CALL FOR PAPERS FOR EDITED VOLUME

Tentative Title: ASSESSΜΕΝΤ ISSUES IN LANGUAGE TRANSLATION AND INTERPRETING

Language Testing and Evaluation Series, Grotjahn, R. &. G. Sigott (general eds).

Frankfurt: Peter Lang.

Special Editors: Dina Tsagari & Roelof van Deemter

The special editors of this forthcoming title are seeking submissions for a special edition entitled: ‘Assessment Issues in Language Translation and Interpreting’.

Rationale

The need for reliable and valid assessments of translator and interpreter (“T&I”) skills has been widely acknowledged inside and outside these professions and the (language) testing community. Despite this agreement, the actual assessments which serve as gatekeepers for professional translators and interpreters, don’t always live up the expectations. In one way or other, many countries all over the globe are struggling with this issue. Therefore, in order to determine where there is room for improvement and how these improvements may take shape, there seems to be an urgent need for more or less standardized descriptions of the assessments which are in place. The result would be a set of descriptions  with many examples of good practice, both at the general and at the micro level.

The focus of the volume is on assessment of T&I leading to authorization / accreditation / registration / certification in different countries of the world. Apart form the description of the different assessment systems, the contributions in this book should also shed some more light on the intricate social, political and financial issues influencing the choices that lead to a specific kind of assessment.

The editors would like to encourage prospective authors to seek collaboration with different  stakeholders (researcher(s), test developer(s), representative(s) of a professional organization in the field of T&I).

Topics covered in the volume

We invite high quality original submissions that address issues relevant to the field of T&I assessment in professional and educational contexts, that discuss issues such as:

· the design, development, preparation administration and evaluation of T&I assessment of professional translators and interpreters;

· the application of T&I assessment procedures to new challenges and with diverse populations;

· issues of reliability and validity of T&I assessment;

· challenges in constructing scales for T&I assessment;

· the complexity of T&I as a skill;

· the difficulty of comparability issues across various T&I contexts and languages.

The issues can also be addressed from a theoretical as well as from an empirical point of view.

Contributors

Contributors to the volume will be academics, researchers, professionals and postgraduate students (PhD level) who have completed or are about to complete research in the area of T&I assessment.

Audience

The edited volume is primarily intended for

· testing organizations and test developers,

· professional translators and interpreters,

· policy makers and administrators,

· researchers with an interest in T&I assessment,

· material writers and publishers.

Structure of the volume

The edited volume will be divided in sections (depending on the nature of contributions received). Overall, the volume is expected to have a maximum length of 25O pages and include:

· an introduction that will discuss issues of T&I in assessment

· the papers submitted with short abstracts

· bibliographical references at the end of every paper

Contact

We invite you to write up and submit your proposal so it can be considered for inclusion in the proposed volume. Please send proposals to Dina Tsagari (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) and Roelof van Deemter (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.).  Informal inquiries may be sent to the same addresses.

Preliminary proposals

Proposals should be approximately 1 page (A4 size) or roughly 500 words in length.  Please include the following information in your proposal:

·         Title of article

·         Author name(s), affiliation(s), and detailed contact information

·         Proposal

Successful authors will be invited later to submit full papers for peer review following normal procedures based on the publisher’s guidelines. Overall, the following timeline is anticipated:

Timeline

Deadline for extensive abstracts                                                                        1 November 2011

Deadline review of abstracts and invitation to write whole paper 30 November 2011

Full paper submission deadline 31 January 2012

Comments from special editors 15 March 2011

Revised draft submission deadline 30 April 2012

Comments from special editors 15 June 2012

Final draft submission deadline 30 August 2012

Submission of manuscript to publishers 30 September 2012

Anticipated publication date December 2012