Translation Assessors In and Out of Their Element

Abstract

Translation assessment is an activity present in many scenarios and the diverse individuals who must deal with it partly explains the variability of such activity. Previous Translation Studies have already profiled and compared both the behaviour and the results of assessments carried out by a variety of evaluators. This paper examines the main contributions concerning this issue, and adds to the field by distinguishing between the contexts in which evaluators carry out their usual work and other less paradigmatic situations. The result is a compendium of the characteristics defining the prototypical evaluator profiles as well as presenting a warning for researchers, professionals, students and teachers on the special conditions that, depending on the circumstances, affect their evaluation and make it look as a different activity. The discussion includes complex formulas characterized by the collaboration of different groups of evaluators, as well as of those whose profile is not defined always by a single role. Therefore, the present paper may serve as an inspiration for new research investigating the profiles of evaluators to open the focus and take into account the circumstances that may affect their alleged habitual activity.