Translation evaluation in the sense of quality assessment emerges as a central issue in the prolific field of translation research. This thesis analyses the criteria of quality used for translation evaluation, particularly in the case of literary translation in the context of English and French. It starts with a survey of the theoretical terminology on which quality assessment is based, namely source, target, equivalence, faithfulness, and also considers other relevant issues like cultural factors and linguistic norms. The second theory-oriented chapter examines in more detail what exactly is assessed in translation, and studies various models of evaluation in order to elicit all the elements which affect the evaluation procedure, The rest of the thesis analyses in detail the criteria of evaluation of the various parties which play a part in the evaluation of translations: publishers, reviewers, academics, translators, and authors. Chapter three considers the priorities of commissioners, particularly publishers of foreign literature. Chapter four is the result of the corpus study of about three hundred book-review articles from the British and French press. Chapter five concentrates on the special case of retranslation and the impact that this phenomenon has on quality assessment. Chapter six adopts an educational approach, and examines the place that translation is given in Moderi. Language Degree examinations in a variety of countries. It then compares different courses available for professional translator training, and considers their assessment procedures. The last chapter is a reflection on how translators see their work as professionals, which leads to the issue of author/translator cooperation. These chapters have, at least, one element in common: they all reveal the criteria of evaluation used for translations. In some cases, the criteria are explicit; in others, presuppositions and prejudices need to be elicited from the material. What this project shows in the end is that evaluating translations is a complex procedure, in which many factors come into play and for which there are conflicts of interest between the different parties concerned. In order to conduct a more comprehensive assessment, it is therefore necessary to consider the 'forces' which come into contact in this communicative exercise.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:604576 |
| Date | January 1995 |
| Creators | Vanderschelden, Isabelle |
| Publisher | University of Manchester |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
Page generated in 0.0112 seconds