A deeper look into metrics for translation quality assessment (TQA)

The search for quality in translation is still an unsettled issue today.

From the second half of the 20^th century onwards, controversy surrounding the quality concept and the way to determine it has become central.

There exists a pressing need to standardize TQA criteria to mitigate the subjectivity prevailing over quality assessment. Evaluating the quality of a translation first requires defining concepts of Quality and Translation, which inevitably parallels the approach characteristic of a translation theory (House, 1997).

Many proposals for TQA have already been laid on the table, but none of them has proved to be a definite solution.  What is more, the search for a unique method for TQA that could achieve full objectivity in every situation, context and for every type of text seems illusory. Henceforth, various quantitative-oriented models for TQA are analyzed.

This review includes the SICAL, the LISA QA model, the SAE J2450, the Quality Assessment Tool (QAT) and the Adynamic Quality Evaluation Model.

Special attention is paid to a prototype tool developed by the Directorate General for Translation (DGT) of the European Commission as an aid in the quality quantification process of external translations.

In Globalize, we tend to use the LISA QA Model:

The LISA Quality Assurance (QA) Model was developed in 1995 and distributed by the Localization Industry Standards Association (LISA) for localization projects. It helps producing a free-error version of translation to our clients.

as it is a stand-alone tool applied to product documentation, help and user interface, and even to computer-based training (CBT). Besides, it contains a predefined list of error levels of seriousness and relevance, a record of error categories, a catalogue of the reviser’s tasks and a template for marking the translation as Pass or Fail (acceptability threshold).

In conclusion, we could say that a high-quality translation is one that captures the tone and the message as precisely as possible