TranslationQuality in Cross-Cultural Research: From back-translation to a functionalist collaborative approach
As international research studies become more commonplace, the importance of developing multilingual research instruments continues to increase and with it that of translated materials. Consequently, assessing the quality of translated materials (e.g., research instruments, questionnaires, etc.) is an essential element in cross-cultural research, since the reliability and validity of the findings crucially depend on it. In fields like public health translation quality can also have consequences for the effectiveness and success of interventions and public health campaigns. While back-translation is absent from most recent work in translation evaluation in translation studies, it is a commonly used quality assessment tool in cross-cultural research (Maneesriwongul and Dixon 2004; Douglas and Craig 2007; Tyupa 2011). As a quality assurance technique in cross-cultural research, back-translation consists of (a) translation (TT1) of the source text (ST); (b) translation (TT2) of TT1 back into the source language (c) a comparison TT2 with ST to make sure there are no discrepancies. The accuracy of the back translation with respect to the source is supposed to reflect equivalence/accuracy of the target text.
While it may be tempting to dismiss the use of back-translation in cross-cultural research as the result of simplistic views of translation, this paper reveals a more complex picture. We review the extent of the literature that resorts to back-translation and present the principles behind the use of back translation methodology. We show that back-translation in fact reflects a view of the translation process that was mainstream when it was first adopted in the social sciences (Brislin 1970, 1986). In other words, one cannot claim that the situation simply responds to a layman’s view of translation, as the use of back-translation reflectsa structural view of translation, based on notions prevalent in the 1970s, such as meaning as an objective reality, and equivalence (at the conceptual or semantic level) as the ultimate measure of translation quality. With a few exceptions (Douglas & Craig 2007; Fourier & Feinauer 2005), these notions remain mostly unchallenged by researchers in cross-cultural research even into the first decade of the 21st century.This paper argues that understanding the reasons for the popularity of back-translation serves to propose a more viable approach to translation quality assessment in cross-cultural research, one that is capable ofincorporating the needs of fields beyond translation studies, that is aligned with current knowledge in translation studies, and above all, one that has a greater likelihood of acceptance.
A functionalist, collaborativeapproach is presented as a more adequate and up-to-date approach to translation and language mediation in cross-cultural research. This is done inthe context of a case study, Oyendo Bien (OY, “Reducing Disparities in Access to Hearing Healthcare on the U.S.-Mexico Border”),aNIH-funded multiple year project that aims to expand access to hearing healthcare among older adults facing health disparities through a community health worker model. It is argued that because of the complexity of most research projects and of translation and language mediation per se, translation procedures and strategies established for one specific project cannot be automatically transferred to another, without considering project-specific contextual factors and how those impact the translation strategies and approach. In other words, the one-size-fits-all approach will not work for the translation of research materials and instruments. Consequently, the overall approach to the translation of the OY documents is a functionalist approach according to which texts are translated according to the type of text involved and to the purpose that the research team wants to attain by means of the translation (Nord 1997). The translation methodology in OY also reflects a team, collaborative approach. Team members involved in the translation process comprise a range of expertise areas (public health, audiology, social and health workers, translation studies, translation practice) and linguistic profiles (monolingual, late bilinguals in English and Spanish, heritage speakers, etc.). One consequence of the translation process implemented for this project is a new broader conceptualization of translation and languagemediation that has the potential to extend the impact of translation studies in global research.