Survey Methodology #2003-17 - The American Community Survey (Acs) En Espanol: Using Cognitive Interviews To Test The Functional Equivalency Of Questionnaire Translations - U.s. Bureau Of The Census Page 22
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52respondent is the subject or proxy, and 2) the subject’s sex. In Spanish, the same fill would need
to be based on the noun’s number. This would require identifying a different set of variables to
determine what the screen should display. Otherwise, the English logic would display Spanish
fills that are nonsensical, or fills in English. The latter situation causes English words to appear
embedded within Spanish text, making the Spanish instrument difficult to read. In cases where
multiple fills exist, inadequately defined fills result in long strings of English words embedded
within Spanish text, making it difficult to read and understand questions. This contributes to
interviewers having to constantly toggle between the Spanish and English instruments, which in
turn discourages interviewers from using Spanish instruments and encourages them to translate
on the fly.
Another linguistic aspect that becomes relevant, in terms of English-Spanish bilingual
instruments, is one of these two languages may require fills where the other one does not. For
example, the fill for helping verbs (do, does, did) is prevalent in the English instrument. These
helping verbs, however, are not needed in the Spanish instrument. The Spanish instrument, on
the other hand, will require fills to display gender agreement, whereas the English language does
not need this type of fill.
Although these problems have been reported, identified and
documented, there appears to be no clear sense of who might be ultimately responsible for
language issues in an automated questionnaire. Should the translator become familiar with
specifying logic? Should the translator work with a programmer or should the programmer be
bilingual?
Answers to these questions will need to be addressed as use of multilingual
questionnaires and automated instruments increase.
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