Back translation is an analytical technique used to examine how meaning changes as a text moves between languages. It involves translating a text from a source language (A) into a target language (B), and then translating it back into the source language (A) by an independent translator who has no access to the original.

Within the EBBS framework, back translation is not treated as a test of textual accuracy, truth, or authority. Instead, it functions as a diagnostic lens that helps identify semantic shifts, interpretive expansions, losses of nuance, and areas of ambiguity that emerge during textual transmission. Back translation is therefore used to assess translational stability and semantic density, revealing where meaning is robust and where it becomes unstable, contested, or context-dependent.

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