Criteria for assessing interpretation from the textual and speech aspects perspectives

Abstract

The comparative analysis of a range of interpretation assessment scales and criteria that focus on textual, speech and behavioural aspects has helped identify the core area of interpretation assessment criteria, which includes the parameters concerned with the faithfulness of meaning transfer and the quality of target language production, as well as phonologic aspects of interpreter speech, including prosody, the latter two subsumed under the rubric “Delivery” in the aforementioned scales and sets of criteria. Two professional interpreter performance assessment scales have been analyzed from the point of view of the criteria of assessment presented therein. Various other interpretation assessment instruments were further studied to identify the core area of interpretation assessment criteria − the criteria found across the selection of the assessment instruments − and the variable area − those that are found in some of the assessment instruments included in this study. As shown by our comparative analysis, apart from the criteria relating to meaning transfer, target language quality, and phonology that form the core area of interpretation assessment criteria, this area also includes the parameters concerned with such phenomena as vocalized pauses, backtracking, self-corrections, repetitions, and false starts, the status of which within the area of interpretation assessment has not been fully defined. We propose that these core criteria be understood as breakdowns in the implementation of the speech programme. Aspects of an interpreter’s behaviour (kinesthetics, proxemics) that also come under the rubric “Delivery” in interpretation assessment criteria, however, form the variable zone alongside the parameters related to an interpreter’s unconscious mechanical behaviour.