Dastyar, Vorya (2019). Dictionary of Education and Assessment in Translation and Interpreting Studies (TIS). Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 320, 64.99 €. ISBN 978 1527521483.

Addressed at a wide readership within Translation and Interpreting Studies, the Dictionary of Education and Assessment in Translation and Interpreting Studies (TIS) sets out a particularly ambitious aim: “to offer an in-depth, comprehensive coverage of key terms and topics with regard to training, educating, and assessing translators and interpreters in academic settings” (xi). It is authored by Vorya Dastyar, a certified translator and interpreter. Among his publications are three other dictionaries, namely: Dictionary of Interpreting Studies (2016), Dictionary of Research Methodologies in Translation and Interpreting Studies (2017a), and Dictionary of Metaphors in Translation and Interpreting Studies (2017b).

The Dictionary of Education and Assessment in TIS is not the first dictionary of Translation Studies or the first dictionary dedicated to translation education. Previous dictionaries set out to produce a general survey of “some of the issues, insights and debates in Translation Studies” (Shuttleworth and Cowie 1997: ix); define and contextualize the ‘useful’ concepts connected to translator training (Delisle et al. 1999: 1-5); and survey the “key concepts of the discipline” (Palumbo 2009: 3). Together with the dictionary under review, these academic materials are positive signals of the need to organize and structure the knowledge of a developing field, but that is not all. “[S]uch tools are not only the manifestations of the dynamics of a branch,” van Doorslaer (2016) argues, “but also materialize and realize the institutionalization of a discipline”. In other words, “academic tools” such as these point to a “maturing” field (van Doorslaer 2016).

Adopting an interdisciplinary approach, the dictionaryoffers a brief and general definition of each term from the field where it was first developed, followed by an introduction to how the terms are used within TIS.

Although extensive research was carried out as part of the development of this dictionary, some entries suffer from a lack of clarity. In the entry on computer-assisted translation (CAT) tools, for instance, CAT tools are equated to “general-purpose applications”, one example given being e-mail (46). This generalization of CAT tools to mean all software used during translation practice is open to challenge. “[T]his term is typically reserved for software designed specifically with the translation task proper in mind,” Bowker and Fisher (2010: 60) importantly point out, “rather than tools intended for general applications (e.g., word processors, spelling checkers, e-mail).”

In addition, Dastyar adds that CAT tools have been “designed not to replace human translators, but to facilitate translators’ taking control of the translation process” (46). Even though I personally see the value of this viewpoint, it is one-sided, since there is literature documenting the contribution of translation technology to an increase in dehumanization and a general loss of control in translation (see, for instance, Pym 2002; Christensen and Schjoldager 2011). It is also surprising that an entry on machine translation was not considered or a more general entry on translation technologies, including subsections on computer-aided translation tools, machine translation tools, corpus-based tools, audiovisual translation tools and revision and quality control tools. On a minor note, the volume presents a number of linguistic and orthographic problems. The inclusion of an index could also have been extremely helpful for the reader.

Overall, translation and interpreting researchers, trainers and assessors, undergraduate and graduate students and translators will find this dictionary a valuable source of current topics on education, training and assessment. With 116 entries containing cross-references and in-text references, and an up-to-date and extensive bibliography with more than 1600 references, including publications in other languages than English, this reference volume is a relevant contribution to the field.

References

Susana Valdez
Leiden University Centre for Linguistics, Leiden University
E-mail: s.santos.angelo.salgado.valdez@hum.leidenuniv.nl