Development of the Albanian translation of the perceived affective qualities in the ISO/TS 12913-2 soundscape standard

Abstract

The Perceived Affective Qualities (PAQs) outlined in the ISO/TS 12913-2:2018 standard have been translated into many languages and are referred to as a global standard to evaluate the acoustic environment in various contexts. There is a growing legislative framework in Albania that addresses noise pollution through Law No. 9774 and Guideline No.8. The aim of this study, which recognizes the increasing trends in acoustic research in Albania, and acknowledges the gap regarding soundscape descriptors has been to develop equivalent versions of the soundscape descriptors defined in ISO/TS 12913-2:2018 by translating the PAQs into the Albanian Language through a model fitting approach. This study, which has followed the Soundscape Attributes Translation Project (SATP) guidelines, has employed a mixed method, that is, both a qualitative investigation and a quantitative evaluation based on specific criteria built upon previous work, have been conducted. In the first phase (1a), eight linguistic experts independently translated eight affective attributes, which were later verified in the second phase (1b) by acoustic experts. After three potential translations had been generated for each of the eight PAQs, a quantitative approach, namely phase (1c), which had been proposed in previous SATP studies, was employed. Thirty-two native Albanian individuals, all of whom were proficient in English, evaluated the translated candidate terms in an online questionnaire, considering such criteria as their Appropriateness, Understandability, Clarity, Antipodal Antonymity, Orthogonal Unbiasedness, Connotativeness, Non-connotativeness, and Implicative Balance. The collected data were then subjected to a series of Kruskall Wallis tests with Bonferroni corrections to determine the final translation for each PAQ. In conclusion, eight Albanian attribute translations have been defined. Despite some limitations, our findings are promising and suggest that the selected attributes are validated inputs to the next steps of the research which involve listening experiments (SATP phase 2).