Some psychological methods for evaluating the quality of translations

The excellence of a translation should be measured by the extent to which it preserves the exact meaning of the original. But so long as we have no accepted definition of meaning, much less of exact meaning, it is difficult to use such a measure. As a practical alternative, therefore, we must search for more modest, yet better defined, procedures. The present article attempts to survey some of the possible methods: One can ask the opinion of several competent judges. Or, given a translation of granted excellence, one can compare test translations with this criterion by a variety of statistical indices. Or a person who has read only the translation may be required to answer questions based on the original. The characteristic advantages and disadvantages of each method are illustrated by examples.