ABSTRACT
This chapter presents some unique cases where survey questionnaire translation is beyond rendering words or sentences from the source language to target languages. Using several case studies, this chapter shows that, due to the unique requirements in survey questionnaire design and form navigation conventions, there is another layer of difficulty that a good survey translation has to overcome besides the choice of words and sentence structures. Many paralinguistic features, such as the writing style of a language (e.g., alphabet-based language vs. character-based language), the semiotic symbols (e.g., underlines, boldface, italics), and the choice of a language variety, bear significant meanings (instructional or semantic) in survey questionnaire design, and thus, they are as important, if not more, as lexical items and syntactic structures in survey translation.
This chapter also provides an intriguing look at translation difficulties that occur in a computerized survey environment (i.e., mobile and web surveys). There are multiple layers of linguistic constraints, cultural barriers, and technical issues that need to take into consideration in rendering a sound translation from the source language into the target language. This chapter reviews and discusses diverse translation issues that are rooted in the unique characteristics of computerized surveys.
