Evaluating the Evaluator

Contents

Introduction

The quality of translation: different approaches

Juliane House

Malcolm Williams

Heidrun Gerzymisch-Arbogast and Klaus Mudersbach

Ernst-August Gutt

Other approaches to translation quality

Approaches to translation quality in the twentieth century

Approaches to translation quality in the twenty-first century

Preliminary assumptions

Defining translation quality and translation quality assessment

Some thoughts on measuring quality

Some thoughts on achieving good quality

Revisiting overt and covert translation

Refining the concept of overt/covert translation: overview

Refining the concept of overt/covert translation: detailed discussion

The problem of subjective evaluation

The problem of subjectivity from a philosophical point of view

The process of translation quality assessment

The problem of subjectivity from a translation studies point of view

How to curb the subjective in translation quality assessment

Towards evaluating the evaluator

Some views on how to evaluate translations

The evaluation of commented translations

Quality factors of translation

The "translator's daffodil"

Underlying assumptions

Factor categories

Source text

Language pairs in translation and source text analysis (Nord)

Sender and sender's intention

Audience and medium

Place and time of communication

Motive for communication and text function

Source text defects

Summary of source text factors

Text form

Intratextual factors

Subject matter and content

Text composition and non-verbal elements

Lexis, syntax, and suprasegmental features

Selected text types

Poetry, drama, and comics

Audiovisual translation

Summary of text form factors

Client

Client roles

Deadlines

Glossaries

Stipulations and specifications

Motivation

Summary of client factors

Translator

Overview and translation tools

Translation competence

Qualification and motivation

Summary of translator factors

Culture

The relativity of culture

Cultural norms

Translation in different cultures at different times in history

Borderline cases: unlikely successes and EU translations

Summary of culture factors

Politics

Power relations

Censorship

More power issues

Politics and the evaluation of translation quality

Summary of politics factors

The principle of argumentation

The need for an argumentative translation quality assessment

The need for translation theory

The need for argumentation in translation

Summary - the need for an argumentative translation quality assessment

Translation decisions

Decision-making and translation

Defining the translation strategy

Summary of the decision-making process in translation

The argumentation process

A theory of dialectical structures

Dialectical structures in translation quality assessment

Examples of argumentation

Criticising the translation of a young adult novel

Criticising the translation of a survey

Evaluating the evaluator

The corpus: examiners' reports of commented translations

Methodology

Looking at formal characteristics

Looking at aspects of translation quality assessment

Source and target

Errors and achievements

Evidence and arguments

Summary of methodological issues

Results

Formal characteristics

Aspects of translation quality assessment

Source and target

Errors and achievements

Evidence and arguments

Summary of results

Conclusion