Translation Procedures

Members of the ESS Translation Team are carrying out translation-related research in the following fields:

• Adaptation versus ‘Ask-the-Same-Question’ (ASQ): which level of ‘closeness’ or ‘freedom/adaptation’ in questionnaire translation should be accepted or is advisable? (mainly carried out in the context of the SERISS cluster project).
• Usability of the Translation Management Tool (TMT), initially developed for SHARE, for the ESS translation processes (mainly carried out in the context of the SERISS cluster project).
• ‘Advance translations’ have been carried out systematically since ESS Round 5 to make the source questionnaire easier to translate. The usefulness of this method is currently being studied in a series of Think-Aloud Tests.
• Investigating the usefulness of linking the field of computational linguistics to questionnaire translation (mainly carried out in the context of the SERISS cluster project).