Metrics for Translation Quality Assessment: A Case for Standardising Error Typologies

Abstract

Translation quality assessment (TQA) has suffered from a lack of standard methods. Starting in 2012, the Multidimensional Quality Metrics (MQM) and Dynamic Quality Framework (DQF) projects independently began to address the need for such shared methods. In 2014 these approaches were integrated, centring on a shared error typology (the “DQF/MQM Error Typology”) that brought them together. This approach to quality evaluation provides a common vocabulary to describe and categorise translation errors and to create translation quality metrics that tie translation quality to specifications. This approach is currently (as of 2018) in the standardisation process at ASTM International and has seen significant uptake in industry, research, and academia. By bringing together disparate strands of quality assessment into a unified systematic framework, it offers a way to escape the inconsistency and subjectivity that have so far characterised TQA.