Comparison with the Source Language Back-translation into the Source Language Comprehension Check Naturalness and Readability Testing Consistency Checks
lxxvii Ebah Suhaebah, SS. T Wisnu Sasangka and Syahidin Badru, 1996: 9
Translation Quality Assessment TQA
Translation can be seen as a product of translation process. Within this process, there is a stage in which the translated text the product needs to be
tested to measure its quality. This test is normally called as Translation Quality Assessment TQA.
There are three types from which the process of translation is gained: accuracy, readability and acceptability; or Larson 1984 offers accurate, clear
and natural. Test of accurateness is needed because, sometimes, when a translator works hard in getting the best product of translation, he
usually does some additions or deletions. These may effect on making mistakes: adding things that are not really in the text or deleting
things that are actually very important within the text. That is why a test on the translation product is needed.
Another test that comes after accuracy is clarity test coming from clear, or, I prefer to use, readability test. Larson 1984 argues that this test is
urgently important since “a translation may be accurate but still not communicate to the people who are use to it. The forms of the
language used should be those which make the message of the source text as easy to understand as the source text itself was to understand”
p. 531
At last, a translation product needs to be assessed in terms of naturalness or acceptability. This test purposes on making the text sounds do natural
towards the target readers, so that the readers think that it is an original text from their language instead of the result of translation
process.
There are various ways for assessing text. Larson 1984 offers five ways to do this task: