ABSTRACT
This chapter gives a synopsis of survey translation evaluation using the sociolinguistic framework. It discusses some pretesting methods (e.g., expert review, cognitive interview, and focus group) to evaluate survey translations and challenges in using these methods across different language and cultural groups. It shows that linguistic rules and communication norms that govern communication behavior in a given language will display themselves in a research setting such as cognitive interviews and focus groups. Failure to recognize and find ways to compensate for these cultural and linguistic differences will yield poor research data. It is important to make linguistic or cultural adjustments in the evaluation methods that were developed in the source language (i.e., English) when applied to target languages. Based on insights from evaluation studies, this chapter presents specific steps guided by the proposed sociolinguistic framework to overcome linguistic and cultural barriers in conducting the evaluation and interpreting the evaluation results.
