Hello!
I am planning cross-cultural study in psychology.
I've read various articles, but I can’t understand what are the requirements for translators? I’m at the stage one - translating the original instrument. Let’s say, my translator 1 is fluent in target language with a good understanding of original language and works in translation agency + has a university degree in some field (not in philology) Translator 2- the same. Translator 3 (for a synthesized translated version) is fluent in target language, with a good understanding of original language + has a higher education in Philology!
My question: is it ok? I mean “translator” doesn’t automatically mean that he/she has a bachelor, master or PhD degree in Philology.
What do you think about it?
The extent of fluency is the main consideration, not the specific credential. In particular, you need a translated version that will be easily understandable by the people who are responding to the questions.
The most common way to assure the effectiveness of a translation is what is known as "back translation," which involves two independent translators. The first translates from the original language to the target language, and then the second person translates that back from the target language into the original. The obvious goal is to reproduce the original version, but if there are problems, the two translators should confer to reach a resolution.
Forward and back translation.
Standardized process according to international standards.
Matt
It might be a good idea to have more than one translator work on your survey, particularly if there are cultural considerations that need to be taken into account.
About 2 years ago, a colleague and I had assistance from four translators when we wanted to have a survey that was originally in English translated into Chinese. Some of the four translators worked together, and a variety of issues were raised and overcome that might have bypassed a single translator.
After all of that, we had someone back translate the Chinese survey, and we checked the back translation to resolve a minor issue.
Oleksandra Shatilova. Not at all. I hoped that my being "personal" was not inappropriate but, rather, might shed some light on things for you. I certainly agree with you that you don't need linguistic experts to do the translating. You need thoughtful, aware, people - and certainly not those who are slap happy.
If you need any references, I could probably track a couple of helpful ones down for you - but you might be OK.
Robert Trevethan, It was appropriate.
Besides, your article about measuring teacher sense of efficacy helped me a lot. Now I realize what I have to add in my article.
Oleksandra Shatilova. Ah, good - you found our article, and it contains a couple of references that I would have sent you. The account we gave there of the translation process was very much abbreviated. A lot more effort and consideration, going back and forth between translators, occurred than is indicated in the article - but at least we felt sure that the Chinese translation was of high quality and also appropriate.
You might have noticed that we had quite high retention rates - and that might have been partly due to our having ensured that the language in our survey did not dissuade people from participating in the research.
Being a good translator has little or nothing to do with degrees or professions, You need to find someone who understand that you want the questions to be translated into everyday and ordinary language so they can be easily understood. I was once given a translation of a questionnaire in Hausa (Nigeria) done by Hausa journalists who used formal language, and it was not usable since that is not how people talk. Even if you are satisfied with a back translation, it is important to do role plays with the translated questionnaire during the training, for you will find that the trainees will say: no, we don't talk like that, even if they agree that the translation is accurate. You do not want just accuracy - you want conversational language.
Paul Stanley Yoder. You make a good point. When we wanted to translate a scale from English to Chinese 2 years ago, we could have used a translation that was already available on the website of one of the people who had created the original scale.
However, with recent changes in Chinese, the message we were quickly given by native Chinese speakers was that the available translation contained stilted, old-fashioned language and would dissuade prospective respondents from participating in our research. We therefore went to the effort of obtaining a fresh, modern translation.
Paul Stanley Yoder I am much obliged to you for your help. You answered just in time when I was negotiating with translators. You also gave me the key to understanding many other things. I felt that something was wrong with some psychological tests, but I could not understand what. And they simply were difficult to read and understand…
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