PROFESSIONAL APPROACHES TO QUALITY ASSESSMENT AND EVALUATION: IMPLICATIONS FOR TRANSLATION TEACHING AND LEARNING

Abstract

This paper provides a critical overview of the approaches to the assessment and evaluation translation quality across professional practice. The analysis is aimed at singling out the professional knowledge, skills and communicative abilities and attitudes necessary for a translator in the field of education to control and evaluate the quality of translation. The identified features of the top-down approaches, which are based on centralized quality management, allowed us to determine the components of the professional competence of full-time and freelance translators of translation companies and translation departments of organizations. They relate to ensuring the quality of human and technical resources, quality control of the process and evaluation of the translation product, feedback. The characteristic features of the bottom-up approaches made it possible to outline general and specific knowledge, skills and communication abilities and attitudes of independent professionals determined by the increase in demand for fast, high-quality translation services at a low price. The components of a freelancer’s professional competence include knowledge of crowdsourcing technologies, the ability to demonstrate compliance with translation industry standards, critically evaluate information and one’s own strengths and weaknesses. Consideration of approaches to determining quality levels and requirements for them is conditioned by the importance of relevant knowledge and skills to self-control and selfassess translation quality. Results of the comparative analysis of professional translation quality measurement systems LISA QA Model 3.1, SAE J2450. QT21 D3.1: Harmonized Metric became the basis for developing a typology of translation errors and building a model for evaluating the quality of translation of educational texts.