Relationship between Two Translation Quality Assessments: Holistic Rating Vs. Waddington’s Model of Assessment

Translation quality assessment is one of the most significant and, at the same time, problematic areas of translation. The critical importance of this issue becomes more obvious in pedagogical contexts. The present study focused on the translation quality assessment undertaken in Islamic Azad University of Bandar-Abbas which offers translation training in both B.A and M.A levels. In this study, Waddington’s model of TQA, which is accepted as an objective model, was applied to the exam papers of the students, already assessed and scored by their instructors. The results obtained from statistical analysis of the data, that is, the two sets of scores, revealed that a correlation does exist between the scores obtained through applying Waddington’s model and the scores assigned to the papers by the instructors. Based on this finding, two conclusions were drawn: 1) the assessment carried out in the above-mentioned university is objective, and 2) Waddington’s model and its criteria are not that much objective, and has some shortcomings. One of the shortcomings, according to the findings of the present study, is that ‘the unit of translation’ has not been specified in the model. Thus, the researcher proposes to consider concept’ as the ‘unit of translation’.

Relationship between Two Translation Quality Assessments: Holistic Rating Vs. Waddington’s Model of Assessment Keywords:

Holistic method , objective translation assessment criteria , Translator Training , Waddington’s Model