GE401: Modern German Language III: Final Year Translation
Application of the 17 point mark scale, with descriptors.
Mark Classification
96
Excellent First
Descriptor
Outstanding work – at a level comparable to staff ‘fair copy’ or better/ publishable.
This will be grammatically accurate, have no omissions and demonstrate excellent mastery of idiom, vocabulary and register.
It will perform the elusive task of both accurately reflecting the original and reading well as a piece of English prose throughout.
89
High First
81
Mid First
Work in this class will be very good to excellent. The work must in most cases make sense and read well in English and be a largely
accurate rendering of the original. There will be no fundamental lapses in accuracy of grammar, meaning and no significant omissions in
any first class work.
At the upper end of this category work will be similar to the category above (96), though may contain a few more lapses in idiom or
register.
74
Low First
Work in the middle and lower categories will display a few more of these lapses. There may be occasional unsuitable choices of
vocabulary.
68
High 2:1
Work in this class will be sound to very good.
65
Mid 2:1
At the upper end of the class, work will be largely accurate in capturing the sense of the original. There may be a few omissions and/ or
lapses in register, idiom and vocabulary.
62
Low 2:1
In the middle and lower sections of the class the above mentioned lapses will be more frequent. There may be instances of
approximation or ‘near misses’
The work must make sense in English, even if inaccurate or incomplete or stylistically compromised as a translation.
58
High 2:2
55
Mid 2:2
52
Low 2:2
Work in this class will be sound and largely make sense in English. However, it is likely that work in this category will miss out on some of
the more nuanced aspects of successful translations; appropriate register, effective use of idioms in English.
At the upper end of this class work will contain many sections that make sense in English and capture the sense of the original, though
there may be several lapses in these areas.
In the middle and lower sections of this class there will be increasingly frequent lapses of accuracy of translation and intelligibility.
48
High 3rd
45
Mid 3rd
42
Low 3rd
38
High Fail (Near
Miss)
25
Fail
12
Low Fail
0
Zero
Texts in this class try to stick too literally to the German, reading as and at times unintelligible English, or read as reasonable English but
are far too inaccurate vis-a-vis the original. They often demonstrate fundamental misapprehensions of the original and/ or significant
omissions. There may be some, though not sustained redeeming evidence of an attempt to work out meaning logically from context.
These texts contain overwhelmingly inaccurate translations and/ or poor English. The renderings imply that the translator struggles to
make any sense of German texts and grammar. There is evidence of a marked failure to work out meaning of individual sentences from
the context of the whole text.
At the bottom end of the class, large sections of the text are likely to be missing also.
Work not submitted or so little work done, that no grade is awarded.