The ATA Chronicle - January/February 2020 - 25

and Antonia Levi, two professors at Portland State University,
rubrics should contain some common features.5 These include
the instructor's expectations, different components (e.g., in
the case of dialogue interpreting: interpreting skills, language,
delivery and ethics/standards), and a detailed description
of acceptable and unacceptable levels of performance. The
importance of rubrics in guiding students in reflective
practice cannot be underestimated since they provide not
only a clear picture of patterns of recurring issues that
need to be improved upon, but also a snapshot of amazing
accomplishments that inspire students to continue developing
their skills.

Another tool that goes hand in hand with rubrics
and can be implemented as a reflective practice
instrument is the discussion forum.

challenges related to the text they had just translated. In their
posts, students were asked to:
■

Identify and qualify each challenge they wanted to discuss.

■

Share resources that helped them solve the issue, such as
extra-linguistic information, parallel texts7, bitexts8, or
specialized databases.

■

Evaluate the authority of said resources.

■

Justify their translation choices.

To obtain full credit, the rubric called for students to submit
a minimum number of reflective comments and respond to

Rubric for Written Translation Reflection/Self-Assessment
As you work on your translation and think about the process, please include
some of the following in your reflection as appropriate:
Translation Process:
* How did you find the translation for the most difficult word/term/phrase?
* How did you know your translation of the most difficult word/term/phrase was correct?
* Did you think about the audience as you were translating?

In terms of rubrics design, some things to consider
include the following questions: "What is the purpose of this
task?" "What are the skills required for the exercise?" "What
should students see in their performance that reflects the
highest achievement?" and "What should students be able to
identify that reflect an unacceptable level of performance?"
Figure 1 on the right is an example of a "holistic" rubric
used in translation exercises. Note that there are no levels of
acceptable or unacceptable performance, since the purpose
of the task is for students to step back and think critically
about the process they have just gone through, including
the analytical and subliminal states they were under when
performing translation.6

DISCUSSION FORUMS AS REFLECTIVE TRANSLATION
PRACTICE TOOLS
Another tool that goes hand in hand with rubrics and can
be implemented as a reflective practice instrument is the
discussion forum. Discussion forums have been a core
component of online courses for decades. They foster student
engagement and are primarily used for discussing readings
or specific topics. However, they can be applied to a variety
of additional purposes. This section demonstrates how such
forums can be implemented for students to discuss their
individual translation process and compare their individual
approach with their peers'.
This specific design was implemented in a specialized
online English>French translation course as part of an online
translation certificate that combined non-language-specific
and language-specific courses. In this course, once students
had submitted their weekly translation assignment, on which
they worked individually and received personalized instructor
feedback, they were required to discuss, in the online forum,
www.atanet.org

Translation Tools and Resources:
* Which tools did you use to help you in your translations (dictionaries, glossaries, online
searches)? Please be specific and name your sources.
* Did you ask someone/an expert for help? Please be specific.
* Did you post a question to a translators' forum or group on Facebook or other listservs?

Translation Unit/Challenge:
* Which word or term was the most difficult word/term/phrase (took you the longest to
translate)? Why? Is it technical? Be specific and please provide a back translation
into English if focusing on a Language Other Than English (LOTE) term.
* Is the word/term/phrase culturally specific?

Translation Strategies:
* Which strategy did you use to solve a translation unit/challenge? Reformulation?
Explicitation? Reduction? Footnote? Cultural Substitution? Etc.

Translation Quality:
* Did you proofread your target text after you finished?
* Did you use Spell Check in Word or another spelling tool?

Time Spent on Translation:
* How long did it take you to translate this text?
* Do you feel your linguistic skills in the source and target languages played a role in
how long it took?

Translation Discovery:
* What new thing did you learn while you were working on this translation?
* How did you feel when you were done?
* Were you satisfied with the result?

Improvement Plans:
* Do you need to take more high-level classes in LOTE or English to improve your
linguistic performance?
* Do you need to take high-level writing courses?
* Should you improve your general knowledge?

Cristiano Mazzei-Fall 2019

Figure 1: Rubric for Self-Assessment
American Translators Association

http://www.atanet.org

The ATA Chronicle - January/February 2020

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