China Accreditation Test for Translators and Interpreters (CATTI): Test review based on the language pairing of English and Chinese

Abstract

Test purpose: The CATTI aims to measure competence in translation and interpreting (including simultaneous and consecutive interpreting 2 ) between Chinese and seven foreign languages: English, Japanese, French, Arabic, Russian, German, or Spanish. The test is intended to cover a wide range of domains including business, government, academia, and media, though it is not designed to assess literary translation.Length and administration: The CATTI test battery is divided into four levels of Senior, I, II, and III, from highest to lowest. The total test time for translation proficiency is 120 minutes; for interpreting proficiency, 60 minutes; for translation practice, 180 minutes; for interpreting practice at Levels I and II, 60 minutes; and for interpreting practice at Level III, 30 minutes. There is no translation or interpreting practice at the Senior level. The CATTI is administered by China Foreign Languages Publishing Administration (CFLPA) under the guidance of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security of the People's Republic of China. CATTI English translation Levels II and III were the first to be piloted in December 2003. Since 2011, all levels have been implemented. The test is presently administered twice annually, in May and November. Test takers can choose to take either the translation or interpreting parts, or both. During the test, candidates are allowed to bring one English-Chinese and one Chinese-English paper dictionary, but the use of electronically assisted devices is not allowed.

Critical Analysis of Translation Tests in 18 Specialized Translation Courses for Undergraduate Students

“…Findings of the present study indicated that the specialized translation exams currently used at COLT have many shortcomings and they do not meet the criteria of a good test in terms of reliability, validity, discrimination power, authenticity, variability, and other test features mentioned by prior researchers such as [4]; [12]; [19]; [7]; [13]; [14]; [6]; [16]; [15]; [2]; [5]; [1]; [17]; [18]; [20]; [21]; [3].…”

“…A second line of research focused on criteria that have to be taken into consideration in translation assessment. Those criteria included: (i) employing a psychometrically based approach to the development of translation tests [2]; (ii) the source texts should be authentic, self-contained, comprehensible, and not previously covered [5]; (iii) authenticity of the translation task (Wu and Stansfield, 2001) [6]; (iv) specifying the types of knowledge required in text comprehension and translation which include linguistic, encyclopaedic, interactive, metacommunicative, and global textual knowledge [1]; (v) reliability, validity, practicality, and fairness of the translation test [4]; [12], [13]; [14]; [15]; [16]; [17]; [7]; [18], construct, criterion-related and concurrent validity [19]; [12]; [20]; (vi) objectivity and scorability [20]; (vii) accuracy of translation tests as competence evaluation rather than source/target text comparisons [21]; and (viii) allowing the students to bring two bilingual paper dictionaries, but no electronic devices [3].…”

Attention-Sharing Initiative of Multimodal Processing in Simultaneous Interpreting

“…All of the participants have acquired level two Certificate of China Accreditation Test for Translators and Interpreters (CATTI), three of them acquired level one Certificate. CATTI is the most authoritative interpreting proficiency qualification accreditation test, level two certificate holders are assumed with the capability of interpreting political speeches (Chen, 2009;Zhao & Gu, 2016). No one among them had been to East Africa or interpreted speeches from an East African speaker.…”

Interpreting testing and assessment: A state-of-the-art review

“…However, one area of oral communication—spoken-language interpreting—seems to have drawn far less attention from language testers than it rightfully deserves, given that interpreting, in and of itself, is language-mediated communication. A review of the two prominent language testing journals, Language Testing (1984–2020) and Language Assessment Quarterly (2004–2020), produced only four publications that center on spoken-language interpreting (i.e., Han, 2016, 2019; Stansfield & Hewitt, 2005; Zhao & Gu, 2016) or what is known as interpreting testing and assessment (hereafter ITA). The lack of testers’ attention to (oral) interpreting stands in sharp contrast to its counterpart of written translation, which has long been practiced as a pedagogical exercise in L2 teaching (e.g., grammar translation method), studied by early language testing researchers (e.g., Lado, 1961), and which has recently reinvigorated interest among L2 educators and applied linguists (e.g., Cook, 2010).…”