Official Translation Certification Issuance in Iran: Quality Assessment

Abstract

This paper seeks to scrutinize the translation certification assessment through an in-depth descriptive research. After reviewing various methods of translation assessment, a full description is provided concerning all the stages of the assessment program. This way, each stage of assessment is critically evaluated, clarifying the reasons for some of the unsystematic procedures and the need for moving towards a more viable model of translation process-oriented certification assessment. For data collection, 8 authorities of the examining board of the Technical Office of Official Translators at Justice Department and 31 participants were given a questionnaire and an interview on the procedures of the assessment. The further analysis of the data revealed that the most crucial stage of assessment was based on a non-standard summative test, and that there were a number of irregularities in each and every stage of the assessment without considering the procedures undertaken by the translator to resolve problems (Hatim and Mason, 1990: 3). In conclusion, a holistic view of translation assessment programs is offered based on the translating processes.