Transmetrics: A Formative Approach to Translator Competence Assessment and Translation Quality Evaluation for the New Millennium

INTRODUCTION Translation quality is a central issue in the translation profession and one of the most controversial topics in translation studies today. In one aspect, translation quality is a direct result of the translation process, which cannot be separated from the principal actor in the process, namely the translator. Subsequently, translator competence is always called into question whenever the quality of the translation product is questioned. Yet for the main part, translation researchers and educators have treated the quality of the translation product, the translation process, and the translator competence as discrete entities. In fact, it is only recently that the focus has shifted from the translation product to the translation process albeit in a timid and limited fashion and with more obscure views and perspectives on what constitutes a process. To put it bluntly, there seems to be some serious confusion among researchers and analysts at least about process, procedure and methodology (Darwish, 1998).