Translation evaluation in the sense of quality assessment emerges as a central issue in the prolific field of translation research. This thesis analyses the criteria of quality used for translation evaluation, particularly in the case of literary translation in the context of English and French. It starts with a survey of the theoretical terminology on which quality assessment is based, namely source, target, equivalence, faithfulness, and also considers other relevant issues like cultural factors and linguistic norms. The second theory-oriented chapter examines in more detail what exactly is assessed in translation, and studies various models of evaluation in order to elicit all the elements which affect the evaluation procedure, The rest of the thesis analyses in detail the criteria of evaluation of the various parties which play a part in the evaluation of translations: publishers, reviewers, academics, translators, and authors. Chapter three considers the priorities of commissioners, particularly publishers of foreign literature. Chapter four is the result of the corpus study of about three hundred book-review articles from the British and French press. Chapter five concentrates on the special case of retranslation and the impact that this phenomenon has on quality assessment. Chapter six adopts an educational approach, and examines the place that translation is given in Moderi. Language Degree examinations in a variety of countries. It then compares different courses available for professional translator training, and considers their assessment procedures. The last chapter is a reflection on how translators see their work as professionals, which leads to the issue of author/translator cooperation. These chapters have, at least, one element in common: they all reveal the criteria of evaluation used for translations. In some cases, the criteria are explicit; in others, presuppositions and prejudices need to be elicited from the material. What this project shows in the end is that evaluating translations is a complex procedure, in which many factors come into play and for which there are conflicts of interest between the different parties concerned. In order to conduct a more comprehensive assessment, it is therefore necessary to consider the 'forces' which come into contact in this communicative exercise.

Translation quality assessment remains pertinent in both translation theory and in the industry. Specifically, the process of assessing a target document's quality or a person's translation competence involves a lot of time and money on the part of various governments, organizations and individuals. In response to this issue, this project builds on the ongoing research of Hague et al. (2012), who seek to determine the capabilities of a computerized translation test for the French-to-English and Spanish-to-English language pairs. Specifically, Hague et al. (2012) question whether a good score on a detect-and-correct style computerized translation test that is calculated by a computer also indicates a good score on a traditional full translation test that is calculated by hand. This project seeks to further this research by seeking to answer the same question using an Arabic-to-English language pair. The methods used in this research involve testing individuals using two different style translation tests and then comparing the results. The first style translation test involves a detect-and-correct format where a subject is given a list of project specifications in the form of a translation brief, a source text passage and a corresponding target text passage that has errors introduced throughout. The subject is expected to detect and fix the errors while leaving the rest of the text alone. A score is given for this test using an automated algorithm. The second style test is a traditional translation test where a subject is given the same translation brief and a source text. The subject is expected to produce an acceptable target text, which is subsequently scored by hand. Thereafter, various forms of analysis are used to determine the relationship between the scores of the two types of tests. The results of this research do not strongly suggest that a high score on the detect-and-correct portion of the test indicates a high score on a hand-graded full translation test for the subject population used. However, this research still provides insight, especially concerning whether the detect-and-correct portion of the test actually measures translation competence and concerning second language acquisition (SLA) programs and their intentions. In addition, this research provides insight into logistical issues in testing such as the impact text difficulty and length may have on a detect-and-correct style test as well as the negative impact the American Translators Association (ATA) grading practices of weighting errors and capping errors can have on an experiment such as the one described in this research.

When J. R. R. Tolkien’s trilogy The Lord of the Rings was published in Swedish 1959-1961, the translation by Åke Ohlmarks was considered by most critics to be excellent. According to Ohlmarks, even J. R. R. Tolkien himself and his son Christopher were very pleased with it, which Ohlmarks was told by Christopher when he met him in 1975. This is, however, contradicted in the authorised biography of Tolkien by Carpenter (1978), in which Tolkien is said to have been most negative towards the way Ohlmarks handled the text. Before the biography was published, Christopher Tolkien and Ohlmarks had become bitter enemies, which might explain the re-evaluation. The schism has been described by Ohlmarks in his book Tolkiens arv (1978). But ever since The Lord of the Rings came out in paperback in 1971 there has been a discussion about the translation quality also in Sweden. When I first read the books in English I had the Swedish translation beside me. I soon discovered that Ohlmarks had taken great liberties with the text. I noticed that the descriptions were often more detailed in the Swedish translation than in the original and it was this fact that first roused my interest. Therefore, I decided to try to make a translation quality assessment of a part of the text, using a model by Juliane House.

Detta examensarbete redovisar processen att utveckla en webbplats vars syfte är att marknadsföra en frilansande översättare. Syftet med rapporten är att undersöka vilka delar och komponenter av en sådan webbplats som är viktiga att presentera för eventuella beställare.  Vidare undersöks teorier gällande bedömning av översättningskvalité genom kvalitetsindikatorer, samt hur dessa grafiskt kan appliceras på en webbplats för påvisa god översättningskvalité i marknadsföringssyfte. Genom att använda metoder i användbarhet i form av en enkätundersökning och användartester undersöks hur deltagarna uppfattade webbplatsens navigation, gränssnitt och grafiska utseende. Resultatet av detta arbete visar på att besökare av sådan webbplats tydligt vill se vilka tjänster företaget erbjuder, en tydlig arbetsbakgrund samt vilken utbildning översättaren har. Studien visade även på att en grafisk bedömning av översättningskvalité måste göras först när en ansvarig bedömare kan bli presenterad för betraktaren. Gällande design, navigation och gränssnitt är det viktigt att webbplatsen inte har för mycket innehåll och blir för stor, samt att färgvalet för webbplatsen inte är för stark och kontrastfylld. / This paper describes the process of developing a web page with the purpose of marketing a freelancing translator. The purpose of this paper is to examine which parts and components that are relevant for clients visiting the web page. The paper also examines theories and methods regarding evaluations of translation quality through Translation Quality Assessments. These Translation Quality Assessments are later applied graphically in order to investigate how these could ease the process of determining translation quality for clients. By using methods in Usability, such as an online survey and usability testing, the navigation, interface and graphical appearance of the web page is examined.  The result of this study shows that clients visiting such a website wants to see a clear description of what services the translator offers, what work the translator has done earlier and what educational background the translator has got. The studie also showed that a graphical evaluation of Translation Quality Assessments must be done first when a liable evaluator can be presented for the viewer. Regarding the design, navigation and interface of such a web page, it is important that there is not too much content. It is also important that the color scheme of the web page is not too colorful and contains too much contrasts.

Detta examensarbete redovisar processen att utveckla en webbplats vars syfte är att marknadsföra en frilansande översättare. Syftet med rapporten är att undersöka vilka delar och komponenter av en sådan webbplats som är viktiga att presentera för eventuella beställare. Vidare undersöks teorier gällande bedömning av översättningskvalité genom kvalitetsindikatorer, samt hur dessa grafiskt kan appliceras på en webbplats för påvisa god översättningskvalité i marknadsföringssyfte. Genom att använda metoder i användbarhet i form av en enkätundersökning och användartester undersöks hur deltagarna uppfattade webbplatsens navigation, gränssnitt och grafiska utseende. Resultatet av detta arbete visar på att besökare av sådan webbplats tydligt vill se vilka tjänster företaget erbjuder, en tydlig arbetsbakgrund samt vilken utbildning översättaren har. Studien visade även på att en grafisk bedömning av översättningskvalité måste göras först när en ansvarig bedömare kan bli presenterad för betraktaren. Gällande design, navigation och gränssnitt är det viktigt att webbplatsen inte har för mycket innehåll och blir för stor, samt att färgvalet för webbplatsen inte är för stark och kontrastfylld. / This paper describes the process of developing a web page with the purpose of marketing a freelancing translator. The purpose of this paper is to examine which parts and components that are relevant for clients visiting the web page. The paper also examines theories and methods regarding evaluations of translation quality through Translation Quality Assessments. These Translation Quality Assessments are later applied graphically in order to investigate how these could ease the process of determining translation quality for clients. By using methods in Usability, such as an online survey and usability testing, the navigation, interface and graphical appearance of the web page is examined. The result of this study shows that clients visiting such a website wants to see a clear description of what services the translator offers, what work the translator has done earlier and what educational background the translator has got. The studie also showed that a graphical evaluation of Translation Quality Assessments must be done first when a liable evaluator can be presented for the viewer. Regarding the design, navigation and interface of such a web page, it is important that there is not too much content. It is also important that the color scheme of the web page is not too colorful and contains too much contrasts.

For those who are not new to the world of Japanese animation, known mainly as anime, the debate of "dub vs. sub" is by no means anything out of the ordinary, but rather a very heated argument amongst fans. The study will focus on the differences in the US English version between the two approaches of translating audio-visual media, namely subtitling (official subtitles and fanmade subtitles) and dubbing, in a qualitative context. More precisely, which of the two approaches can store the most information from the same audiovisual segment, in order to satisfy the needs of the anime audience. In order to draw substantial conclusions, the analysis will be conducted on a corpus of 1 episode from the first season of the popular mid-nineties TV animated series, Sailor Moon. The main objective of this research is to analyze the three versions and compare the findings to what anime fans expect each of them to provide, in terms of how culture specific terms are handled, how accurate the translation is, localization, censorship, and omission. As for the fans’ opinions, the study will include a survey regarding the personal preference of fans when it comes to choosing between the official subtitled version, the fanmade subtitles and the dubbed version.

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Machine translation (MT) is experiencing a renaissance. On one hand, machine translation is becoming more common and used in ever larger scale, on the other hand many translators have an almost hostile attitude towards machine translation programs and those translators who use MT as a tool. Either it is assumed that the MT can never be as good as a human translation or machine translation is viewed as the ultimate enemy of the translator and as a job killer. The article discusses with various examples the limits and possibilities of machine translation. It demonstrates that machine translation can be better than human translations – even if they were made by experienced professional translators. The paper also reports the results of a test that showed that translation customers must expect that even well-known and expensive translation service providers deliver a quality that is on par with poor MT. Overall, it is argued that machine translation programs are no more and no less than an additional tool with which the translation industry can satisfy certain requirements. This abstract was also – as the entire article – automatically translated into English.

This document is a supplement to the article entitled “The Multidimensional Quality Metric (MQM) Framework: A New Framework for Translation Quality Assessment”, which has been acepted for publication in the upcoming January volume of JoSTrans, the Journal of Specialized Translation. The article is a coauthored project between Dr. Alan K. Melby, Dr. Troy Cox and myself. In this document you will find a preface describing the process of writing the article, an annotated bibliography of sources consulted in my research, a summary of what I learned, and a conclusion that considers the future avenues opened up by this research. Our article examines a new method for assessing the quality of a translation known as the Multidimensional Quality Metric, MQM. In our experiment we set the MQM framework to mirror, as closely as possible, the American Translators Association's (ATA) translator certification exam. To do this we mapped the ATA error categories to corresponding MQM error categories. We acquired a set of 29 student translations and had a group of student raters use the MQM framework to rate these translations. We measured the practicality of the MQM framework by comparing the time required for ratings to the average time required to rate translations in the industry. In addition, we had 2 ATA certified translators rate the anchor translation (a translation that was scored by every rater in order to have a point of comparison). The certified translators' ratings were used to verify that the scores given by the student raters were valid. Reliability was also measured, which found that the student raters were not interchangeable, but that the measurement estimate of reliability was adequate. The article's goal was to determine the extent to which the Multidimensional Quality Metric framework for translation evaluation is viable (practical, reliable and valid) when designed to mirror the ATA certification exam. Overall, the results of the experiment showed that MQM could be a viable way to rate translation quality when operationalized based on the ATA's translator certification exam. This is an important discovery in the field of translation quality, because it shows that MQM could be a viable tool for future researchers. Our experiment suggests that researchers ought to take advantage of the MQM framework because, not only is it free, but any studies completed using the MQM framework would have a common base, making these studies more easily comparable.