Back-Translation

A quality assurance method used in survey and instrument translation where a translated version is independently translated back into the original language by a different translator. The back-translated text is then compared with the original to identify meaning losses or distortions introduced during the initial translation. In accessibility research, back-translation is particularly important when adapting standardized instruments like usability questionnaires into sign languages or other modalities, where meaning equivalence rather than word-for-word correspondence is the goal.