Translation Quality Assessment: Can a Corpus-based Approach be Effective?.

Abstract

This paper aims at highlighting proposals concerning corpora tools to be applied to translation assessment. After discussing on translation assessment analysis, computational tools and methods are analysed, including bilingual corpora, parallel text alignment, Wordsmith and ParaConc tools, concordances, and word lists. Obviously, the utility of these tools varies accounting for the text type. In fact, computer programmes have been successfully applied to machine translation assessment. Concerning literary translation, a great number of drawbacks can be encountered due to the nature of these texts. Interestingly enough, corpora in translation training allow students to be aware of available translation strategies and to assess errors, which improves their competence.

Drawing in these premises, it is argued that adopting a corpus-based approach can significantly reduce the subjective element in translation quality assessment, although it has to be complemented with other resources concerning the evaluator’s competence and critical judgement to reach accurate conclusions.