, who are familiar with the key players, aware of how technology and business climate constantly change the language industry. They are after young professionals, who are able to use various CAT tools, who at least have an idea of how to start their own freelance translation business, or know what a project manager, a vendor manager, or a language engineer does. There are quite a few institutions providing translation-training programmes in Hungary, and the competition between them for students is not entirely unlike the translation agencies competition for customers. The Budapest University of technology and Economics (BME) decided to focus on employability and business orientation to be attractive to future translation students. This is why the faculty teamed up with the LSP association, whose members have direct market experience and who are also the largest translation buyers and translation expert hirers. 2

3 Proford and BME also realized that besides faculty and senior LSP professionals, they need the input of the students as well. Therefore, fresh alumni and actual students were involved in all steps of the process and they took part at every session as equal partners of the professors and the representatives of language businesses. The case study introduces the new courses, the novel approaches to student evaluation and teaching methodology, which we call T360, and shows how the new programme was created, how the interplay between the different perspectives, experiences, values and working methods led to the successful creation of a brand new and unique curriculum. Keywords: employability, efficiency, universities & the market, T360, new curriculum Márta Fischer, PhD is an associate professor at the Language Centre of the Budapest University of Economics and Technology. She holds an MSc in Economics and Translation, an MA in European Studies (College of Europe, Warsaw) and a PhD in Translation Studies (Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest) on EU translation and terminology. She has been teaching EU, terminology and translation courses in Hungarian, English and German to students, teachers and civil servants and, as an ECQA Certified Terminology Manager (CTM) trainer, terminology webinars for TermNet. Her research focuses on (teaching) translation and terminology including assessment in translation training. Quality in Literary Translation: Assessment of the target text as the product of the process Dr Chachibaia, Nelly - London Metropolitan University nelic@talktalk.net In this article we address the issue of translation quality assessment (TQA) and try to show how the quality of translation may be measured in the literary genre, in particular the short story. We try to show the relationship between the creative freedom enjoyed by the translator and the multiplicity of constraints to which translation as process and product is necessarily subject. The choice of literary translation was determined by the fact that it is an important teaching and learning tool that enhances students sensitivity to language and their understanding of text interpretation processes. Although quality is crucial for the training of translators, it is a difficult notion to define. There is no universal definition of quality which can be applied prescriptively to every text. This fact is vitally important to the way translation is used in both the classroom and the professional world. The translator s main task is to establish correspondence between the source text (ST) and the target text (TT) while taking account of the ST author s intentions and, at the same time, producing a translation that meets the TT reader s expectations. Translation involves more than reproduction. Reproduction is merely the final stage in a chain of mental operations which involve analysis, interpretation, comparison, weighing of possibilities, and problem-solving. The difficulty in translation lies in balancing communicative resources with communicative needs. Establishing criteria for TQA is very important for describing the translation process. Naturally, it is only the final product of the process that will be assessed, but this assessment reveals both the translator's level of qualification and his/her ability to execute translation tasks. There are various ways of approaching TQA. In this study, based on a pragmatic approach to text analysis with a functionalist perspective on translation, we assess (1) the degree of equivalence 3

4 achieved between ST and TT; (2) particular difficulties facing the translator; (3) the merits of the translation in terms of how well it achieves the purpose in the target language and culture. An assessment of the degree of equivalence between ST and TT must take account of both the potential equivalence which is possible between source language (SL) units and target language (TL) units, and the actual degree of closeness of the translator s chosen version to the original text. It entails a thorough analysis of the ST and the TT at both macrotextual and microtextual levels. This analysis helps us to discover the degree of equivalence achieved in terms of various segments of the original and, at the same time, it shows how the translator creatively exploits the altered cultural, linguistic, and literary context and thus realizes the different potential of the TL in an act of literary re-creation. Text Linguistics and Pragmatics make a major contribution to TQA. Context is crucial to many decisions. Cultural factors necessitate decision-making on translation strategies and influence the translator s choices. Our analysis is supported by relevant examples taken from short stories by Anton Chekhov and their English translations. Keywords: translation quality assessment, translation process, translation product, text interpretation, literary re-creation Dr Chachibaia, Nelly - Reader, awarded PhD in Translation Studies from Moscow State linguistic University, Russia, in I have taught Applied Translation and Translation Theory for 39 years at: Centre for Translation and Interpreting, University of Western Languages & Cultures, Tbilisi, Georgia (undergraduate and postgraduate levels); Centre for Translation Studies, University of Surrey, UK (undergraduate and postgraduate levels); Centre for Interpreting and Translation, on an M.A. in Bilingual Translation course, University of Westminster, London, UK [teaching and supervising MA dissertations (4 completed Master s theses)]; Currently teaching BA and MA Applied Translation Studies, Department of Humanities, Arts, Languages and Education, London Metropolitan University [teaching specialised translation on BA and MA courses; supervising MA dissertations (22 completed Master s theses)]. My research interests include Translation Studies, Cultural Studies, Literary Translation, Discourse Analysis. I have published over 30 articles and chapters of books on problems of translation and interpreting and have participated in a number of conferences and symposia in Translation Studies. Vocational-Oriented Assessment Model: True Backward Design Cyr, Jessica - University of Ottawa jessicacyr@live.ca Nowadays, translation means business. Whether we refer to the translation industry or the translation profession, the fact is that there is more and more work to be done in a variety of complex settings, implying a need for an increasing number of professionals with a complex set of skills. These skills are generally grouped under the general term of translation competence. However, a recent shift to translator competence (Kiraly, 2000) underlies an effort to redirect the issue. This opens up fresh perspectives. For so long translation competence has been defined from the inside out, as the set of knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs) one needs in order to perform effectively. Now no longer focusing solely on translation studies (TS), scholars reflecting on the competence matter reached out to other fields to cover new grounds. Rothe-Neves (2007) points out that ʻtranslator s competenceʼ means in fact efficient performance (proficiency). According to this, it is more logical to draw elements of definition from actual performance in translation, so translation competence will not be the source of the performance but rather the product of it. Thus, focusing on translator competence (or performance). 4

5 As professional performance is generally measured with assessment tools, we think it is be possible to extract those tools and use them as the starting point for assessment tools in translator training. Drawing on an enhanced backward design process (Wiggins and McTighe, 2005), we explore the potential for using the professional assessment tools in an academic setting. Vocational evaluation, or performance appraisal (PA), is a well-known method used to assess performance in a specific occupational setting. In order to determine a person s specific background, actual knowledge and skills status, needs and aspirations, this widely used method presents its range of evaluation tools, such as a competence assessment form. For the purpose of this study, we look at PA models and their components used in Canada by various employers to define translator competence and its components (competencies, subcompetencies, etc.). We believe that the material is rich enough for us to develop an academic assessment model based on professional applications. The results lead to a more comprehensive assessment model for translator trainees, one closer to vocational evaluation and therefore useful for career development. The model would be suitable for both a competence-based approach and a program-based approach, as well as to a certain extend for the current course-based approach, to teaching professional translation. Keywords: assessment model, backward design, translator training, translator competence, professional translation Jessica Cyr is an independent researcher that has interests in translator training and professional translation, and bridging the gaps between the two, whatever they may be. She has a bachelor s degree in translation and professional writing from the Université du Québec en Outaouais and is on the verge of receiving a master's degree in translation studies from the University of Ottawa where she has taught. She has worked as a translator in the public sector and is working as a freelancer to practice translation and follow the evolution of the profession and the market as better as she can. Process-Centred Assessment in Translation Learning Tools and Aids to Diagnose and Regulate Trainees Practice Domínguez Araújo, Lara - University of Vigo laradoar@gmail.com Translation assessment research has traditionally referred to the quality of a translation product by means of the level of its acceptability, meeting of a range of criteria or comparison with a norm, as well as the search for its objectivity or consistency. However, increasing attention has been paid to translation as a process (Gile 1995), the definition and acquisition of translation competence (PACTE, Presas 2011) and its pedagogical implications (Kelly 2002). Indeed, when dealing with developing or improving translation skills, assessment is unavoidably linked to the translation process and its fine-tuning. On the other hand, innovative pedagogical tools based on expertise development theories and metacognition can be of great help to shed light on the trainees learning process (Shreve and Angelone 2010), as it has already been studied in interpreter training research (Arumí 2006). This paper aims at offering a compilation of innovative assessment tools and techniques that have been used by the author or collected in the literature to diagnose, regulate and improve translation learning process, thus enhancing trainees translation skills and supporting reflecting learning. It adopts a systemist approach in which the subjects of evaluation are its real protagonists (Martínez and Hurtado 2001) and focuses on assessment for learning, by observing the progress in its acquisition (Fox 1999 en Conde Ruano 2005). Techniques encompass those included under the umbrella of formative assessment, such as metacognitive guides to reflect and learn on the decisions made by trainees or their peers during 5

6 the translation process, learning diaries, and dialogic exercises that allow trainers and trainees to detect and be aware of pitfalls, best practices or gaps during their translation processes, as well as assessment grids focused on detection and justification of decisions. Last but not least, it presents rubrics which break down learning goals and translation skills and may be used both for formative and summative purposes. Keywords: translation process, translation learning, assessment tools, metacognition, assessment for learning Lara Domínguez Araújo is currently finishing her PhD thesis on formative assessment in interpreter training at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, under supervision of Dr. Arumí Ribas. She has published several articles on assessment tools and didactic exercises for interpreting learning and has translated novels by John Updike and George Steiner. Since 2006 she combines her work as a freelancer with part-time lecturing at the University of Vigo. She has got a Masters of Advanced Studies on Translation and Paratranslation (University of Vigo), a European Masters in Conference Interpreting (University of Lisbon) and a BA in Translation and Interpreting (University of Vigo). Assessing Translation Students' Learning of Professional Competences Eskelinen, Juha & Pakkala-Weckstrom, Mari - University of Helsinki juha.eskelinen@helsinki.fi; mari.pakkala-weckstrom@helsinki.fi Our paper will analyse assessment methods in translation courses from the viewpoint of constructive alignment. Instead of looking at how to grade individual translations, we will concentrate on the overall assessment and feedback given to a student during and at the completion of a course. This feedback integrates student self assessment with teacher feedback, and aims at giving the student the best possible understanding of her current competences. The methods we describe below in more detail have been tested over a course of several years of teaching and educational design. The course we will present as an example is a one semester long translation course that aims at teaching the students (10-15) rudimentary professional competences. It comprises translation assignments, mostly homework individually completed, but also in-class translations, and small group tasks. The students are expected to provide a translation commentary with every assignment, analysing both challenges and successful outcomes, and providing a summary of their information mining process. The commentary should also list the most important sources used. The translations will be analysed and discussed in class, and the teacher will also provide written feedback. At the end of the course each student will submit a portfolio comprising their translations, including the translation comments, the teacher's feedback, and a self-reflective assessment of her development during the course. This may include the grade the student believes she should be given. This evaluation process is explained to the students at the beginning of the course. The aim of the continuous self-assessment is to teach the students how to relate to the demands of professional work, such as quality assessment and perseverance. From the teacher's viewpoint the continuous assessment, in which the final course grade is a result of every translation and translation commentary, along with the student s ability to comply with deadlines and professional demands of the assignments, all form a more comprehensive picture of her professional development. The challenges of the method include e.g. some students aversion to writing translation commentaries. We don't yet have answers to whether a student s motivation will deteriorate if her own opinion of a grade differs greatly from the one given by the teacher, or whether students are prone to constructing teacher specific translation strategies, and whether these strategies are a negative (students will develop mannerisms) or a positive (students will develop more strategies than they might at the minimum) outcome of the evaluation system described above. 6

7 Keywords: course evaluation, constructive alignment, self assessment, continuous assessment, professional competence Juha Eskelinen is a University Teacher at the Department of Modern Languages at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He has been teaching translation for ten years and is currently responsible for several BA and MA level general and LSP translation courses, entrepreneurial and CAT-skills courses and workshops. His research interests focus on translation teaching and learning, more specifically social constructivist teaching methodologies, acquiring and teaching professional competences and the interfaces between translator education (i.e. learning environments, students, staff and the learning communities they form) and communities of practice of the professional translators. Dr Mari Pakkala-Weckstrom is a Senior Lecturer of English Translation at the Department of Modern Languages, and a member of the Teacher's Academy at the University of Helsinki. Her research interests include translation pedagogy, discourse analysis and translating cook books. Translation Assessment in Crowdsourced Projects: A Netnographic Approach Fan, Lingjuan, University of Manchester fan.lingj@gmail.com Descriptive translation studies asks scholars to remain close contact with the real life translation phenomena (Holmes 2000: 184), and when empirical studies on translation assessment are largely focused on studies in pedagogical and professional settings, the emergence of non-professional translation including crowdsourced translation is largely ignored due to the lack of confidence in their translation quality. Drugan (2013: 3) for example, discusses how crowdsourced and voluntary translations are often met with distrust from professional experts because of the lack of training and experience of non-professionals. However, there is no general accepted objective criteria for evaluating the quality of translations (Williams 2009: 3). There are cases that fan translations are more popular than official versions in translation market. Non-professional translation demonstrates creative operations and workflows thus will be able to offer valuable insights on translation management and assessment (Pérez-González and Susam-Saraeva 2012). This case study will focus on Yeeyan Project Gutenberg, a crowdsourced translation project launched in 2012 by Yeeyan (yeeyan.org), the largest non-professional translation community in China. Yeeyan Project Gutenberg aims to promote classic literary works in foreign languages which are usually not translated by commercial publishers because of the bleak prospect for profitmaking. Project Gutenberg translators are volunteers, recruited in crowdsourcing model through a competitive selection process. The translation assessment is based on criteria formulated by the project managers and implemented by the project coordinators. Drawing on the researcher s personal experience as a project coordinator involved in Yeeyan Gutenberg Project, this study adopts a netnographical approach (Kozinets 2010) to showcase the key aspects of translation assessment in the process of crowdsourcing recruitment. The data consist of online archives about the project, the researcher s field notes, as well as the correspondence between the researcher and key project members. The research provides a timely picture of the translation assessment model outside translation classroom and professional institutions. This paper aims to investigate what strategies, criteria and procedures are carried out by the project managers and coordinators for effective assessment to recruit collaborative translators. The study will also examine what aspects of translation quality are prioritized in assessment as well as how the selection process is monitored by the project managers. Finally, the paper will explore what academic and pedagogical implications can be made through the netnographical analysis of crowdsourced translation assessment. 7

8 Keywords: translation assessment, translation competence, non-professional translation, crowdsourced translation, netnography Lingjuan Fan is a final year PhD student at the Centre for Translation and Intercultural Studies, University of Manchester, UK. Her main research interests are news translation, translation theory, non-professional translation, citizen media and Chinese Studies. She has had extensive teaching and research experience in China before she came to the UK. Her PhD project is about news translation by the largest non-professional translation community in China, Yeeyan (Yeeyan.org), and she is currently involved in Yeeyan Gutenberg Project as a coordinator and translator. Assessment in the Translation Classroom and in the Professional Context: Errors and Pitfalls Dr Matilde Fontanet - Université de Genève Mathilde.Fontanet@unige.ch Both translation students and professional translators are continually assessed. In some institutes, students sit entrance exams. During their studies, many are assessed on their homework (formative assessment) and all take end of year examinations (summative assessment). The marking criteria that are used depend not only on the faculty or school attended, but also on the individual teacher and the particular translation course. The people who are responsible for student assessment may or may not be aware of various evaluation techniques and may or may not be good assessors. Independent translators are assessed by their employers (translation agencies, translation services or individual clients). Their work is sometimes evaluated by fellow translators or professional revisers, who may or may not be experts in the relevant field. These assessments generally take place before the first contract is given and may be repeated after each piece of work. Clients who need to have texts translated on a regular basis try to assess the output they receive. Again, criteria vary a lot among work providers. They may or may not be communicated to the translators themselves. In-house translators must generally pass one or more tests before they are recruited. Later, they are generally assessed by revisers, colleagues or clients whenever they produce a translation. According to the department they work for, they may have annual interviews, may have to account for statistics, and their supervisors may receive feedback about the work they produce. The criteria applied are sometimes quite different when translators work in a team. Individual skills are sometimes more difficult to assess if the team works well. In this paper I would like to draw on my experience both as a professional translator and senior lecturer in translation to offer a general view of what is at stake in assessment. What are the questions assessors should ask themselves before deciding on evaluation criteria? How can they make sure that they assess what needs to be assessed and that their criteria are relevant? I would also like to address the errors and pitfalls I have become aware of in this field. How can assessors work on their own limitations? How can we make sure that assessment does not weaken the translator s potential for improvement? And how can we make the most of the psychological dimension of assessment? Dr Mathilde Fontanet is a Swiss translator and reviser of French mother tongue. She worked in CERN s Translation Service for more than twenty years ( ) and was head of its French section for ten years ( ). She has been teaching translation (in particular scientific & technical translation and literary translation) at the Faculty of Translation and Interpretation (ETI) of the University of Geneva since 2000, where she now works full time. She has published several papers on translation and written a PhD thesis on contrastive rhetoric. 8

9 Learning Portfolio in Translator Training: A Tool for Competence Development and Assessment Dr Galán-Mañas, Anabel - Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona isabel.galan@uab.cat This paper presents a practical example of the implementation of learning portfolios as a means to assessing competence in translator training. Details will be given of how a portfolio may be used for both formative and summative assessment; its contents and structure; the competences assessed with each task; the level of development at which assessment should take place; and the criteria used for assessing the outcome of activities designed to develop translation competence. The schedule for portfolio submissions is also specified. Submitting tasks at regular intervals during the course can help students monitor and self-regulate their learning process, as it gives students who have not yet acquired the necessary competences time to improve their performance as well as provide them with further opportunities for competence development. To determine the usefulness of the learning portfolio as an effective tool for summative assessment: (1) a comparison was made of the grades obtained by students when learning portfolios were used and were they were not used; (2) students were asked to give themselves a grade in order to compare it with the grades obtained with the learning portfolios, and to contrast their perception of their achievements with that of the teacher, and (3) students were given a questionnaire in which they were asked to give their opinion concerning the usefulness of the learning portfolio. The results obtained will be presented and discussed. The example that will be presented shows that learning portfolios are the instruments of choice for assessing the progressive development of competence in trainee translators. In competence-based translator training they give students the means to showcase their accomplishments and competences through different tasks. They encourage learner autonomy, reflective and critical thinking and self-assessment. It helps students organise themselves better since they are given a timetable for the submission of assignments. The tasks set mobilize all the competences required to successfully develop translation competence. The rubrics given provide them with the means to self-regulate their learning process The use of learning portfolios, however, requires close collaboration between trainers and trainees, and a sustained effort to establish, and apply, effective competence assessment criteria. Keywords: learning portfolio, assessment, competence-based training competence assessment, translator training The TRASILT Grid: A Three-Dimensional Translation Quality Assessment Grid for Training, Scientific, and Professional Purposes Dr Hernandez Morin, Katell; Dr Barbin, Franck; Dr Moreau, Fabienne; Prof. Phuez-Favris, Gaëlle; Efraim, Octavia; Quéniart, Chantal - Rennes 2 University katell.morin-hernandez@univ-rennes2.fr; franck.barbin@univ-rennes2.fr; fabienne.moreau@univ-rennes2.fr; gaelle.favris@univ-rennes2.fr; octavia-edie.efraim@univ-rennes2.fr; chantal.queniart@univ-rennes2.fr In this paper we argue that translation training and professional practices can merge further than they do today. We believe that translation assessment can potentially help bridge the gap between these two perspectives. With this objective in mind, we designed a translation assessment grid which we think is adaptable to both professional and academic settings. The TRASILT grid focuses on the product of translation rather than its process. It does not only rest on the commonly accepted professional error-based quality criteria, but applies quantitative and qualitative parameters which go beyond mere error counting and classification. Since what bears on the acceptability of a translation is ultimately an error s impact on the functionality of the target text, we added to error type classification two more criteria: error effect on translation quality 9

10 (defined in terms of accuracy, readability, usability, and compliance), and degree of criticality of this effect (ranging from 0 for none to 3 for critical). The dynamic design of the grid allows for these three dimensions to be assessed either independently or in correlation. Error type weighting further enhances the flexibility of the grid, thus enabling it to cater for any setting (e.g. trainee or professional translator; human translation or machine translation post-editing; a particular type of source text, or a specific aim of the target text). Last but not least, advanced automatic score computation functionality makes this tool easy to use. The grid's versatility makes it ideally suited to a variety of uses. In a translator training scenario, it can usefully provide students and instructors with the support for translation assessment activities. Different error weighting schemes can be applied to assess students performance more specifically when they use a particular translation tool or method (e.g. CAT tool, speech recognition, or MT post-editing). As a research tool, the grid can serve to collect data for statistical analyses aimed at establishing correlations between error patterns, and type of translation technology and/or type of source text. Finally, professional quality evaluators in charge of assessing the work of professional translators or reviewers can benefit from the grid s adaptability to the requirements of any project thanks to the customisable weights. Keywords: translation quality evaluation, translation assessment grid, translator training, translation trainee assessment, translation technology Katell Hernandez Morin worked as a professional translator and reviewer for five years in translations companies, with French, English and Spanish as her working languages. She is now associate professor in specialised translation and quality management for the Master s degree in Translation, Terminology and Technical Writing at the University of Rennes 2 (MTLC2M). She is also the Head of the Master s degree. Her thesis dealt with the situation of revision in the management of professional translation quality in France. Lately, she has been studying the influence of translation technologies (in particular CAT tools, MT and speech recognition) on the quality of professional and pre-professional translations. She leads a team of researchers on Translation, Linguistic Engineering, and Terminology (the TRASILT team) within the LIDILE investigation unit (EA3874). She is also the secretary of the French Association of University Training Programmes in Translation, known as AFFUMT (Association Française des Formations Universitaires aux Métiers de la Traduction). Gaëlle Phuez-Favris worked for ten years in translations companies as a professional English to French translator, reviewer and project manager. She now works as a freelance translator and reviewer. She also works as a part time associate professor in specialised and technical translation for the Master s degree in Translation, Terminology and Technical Writing at the University of Rennes 2 (MTLC2M). She has started a thesis dealing with the quality factors in translation with the objective of analysing quality problems in diverse professional conditions in order to optimise pre-professional translators training. As a member of the team of researchers on Translation, Linguistic Engineering, and Terminology (the TRASILT team) within the LIDILE investigation unit (EA3874) she takes part to the study of the influence of translation technologies on the quality of professional and pre-professional translations. The Question of Modeling and Measuring Specific Translation Competencies Dr Hofmann, Sascha - Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz s. hofmann@uni-mainz.de In general higher education research, competencies developed at an academic level are usually divided into generic competencies, for example, general research competencies and selfregulating competencies, and domain-specific competencies in different subjects, for example, translation studies, linguistics or cultural studies (cf. Blömeke, Zlatkin- Troitschanskaia 2013). In 10

11 translation studies, competencies are commonly defined as strategies to solve translation problems within in the core process of translation (cf. Göpferich 2008; PACTE 2011) nowadays in close connection with employability and the market readiness of the educated translator. The result is a hybridiziation of subject-specific competencies and generic competencies needed to develop the skills of a translator as a final product of the process of translator education on a macro-level with a strong focus on translator training design (cf. Kiraly 1995, 2005; Massey, Ehrensberger Dow 2011). This leads to a very wide definition of "translation competences" and an output and performance orientation in translator training. The EMT expert group profiles competencies even as skills a translator needs to perform the task of a process-oriented translation (cf. Gambier 2009). A single general consensus definition of content, for example, in terms of the specific competencies that have to be acquired during translator education and which are either part of the larger realm of translation studies or supplied by the wide range of other academic fields that are related to translation studies, remains elusive. Given the lack of content on the micro level, which hinders the standardization of translation curricula, this paper proposes the design of a general translation competence model that first defines the specific competencies needed for translator education, taking into account existing educational models like those recently proposed by Kiraly (2014). Applying suitable and tested measuring instruments from the field of higher education research (cf. Beck, Krumm, Dubs 1998, Hambleton 2001) to record empirical data is the other fundamental cornerstone of this research approach. Assessing the specific competencies defined within the model and assuring the validity of content by investigating procedural problem solving strategies for the single specific competence are the main goals in the design of future tests. The planning and evaluation of long-term optimization measures on the structural levels of translation studies (for example adequate competence-driven didactic concepts that can lead to standardized European design of translation curricula within the Bologna framework) are also topics that will be considered. The comprehensive nature of this complex project allows merging translation process theory and practice, and thereby combining translation studies with practical experience for an optimized high-quality competence design. Keywords: translation competence, modelling, measuring, assessment, curriculum design Sascha Hofmann is Associate Professor for English Linguistics and Translation Studies since November 2014 at JGU Mainz. His research interests, besides general applied translation studies and translation process research, are all aspects of translator education and especially translation competence development. Together with Silvia Hansen-Schirra and Don Kiraly he has worked in the field from a curriculum development perspective as Managing Director at the Faculty for Translation, Linguistics and Cultural Studies for years, before turning towards empirical research again. The role of Self-Assessment and Self-Regulation in Effective Professional Performance of Trainee Translators and Interpreters Klimkowski, Konrad - John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin klimkowski@kul.lublin.pl In this presentation, a perspective on assessment in T&I education is proposed which regards it as part of the learning process, and not as an a posteriori control stage. In theories of experiential learning like Kolb's (1984), to assess (reflect) means to confirm what we know and to what extent we can use our knowledge in practical action. This vision of assessment is anthropocentric and social constructivist in nature (cf. e.g. Kiraly 2000): the learner's self-assessment, supported by the teacher's scaffolding, is a paramount educational objective. If graduates of T&I courses are to function successfully as self-regulated (Moser-Mercer 2008) professionals, they need to learn as soon as possible to depend on their own self-assessment resources. Hence, under the view advocated here, the ultimate teachers' task is not to assess, but to use the classroom interaction (Gergen 2009) and communication practices (Klimkowski 2014, in print) to help students develop 11

12 the skills of self-regulation. In the author's view, shifting the focus from assessment to selfassessment (self-regulation) as defined above is necessary if academic assessment practices are to help students comprehend translation/interpreting quality as significant (Rogers 1951). Konrad Klimkowski affiliated at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland. Research interests focus around translator and interpreter education approached from the social constructivist, relational, task-oriented and holistic perspectives. The latest book, Towards a Shared Curriculum for Translator and Interpreter Education, explores the possibility of seeing the T&I classroom as a space shared by voices (empowered stakeholders), where sharing means relentless socially-embedded negotiating of senses (knowledge construction). This calls for an opening of the formal T&I educational curriculum to the empowered presence of stakeholders from outside the academia. Assessing the Adequacy of Postgraduate Programmes to the Reality of Professional Practice: A Case Study Based on the Spanish Context Dr Muñoz-Miquel, Ana - Universitat Jaume I munoza@trad.uji.es Bridging the gap between university training and professional practice is one of the main goals of the current framework of higher education in Europe, since all undergraduate and postgraduate programmes have to be based on acquisition of competences and must take into account existing professional profiles on the job market (González & Wagenaar 2003; Yániz & Villardón 2006; Hurtado 2007; Calvo 2010). Although the translator training field had embraced the importance of (translator/translation) competences for designing, implementing and assessing training programmes long before their prescription by the Bologna process (Kelly 2005, 2007; Calvo 2011), this new higher education framework has fostered the need for empirical studies aimed at identifying what competences professional translators actually have, or what they are required to do in their professional practice (Ruiz 2005; Vigier 2010; Sachinis 2011; Cerezo 2012; Li 2012; Toudic 2012; Muñoz-Miquel 2014, among others). But do current translator training programmes respond to the competences that professional translators apply when practising their profession? Do they meet the requirements of professional practice? This paper presents the results of an empirical descriptive study aimed to assess the adequacy of postgraduate programmes to the reality of professional practice. Focused on medical translation, the paper analyses the convergences and divergences between the competences that professional medical translators put into practice and highlight as being essential, and those that students are expected to acquire in postgraduate courses in which medical translation is taught. To do so, two empirical studies are conducted. The first one focuses on a socio-professional perspective: almost 200 professional medical translators working with the English-Spanish language combination are surveyed to obtain information about their profile and competences. The second study focuses on an academic perspective: the syllabi of the postgraduate courses in which medical translation is taught in Spain are analysed so as to determine which competences students are expected to acquire. The results of both the socio-professional and the academic perspective are then compared, assessed and discussed. Some of the results obtained suggest that, although there are quite a number of convergences, there are notable divergences between the competences derived from professionals' profile and opinion and those from the analysis of course syllabi. Some of them have to do with the mastery of CAT tools or the translation of cultural asymmetries. Keywords: competences, professional translators, postgraduate programmes, medical translation, gap between university training and professional practice. 12

13 Ana Muñoz-Miquel graduated in Translation and Interpreting and earned a MA in Medical and Healthcare Translation at the Universitat Jaume I, Spain. She completed her PhD in Translation at the same university, for which she received the AIETI (Iberian Association of Translation and Interpreting Studies) Best Doctoral Dissertation Award in She is currently working as a postdoctoral researcher at the Universitat Jaume I, where she is a member of the Gentt Group and teaches scientific and medical translation both at undergraduate and postgraduate level. Her fields of interest include translator training, medical translation, and text genres aimed at patients. An Empirical Study on Summative Assessment in Translation Teaching Pavani, Stefano - Università di Bologna & Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Prof. Hurtado Albir, Amparo - Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona stefano.pavani6@unibo.it; amparo.hurtado@uab.cat The purpose of this paper is to present an ongoing research project on summative assessment in translation teaching between Spanish and Italian. The general hypothesis of this research is that the traditional summative assessment system (the translation of a text) that is often used in translator training centres is not a completely reliable instrument and does not gather enough data about students translation competence. This research is approached from two perspectives: a descriptive one and an empiricalexperimental one. This dual perspective is reflected in the structure of our paper: in the first part, we will discuss the results of a survey administered to a number of translation professors in Italy and Spain about the type of tests used to assess their students, their use of correction scales, assessment rubrics (if it is the case), etc. In the second part, we will present a proposal of summative assessment for students of translation from Spanish into Italian, which has been empirically validated with a group of BA-level students. In addition, preliminary results of the research will be presented. For the elaboration of this proposal of summative assessment we designed a teaching unit about the translation of tourism texts for a group of Italian students of Spanish into Italian general translation. The teaching unit has been designed following the translation task-based approach (Hurtado 1996, 1999, 2015) and many types of instruments are used: texts (to analyse, compare, correct and translate), questionnaires, information sheets, translation process reports (commented translation), etc. The unit presents a multidimensional assessment and has various formative and summative assessment tasks; it also includes a diagnostic assessment at the beginning of the unit and a self-assessment at the end. In addition, after the completion of the teaching unit, students will prepare a portfolio and perform a "traditional" summative evaluation test (the translation of a text). Subsequently, the results and the information collected using the different summative assessment tasks and the portfolio will be compared with the results of the traditional test (the translated text). Finally, for the comparison of the results, we will rely on expert translation teachers judgment expressed through an ad-hoc questionnaire. The paper will emphasize diversified assessment instruments and tasks, which are multidimensional, criterion-referenced and competence-based. Our proposal aims at gathering more information about the degree of acquisition of students translation competence (including the different sub-competences), as it does not assess translation only as a product. Our assessment proposal not only can be used to teach translation between Spanish and Italian, but also in other combinations of close languages as it has a theoretical and pedagogical apparatus that allows reproducibility. 13

14 Stefano Pavani is a PhD student in a cotutelle doctoral program between Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), Spain and University of Bologna (UNIBO), Italy. He holds an MA in Translation Studies (UAB) and an MA in Specialised Translation (UNIBO). His main research interests are translation teaching, specialized translation and corpus linguistics. He is a professional English, Spanish > Italian translator. Amparo Hurtado Albir is Full Professor at the Departament de Traducció i Interpretació of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. She is the team leader of a number of research projects on translation pedagogy and the acquisition of translation competence and head of the PACTE group. She is the author of numerous publications on the theory and pedagogy of translation, the most prominent of which are Enseñar a traducir: Metodología en la formación de traductores e intérpretes (ed.), Madrid, Edelsa, 1999 (3rd ed.2007); Traducción y Traductología, Madrid, Cátedra, 2001 (5th rev. ed. 2011; 6th ed. 2013); Aprender a traducir del francés al español, Castellón / Madrid, Universitat Jaume I / Edelsa, In addition, she is also general editor of the Aprender a traducir series. Bridging the Gap between Pedagogy and Profession in the Processes of Students' Translation Assessment at the Post-Graduate Translation Course Dr Pralas, Jelena and Prof. Lakić, Igor - University of Montenegro pralas@t-com.me; igorlakic24@gmail.com Establishing the link between pedagogy and profession has been one of the key principles adhered to in the process of foundation, development and implementation of the post-graduate translation course of the Institute of Foreign Languages of the University of Montenegro. Having risen from an increasing demand for translators of specialized texts in the Montenegrin market, this course is led by experienced translators, linguists and Translation Studies scholars who combine theory and practice in the classroom. The structure of the course consists of practical classes comprising work on the translation of specialized texts, but also of the theory subjects in linguistics and translation theory, as well as in the specialized areas of law or economics. One of the areas where the link between pedagogy and profession is particularly important is the assessment of students' translations produced within the practical classes. During the ten-year practice within the subjects Translation of legal/economic texts from English into Montenegrin and vice versa, the trainers/assessors have been developing and testing their error-analysis based, product-oriented assessment scale. Although it is used for pedagogic purposes, the scale is close to the scales used in professional settings for assessing translators to be recruited for translation posts. This paper presents the scale and the research aimed at its validation. The research was done on the students that attended the post-graduate translation course since its establishment ten years ago. Using a questionnaire consisting of a set of questions related to students' career after graduation from the course, the research sought to explore the correlation between the grades the students earned for their translations assessed during the course and their success in the translation profession after graduation. The reasoning behind this is that although many other factors can influence the future career of graduated students, the quality of the translations they produce is a sine qua non and the hypothesis is that the students with better grades will be more successful in their professional career after graduation. Keywords: translation assessment, post-graduate translation course, assessment scale, pedagogical assessment, professional assessment Jelena Pralas, PhD is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Foreign Languages of the University of Montenegro in Podgorica where she teaches modules at undergraduate and postgraduate Studies of Translation. For the last 5 years she has also been holding the position of the Head of Postgraduate Studies of Translation. She has been actively involved in the curriculum design and aligning the undergraduate and postgraduate translation curricula with the EMT 14

15 standards. She is also active as a translator and interpreter accredited for UN, Council of Europe and EU institutions. The bulk of her research is focused on literary translation. Igor Lakić is an Associate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Montenegro. His research interests include discourse analysis, genre analysis, syntax, sociolinguistics and translation/interpreting. He has published two books - Analiza žanra: Diskurs jezika struke (Genre Analysis: ESP Discourse) and Diskurs, mediji, rat (Discourse, Media, War) and a number of papers in international and national journals. He supervises MA and PhD theses. He is President of the Montenegrin Society of Applied Linguistics and a member of the Committee of Experts for Regional or Minority Languages of the Council of Europe. He also works as a freelance interpreter. The Quality of Subtitling: A Gap between Theory and Reality Dr Szu-Yu Kuo, Arista - Nanyang Technological University sykuo@ntu.edu.sg Watching an audio-visual programme with subtitles, as experienced on a daily basis, has led to changes relating to the quality of subtitles; this has led subtitles into topics of public interests. In line with the increasing awareness of importance attached to subtitling quality, subtitling has not only been gaining ground in translation studies, but has also gradually been attracting more attention in relation to quality issues within the field. Most discussions in academia tend to focus upon theoretical aspects concerning how to define quality parameters in subtitling and seek ways to implement these subtitling principles in classroom training. However, the various discussions of translation and subtitling quality underpinned by the existing literature do not seem to help ease the turmoil found in the industry when it comes to the perceived low quality subtitles that are in circulation. In line with this phenomenon, a gap was identified between the theoretical suggestions to achieve high quality subtitling and the actual factors that reality may have an impact on the quality of subtitling output. In an attempt to address the contentious topic of subtitle quality, this study attempts to explore the influential factors that affect the quality of subtitling not only from theoretical but also professional perspectives, with a focus on the gap between theory and reality. Despite the case of subtitling gaining ground in translation studies and research, the professional reality of subtitlers has still been veiled in mystery. The working conditions under which subtitlers operate, however, can have a significant repercussion on the quality of their professional output. Accordingly, two rounds of an online survey were conducted to establish the working conditions of subtitlers and further, to investigate other potentially overlooked factors that may have an actual impact on the quality of subtitling output. Based on the survey findings, the aim of this paper is to shed light into working conditions of subtitlers in different countries and delve into the possible reasons behind the current turmoil of the circulation of poor quality subtitles. Issues to be discussed include subtitling rates and deadlines given to subtitlers and how these conditions may affect subtitling quality; the impact that the quality of support materials provided and the use of subtitling programs, as well as the quality control procedures in place, can exert on the quality of the production; the social invisibility of subtitlers and its relationship with the quality of their output; and what implications can be drawn from the findings for future subtitler training. Keywords: Subtitling quality, working conditions of subtitlers, subtitling industry Arista S. Y. Kuo is an Assistant Professor of Translation Studies in the Division of Chinese, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Prior to that, she carried out her PhD studies at Imperial College London and worked as a teaching fellow at the Centre for Translation Studies, University College London. Arista is also a freelance translator, interpreter and subtitler, and has been involved in a variety of projects in diversified fields, including finance, business and commerce, law, politics, innovation and technology, cultural and creative industries, and of course, films. Her research interests include audiovisual translation, translator training, translation quality assessment, and cross-cultural communication. 15

16 New Ways of Assessment in Training: The Skills Lab Dr Thelen, Marcel - Zuyd University of Applied Sciences marcel.thelen@zuyd.nl Quality assessment is an issue nowadays, not only in translator training, but also in the profession itself. The question is not whether the assessment methods and criteria used in academia are better or worse than those used in the profession, but whether these criteria and methods do justice to the footprint of education, on the one hand, and to the actual practice of the profession, on the other, and, at the same time, whether these criteria and methods comply with common prevailing quality requirements both in academia and the profession. Quality assessment has been under scrutiny for some time now both in training and in the profession. In training, it has been an issue of research for a long time and is now being boosted by external accreditation requirements, but also by such factors as employability imposed by the EU in the framework of EMT as a useful asset on training. As for the profession, there have been several attempts to define a useful set of assessment criteria, partly in the form of international standards. In training the focus has up to now been almost exclusively on translation as a product, as against product and service in the profession. Some of these attempts focus on product, but the criteria used there are much more general than those used in training. Yet the so-called skills gap seems to persist. A solution could be to resort to assessment elements that are common to both training and profession and that are perceived by the profession to be among the most visible causes of this skills gap. They involve service and performance, until now rather unknown in training. It is these factors that I will focus on in this paper, as they operate in a training method called skills lab, or in-house simulated translation bureau, at the Maastricht School of Translation and Interpreting. I will discuss how these factors, service and performance, are assessed, and in what way they contribute to produce employable graduates. Dr. Marcel Thelen is senior lecturer of terminology and translation at the Maastricht School of Translation and Interpreting of Zuyd University of Applied Sciences in The Netherlands. He was Head of Department from 2005 to He got his PhD in 2011 from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam on a cognitive linguistic approach of the lexocon and its applications to terminology and translation. He publishes on translation, terminology, lexicology, quality management, translation didactics and curriculum building. He is member of the editorial board of JosTrans and Localization Focus, and chairman of a number of national and international commissions. Learning Lessons from the Industry: Integrating Flexible Translation Quality Evaluation Approaches in Translation Training Dr Toledo Báez, María Cristina - University of Alcalá cristina.toledo@uah.es Translation quality evaluation is a central concern for both translation theory and translation practice. In fact, translation quality evaluation is one of the most debated topics for academics and practitioners, but, as Colina (2015: 230) points out, despite an urgent need, intense interest and countless publications, no common standard exists in the industry or academia for the evaluation of translation quality. Uniformity in academia is far from being a reality as many models have been proposed (Drugan, 2013: 45-69). Regarding industry, a proliferation of international standards applies to translation quality evaluation (Drugan, 2013: 69-81). Nevertheless, the problem with these industry models is 16

17 that they are all traditional one-size-fits-all approaches. Consequently, practitioners are demanding flexible and dynamic evaluation approaches where variables such as content type or mode of translation creation (e.g. human translation or machine translation or a combination of both) are taken into account (O Brien, 2012: 55). The search for new ways of evaluating quality in industry laid the foundation for the two quality evaluation frameworks under consideration in this paper: the Multidimensional Quality Metrics (MQM) and the Dynamic Quality Framework (DQF). The MQM are the result of the EU-funded Quality Translation Technology for the 21 st Century Launch Pad project whose main objective is creating a shared quality metrics for human and machine translation (Lommel et al., 2013, QTLP, 2014). The DQF is an attempt to standardize translation quality evaluation developed by TAUS in 2011 (Görög, 2014; TAUS, 2014). The aims of our work are, on the one hand, to analyse both MQM and DQF and, on the other hand, to check whether these two frameworks can be integrated in the curriculum of translation studies. First, we will put these two frameworks under the microscope in order to comment and discuss how both handle the process of translation quality evaluation. Second, they will be compared to academic metrics where analytic and holistic assessments are carried out. Finally, MQM and DQF will be used in two courses of the Bachelor s Degree in Modern Languages and Translation at the University of Alcalá (Spain), specifically in Scientific and Technical Translation and Machine Translation and Post-Edition courses. Students will be asked to carry out different evaluation tasks: 1) they will evaluate their peers translations using both MQM and DQF and they will be asked to fill out a survey about both frameworks; 2) they will compare post-editing to translation from scratch using DQF. Keywords: Translation quality evaluation, translator training, multidimensional quality metrics, dynamic quality framework, translation industry. Dr Cristina Toledo is a lecturer at the Department of Modern Philology at the University of Alcalá (Spain). She earned her PhD in Translation and Interpreting (with Doctor Europeus mention) from the University of Málaga in 2009 (School of Arts Best PhD Award, 2009). Researcher in European, national, and regional R&D projects. She has been awarded several predoctoral and postdoctoral research grants, being an invited researcher at the Research Institute in Information and Language Processing (RIILP) of the University of Wolverhampton (UK) and at Dickinson College (USA). Her research fields cover translation technologies, Computational Linguistics, specialized translation and translation assessment. Assessing for Professionalization Dr Tomozeiu, Daniel - University of Westminster d.tomozeiu@westminster.ac.uk The current paper is based on a study carried out across four different translation certification institutions in the UK and the US in order to identify commonalities and differences in assessment on translation training/certification programmes. At the research design stage two leading translation training/ certification institutions, one academic and one professional, were chosen in each country (University of Westminster and The Chartered Institute of Linguists (IoL) for the UK and Monterey Institute and the American Translators Association (ATA) for the US). Their assessment criteria for the final exams, in the case of the academic institutions, and for the accreditation exams, in the case of the professional ones, were compared and contrasted. The researched analysed what aspects of the translation were marked, their weighting as well as the final grading result. The research shows significant similarities between the two summative assessments analysed in the case of the academic institutions. The differences that appear between the two marking schemes can, in part, be linked to the academic culture in which they are rooted. More significant 17

18 differences in terms of assessment approach and overall marking were identified in the case of the diagnosis assessment provided two professional bodies. Both certification bodies have very low passing rate (around 20-30%), setting the bar high for their exams. However the aspects that are being marked as well as the distinction between into English and into other languages makes for a fascinating discussion. All four institutions claim to train or assess for professionalization, yet based on the analysis of the assessment criteria the understanding of professional translator appears to vary. Keywords: assessment, translation, professional certification, academic certification Daniel Tomozeiu is a Senior Lecturer in Intercultural Communication at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Westminster. He teaches intercultural and institutional communication on undergraduate, postgraduate and professional courses. His research focusses on developing intercultural competence in translators, interpreters and communicators. In the period Daniel coordinated, together with two University of Westminster colleagues, the EU-funded Promoting Intercultural Competence in Translators project ( In this period he was involved in curriculum development, teaching and assessment aspects on translation courses. He is also the Course Leader for the Diploma in Translation programme at the University of Westminster. Getting Real: Interpreting Practice-based Assessment of Post-edited Machine Translations as a Means to Redesigning Curricular Content Dr van Egdom, Gys-Walt Zuyd University of Applied Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Brussel gijs-walt.vanegdom@zuyd.nl As a vocational institute, the Vertaalacademie (Zuyd University of Applied Sciences, Maastricht) has been instructed to develop forms of practice-based research that will lead to the direct improvement of translation products and services. However, this type of research has been looked upon with mild and bemused interest in the field of Translation Studies. At an early stage, James Holmes (1977/1988, p. 98), one of the founding fathers of the discipline, already stated that Translation Studies has or should have very little to offer to the field of translation. Fairly recently, the impact of this statement has been reduced significantly with developments in the applied branch of the discipline. Still, scholars of Applied Translation Studies tend to keep practice at a safe distance, in order to safeguard the independence of the discipline. Therefore, the institute has struggled somewhat to give research pride of place. In an attempt to explore the relatively uncharted territories of practice-based research, we have embarked on a project with a fourfold objective; it is to: a) contribute to the improvement of the translator-client relationship and to a (n/subsequent) increase in production rates; b) legitimize slight curricular adjustments and authenticate assessment. Propelled to action by recent internal investments in technological expertise and by the involvement in research on the correlation of translation and writing competence (Schrijver 2014), we have decided to establish firm(er) ground for understanding quality gaps between target text users and translation service providers. To address the gap, student-employees of Zuyd Vertalingen (our in-house translation bureau) were first asked to produce six PeMT versions of three source texts, by following certain revision criteria that have been extracted from the works of Krings (2001), Mossop (2007), Samuelsson-Brown (2010) and Depraetere, De Sutter & Tezcan (2014). Then, the sum of eighteen versions has been distributed to translation bureaus mainly internship addresses and target text users for assessment. In a final stage, the data were gathered and analyzed, in order to cast brighter light on quality criteria of clients and users. Now, we hope to find ways of getting to grips with the quality demands of TSP clients and TT users demands that have hitherto left translators in the dark, to provide a sound framework for 18

19 translation effort (in times of ongoing technologisation), to implement all practice-based evidence in the Vertaalacademie curriculum, and, finally, to extrapolate the conclusions to assessment situations within the classrooms. Keywords: Translation Brief Post-edited Machine Translation Revision Text Quality Curricular Design Gys-Walt van Egdom holds an MA in Translation (Studies) and a Ph.D. in Linguistics and Literary Studies. He teaches Translation Studies at the School of Translation and Interpreting and is a member of the IRM research centre at Zuyd University of Applied Sciences (Maastricht, Netherlands). He is also affiliated to the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Belgium), where he is a member of the research units CLIC and CLiV. His research interests include ethics of translation, literary translation, poetics and translation didactics. Promoting Self-Assessment in Legal Translation Training Dr Vigier, Francisco - University of Alcalá francisco.vigier@uah.es Motivation is critical for students to get involved in their learning process and acquire a deep learning of what they are studying. Translation undergraduate students, however, tend to face their courses in legal translation with a general lack of confidence, and hence of motivation, due to their usually limited knowledge of law, legal systems and legal discourse. Assessment for Learning, as defined by Stobart (2008), triggers learners active role in their learning through efficient feedback, providing opportunities for students to become autonomous and self-regulated through selfassessment, which in turn boosts students self-confidence and motivation. With the aim of applying self-assessment in undergraduate legal translation training, we have designed a specific legal translation competence self-assessment grid, chiefly drawing upon the model of systematic assessment of translator competence drawn up by Way (2008), which allows students to detect both successes and errors in applying their different subcompetences for the task in hand, and the model of legal translation competence developed by Prieto (2011), which outlines from a processoriented and professional approach the skills, abilities and attitudes a legal translator must have. In this paper, it is our intention to discuss our experience applying this self-assessment grid with our undergraduate legal translation students and present how our self-assessment model can help trainees identify their strengths and weaknesses in the development of a given subcompetence and encourage them to pinpoint future actions for improvement both in the short term and in the long term. It is precisely this identification of strengths, weaknesses and actions for improvement that allows students to monitor their current performance and chart their path to their desired level of achievement in legal translator training. Keywords: assessment for learning, self-assessment, legal translation competence, strengths, weaknesses Dr. Francisco J. Vigier Moreno is a full-time lecturer at the University of Alcalá, where he teaches modules on legal translation at both the undergraduate Degree in Modern Languages and Translation and the MA in Intercultural Communication, Public Service Translation and Interpreting, which belongs to the European Masters in Translation network sponsored by the EU Directorate- General for Translation. As a researcher, his main research fields include legal translation, official translation and translator training. He has participated in several national and international projects, including Qualetra Quality in Legal Translation, funded by the EU Directorate-General for Justice. 19

20 Quantifying Assessment Criteria in Translator Training Courses: a Step Forward for Translator Trainers and Translator Users to Meet Dr Wang, Caiwen - University of Westminster C.Wang4@westminster.ac.uk [E]valuation is part and parcel of the teacher s job ((Nord 1997:42). In the context of translation, the industry also joins in the evaluation process, more often with even more strict criteria for the quality of a translation text (e.g. O Brien 2012, Stejskal 2007). It follows that the assessment criteria for assessing trainee translators work and professional translators should best echo each other, because translator training courses supply translators for the industry, who selects the latter based on their academic merits, while professional translators, who in modern times have vast mostly completed a training course beforehand, make their decisions as to how and what to translate when given a source text on the basis of what they have been taught. In this paper, I will review the assessment criteria for assessing trainee translators and compare them with the evaluation criteria used by the translation industry. I will argue that the approach of error typology for assessment typically used in various industrial models is a possible point where the industrial sphere and the academic sphere can meet for potentially harmonious guidelines in assessing translation quality. I will propose that as a step forward to bridge the gap between academic and professional assessment, criteria for assessing trainee translators adopt a quantification model built on the error typology notion. Dr Caiwen Wang is a Senior Lecturer in Translation and Interpreting Studies at the University of Westminster, where she teaches English-Chinese Institutional Translation and Public Service Interpreting, as well as advanced Chinese. Her research interests are in Translation and Interpreting Studies with a focus on inter-cultural issues at the moment. Caiwen at the same time teaches scientific/technical translation and acts as a PhD supervisor at the Centre of Translation Studies of the University College London. Translator Competence and Quality: Motivating through Assessment Dr Way, Catherine - University of Granada cway@ugr.es Training in competences is not new to Translation Studies trainers who have, for some time now, used different models of translator competence (e.g.hurtado, 1995, 2007; Kelly 1999, 2002, 2005) to develop objectives and learning outcomes for their translation programmes. Competence based training (CBT) is also used increasingly in translation courses, however, assessment of such training has received little attention. Whilst training in certain competences with specific activities or exercises is common in early training stages, it is in the later stages of training, nevertheless, when all the competences intertwine to intervene in the creation of the final product. This is when assessment becomes a much more complex question. If students are to be assessed not only on the quality of their final product, but also on how their translator competence develops, assessment requires an individualised approach. We have tried and tested the use of Project Management with authentic translation briefs in the final stages of undergraduate courses in order to draw the trainees attention to their different competences and the translation process, without neglecting the quality of thefinal product. This provides a clear working framework that emulates professional practice and allows students to see where their strengths and weaknesses lie in their own translator competence, thereby pinpointing areas to be improved and allowing discussion of the strategies to do so. Furthermore, motivation has become a key aspect of this methodology by avoiding numerical marls for continuos assessment. When faced with the task of assessing trainees competences and their development during a translation course many lecturers consider individualised assessment of the process a complex 20