Introduction

Discussions of value and quality with respect to work in translation have historically been particularly vexed. Today, however, the growing demand for translations in such fields as technology and business is giving rise not only to a demand for increasingly specialized translations but also to a need for more nuanced and more explicit methods of determining value. Some refer to this determination as evaluation, others use assessment; and many, if not most, use the two interchangeably, often without indicating that they consider the terms synonymous. ¹ Whichever term one prefers, however, the question is one of measurement and judgement. Based on complex and, to use Venuti’s words (2000:5), “highly variable notions” that frequently are not expressed overtly, both terms are unavoidably subjective. This means that devising more appropriate evaluative practices involves not developing new quantitative techniques but also exploring the attitudes, expectations and individual definitions of quality and value on which criteria are established.