Institutional Translation and Interpreting: Assessing Practices and Managing for Quality (Routledge Advances in Translation and Interpreting Studies Book 55)

This collection brings together new insights around current translation and interpreting practices in national and supranational settings. The book illustrates the importance of further reflection on issues around quality and assessment, given the increased development of resources for translators and interpreters. The first part of the volume focuses on these issues as embodied in case studies from a range of national and regional contexts, including Finland, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and the United States. The second part takes a broader perspective to look at best practices and questions of quality through the lens of international bodies and organizations and the shifting roles of translation and interpreting practitioners in working to manage these issues. Taken together, this collection demonstrates the relevance of critically examining processes, competences and products in current institutional translation and interpreting settings at the national and supranational levels, paving the way for further research and quality assurance strategies in the field. The Introduction, Chapter 7, and Conclusion of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND) 4.0 license. This collection brings together new insights around current translation and interpreting practices in national and supranational settings. The book illustrates the importance of further reflection on issues around quality and assessment, given the increased development of resources for translators and interpreters. The first part of the volume focuses on these issues as embodied in case studies from a range of national and regional contexts, including Finland, Switzerland, Italy, Spain and the United States. The second part takes a broader perspective to look at best practices and questions of quality through the lens of international bodies and organizations and the shifting roles of translation and interpreting practitioners in working to manage these issues. Taken together, this collection demonstrates the relevance of critically examining processes, competences and products in current institutional translation and interpreting settings at the national and supranational levels, paving the way for further research and quality assurance strategies in the field. The Introduction of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license available at https://tandfbis.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/rt-files/docs/Open Access Chapters/9780429264894_oaintroduction.pdf. Chapter 7 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license available at https://tandfbis.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/rt-files/docs/Open Access Chapters/9780429264894_oachapter7.pdf. The Conclusion of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license available at https://tandfbis.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/rt-files/docs/Open Access Chapters/9780429264894_oaconclusion.pdf. Terminological consistency and accuracy are key indicators of institutional translation quality and a condition for semantic univocity and certainty with regard to legal terms translated at international organizations. They are accordingly important guiding principles in institutional terminology management. This chapter examines variations of consistency and accuracy levels in the translations of three selected terms that are representative of different degrees of legal asymmetry in English-Spanish translation, as well as the congruity of these translations with the recommendations found in the corresponding institutional terminological resources in three settings: the European Union, the United Nations and the World Trade Organization. The corpora compiled for diachronic comparison include all occurrences of the selected terms (“prima facie evidence,” “tort” and “magistrates' court”) in two periods: 2005-2015 and 2016-2019. The findings suggest significant correlations between legal asymmetry and translation accuracy levels, and between intertextual consistency and accuracy fluctuations. They also reveal low adherence to the (limited) guidance of institutional terminological resources on legal system-specific terms. Additional qualitative insights are offered regarding the most significant cases of terminological harmonization and on the determining role of translation precedents This book brings together new insights around current translation and interpreting practices in national and supranational settings and llustrates the importance of further reflection on issues around quality and assessment, given the increased development of publicly accessible institutional resources for translators and interpreters.