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8 - Developing Computerised Health Translation Readability Evaluation Tools

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2019

By
Meng Ji  and
Zhaoming Gao
Edited by
Meng Ji  and
Michael Oakes
Meng Ji
Affiliation:
University of Sydney
Michael Oakes
Affiliation:
University of Wolverhampton
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Summary

Health translation readability assessment represents an important yet largely underexplored research area in translation studies. This chapter introduces an integrated analytical system developed for the computer-aided assessment of the readability of Chinese health translations. The system comprises two components which are a computerised Chinese text lexical profile analyser; and a data-driven statistical instrument that can be used to diagnose and label the readability level of Chinese translations and non-translated health education materials. The online Chinese lexical profile analyser was informed by recent research in corpus linguistics and Chinese educational literacy. It includes thirty-nine individual and compound lexical features to enable in-depth and systematic analyses of the lexical complexity and textual coherence of Chinese health education and promotion materials. The statistical instrument was developed using a large Australian Chinese Health Translation Corpus. The statistical instrument built contains two measurement scales which are related to the information load and the lexical technicality as two important indicators of the readability of Chinese health education resources. The study demonstrated the viability and effectiveness of developing digital analytical tools and instruments for the objective assessment of the readability of health materials, especially health translations which hold the key to the success and sustainability of health promotion and communication in multicultural societies with diverse population groups.

Keywords

Chinese health translationreadabilityinformation loadlexical technicalityfactor analysis
Type
Chapter
Information
Advances in Empirical Translation Studies
Developing Translation Resources and Technologies
 , pp. 145 - 163
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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