Content Design In Accreditation Tests For Translators

CATTI,in other words,“China Accreditation Test for Translators and Interpreters”,is an authoritative test nationwide.However,studies still have to be conducted as for correlations between test items in CATTI written translation and whether test content effectively reflects translation competence of test takers.Moreover,it still needs to be improved in overall test design and scoring criteria of CATTI written translation.First of all,this thesis explored different definitions of translation competence by scholars at home and abroad and analyzed the features of accreditation tests for translators.It aimed to propose designing principles of accreditation tests for translators from three aspects: the selection of test materials,design of test items and scoring criteria.These aspects will be helpful to the reform of accreditation tests for translators in China.This thesis was based on the comparison and analysis towards the five domestic and foreign accreditation tests for translators.According to the comparison and analysis,this test could be improved from the following aspects:(1)Translation test items possessed only paragraph or text translation,which should be various;(2)it mainly adopted the error deduction marking scheme so that the test could not be effective enough;(3)testing aspects could be added in terms of translation evaluation,test takers' translation work skills,as well as their responsibilities and professional ethics.In order to verify correlations between different test items in accreditation tests for translators and their effectiveness,the author tried to conduct interviews towards several students from the perspective of test takers and made a questionnaire towards those who have participated in the CATTI Level 3 written translation so as to make a quantitativeanalysis.The results showed that in CATTI written translation,there were not very strong correlations between language proficiency test and translation practice test.Different test items in CATTI were not quite effective to manifest test takers' translation competence and vocational competence.From the above analysis,it aims to provide reference for future reform of accreditation tests for translators.