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TEXT-BASED APPROACHES TO J.

House
EVALUATING TRANSLATIONS
1. Literature-oriented Approaches: Descriptive Translation Studies
2. Post-Modernist and Deconstructionist Approaches
3. Functionalistic and Action and Reception-theory Related Approaches
4. Linguistically-oriented Approaches
LITERATURE-ORIENTED APPROACHES: DESCRIPTIVE
TRANSLATION STUDIES

This "target-oriented" approach, draws on comparative literature


The quality of a translation is assessed according to the function of the translation in
the system of the target culture literature. Within so-called" descriptive translation
studies" researchers look upon literary translations as part of the "polysystem" of the
target culture literature ("Polysystem Theory").
Toury (1985: 20) proclaimed that" a 'translation' will be taken to be any target-
language utterance which is presented or regarded as such within the target culture,
on whatever grounds".
The source text is of little importance in this approach.
The hypothesis that "translations are a fact of one system only", namely the literary
system of the target culture, is a clear blue-print for how the issue of translation
quality assessment IS to be tackled:
First the translated text is criticized without reference to the .source text, then specific
solutions of translation problems are analysed (micro-analytically) by means of the
"mediating functional-relational notion of translation equivalence.
Researchers working in this paradigm are concerned with literary translators typical
behavior patterns and the types of innovative influences on the target. culture literary
system which translations can and do exert.
Not all scholars belonging to the descriptive translation studies paradigmplay down
the importance of the source text.
Thus van den Broeck who manages to combine text-linguistic and discourse analytic
work with literary concerns, offers what he calls a "model of translation criticism and
review, in which he sketches operations necessary in translation evaluation, among
them the comparative analysis of the source text and the translation text, taking
account of the relations between the source text and the system of similar and/or
other texts originating from the same linguaculture, between the target text and its
readers, and between the target text and other translations of the same source text.
In Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond, Toury (1995) makes a renewed case for
descriptive and historically oriented translation studies.
Toury reiterates his retrospective focus from the translation to the original, and his
main orientation is still towards "actual translations and the textual phenomena that
have come to be known in the target linguaculture as translations.
He also confirms his belief in the value of detailed descriptions of translations.
His historical-empirical concept of equivalence is not a single relationship but "any
relation which is found to have characterized translation under a specified set of
circumstances and it is norms which are responsible for the way this equivalence is
realized.
As Toury himself states, his view of translation equivalence is "not one target-source
relationship at all, establishable on the basis of a particular invariant, rather it is a
functional-relational concept, namely that set of relationships which will have been
found to distinguish appropriate from inappropriate modes of translation
performance for the culture in question.
The strength of Toury's approach is its emphasis on solid empirical work, frequently in
the form of detailed case study analyses, and its insistence on contextualization both
at the level of the reception situation and the receiving culture at large. The fact that
descriptive translation scholars' focus on contextualization includes both a
"longitudinal" (temporal) and a systemic perspective (paying attention to the relations
a translated text has with other texts in the relevant target system), clearly adds to
the explanatory adequacy of this approach.
The major problem with taking this approach as a basis for translation quality
assessment is as follows:
lack of delimitation of the object of study, or
on which criteria are we to legitimately say that one text is a translation, another one
not; and
what exactly are the criteria for judging the merits and weaknesses of a given
"translation"?
POST-MODERNIST AND DECONSTRUCTIONIST
APPROACHES
Translation theorists who belong to these approaches (e.g., Graham, 1985; de Man, 1986;
Benjamin, 1989; Derrida, 1985, 1992; Venuti, 1992, 1995; Gentzler, 1993) attempt to
critically re-think translation from a philosophical and sociological vantage point.
They undertake to unmask the unequal power relations that are reflected in the translation
directions from and into English, and the promotion of further English language hegemony
through one-sided translations from English and an ever decreasing number of foreign texts
being translated into English.
They also try to make the translator's activity "more visible, attempting to show the real power
translators have in shaping national literatures and influencing literary canons, revealing the
hidden process of selecting texts for translation, and the reasons for, and effect of, certain
strategies of translation.
They also critically examine both translation theories and individual translation acts pointing to
their "cannibalistic" and "imperialistic nature.
THE METAPHOR OF "CANNIBALISM"

In their view, translating means devouring the original, cannibalizing, absorbing and
transtextualizing it. Cannibalism is understood as a a break with monological truth as
well as a form of nourishment. The original is "eaten up", and the boundaries and
hierarchies between original and translation vanish.
Cannibalistic philosophy relativizes the traditional concept of translation as mimetic
representation of the original, and the concept of an "original" is relativised, as are
the notions of hierarchy and power.
Translation is seen as a dialogue not only with the original but with other texts as
well: translation is "transtextualisation" with the translator, vampirelike, taking in the
original text as his nourishment. The translator thus loses his underdog, self-effacing
role acquiring a more important voice as "transtextualizer".
Post-structuralist thinkers have variously taken up and reconsidered Walter Benajmin's
famous essay "Die Aufgabe des Ubersetzers" one of the texts I chose for my
exemplary analyses in Chapter 5 as a quintessentially modernist attempt to
formulate a theory of translation. Trying to rethink the dichotomy "original" versus
"translation", Derrida (1985) for instance argues that the important point about the
fact that a text is "an original" is that it is found to be worthy and valuable enough to
be translated, that it is allowed to acquire what Walter Benjamin has called "ein
Uberleben" in its translation. It is from this function of providing an "afterlife" that a
translation gains its true value.
In post-structural thinking we can thus discover an attempt at an integrative view: "The
translation will truly be a moment in the growth of the original, which will complete
itself in enlarging itself... And if the original calls for a complement, it is because at
the origin it was not there without fault, full, complete, total, identical to itself."
(Derrida, 1992: 188).
Neither original nor translation form a coherent semantic unity, they are made up of
different, pluralistic meanings always going beyond the original author's intention.
And even the notion "original author" is deconstructed, e.g., by Foucault (1977), who
conceives of the author not as an actual individual, but as a series of subjective
positions, determined not by a single harmony of effects, but by gaps and
discontinuities.
Venuti pleads for making translation visible by seeing it as a reconstitution of another text
mediated by linguistic, discoursal and ideological differences of the target linguaculture, and
he claims that these differences can be made transparent by two kinds of close analysis:
1. "comparisons of the source- and target-language texts which explore the ratio of loss and
gain between them and reveal the translator's discursive strategy as well as any
unforeseen effects, and
2. Examinations of discontinuities in the translation itself, the heterogenous textual work of
assimilating target-language cultural materials that are intended to reproduce the source-
language text, but that inevitably supplement it.
The analysis of translation can also include its ideological and institutional determinations,
resulting in detailed studies that situate the translated text in its social and historical
circumstances and consider its cultural political role".
Similarly, Gentzler (1993) pleads for an explicit comparison of original and
translation such that "shifts" from the original can be revealed in the analysis. Such an
analysis should give access to unconscious manipulations resulting in mistranslation.
The agenda suggested consists of an" elaboration of the theoretical, critical, and
textual means by which translations can be studied and practiced as a locus of
difference.
Critical theorists of translation, who are mainly concerned with what I have called texts
that call for an overt translation, examine the reasons for the elevated status of the
original text, the "invisibility" of translation and the fact that translation ranks lowest
on the hierarchy of cultural practices: "The "original" is eternal, the translation dates.
The "original" is an unchanging monument of the human imagination ... transcending
the linguistic, cultural, and social changes of which the translation is a determinate
effect."
This is most clearly diagnosed by a practising translator: "the choices made in translation are
never as secure as those made by the author because we are not writing our own material"
(Rabassa 1989: 7).
The originality of the translation rather lies in its self-effacement, and when a translation reads
fluently, when it gives the appearance that it is not translated, it is rated best. This "fluent
strategy" designed to efface the translator's "intervention with the foreign text" has been
described by myself as "covert translation strategy" where a translation is not recognized as
one, a strategy singularly inappropriate for texts calling, in my terms, for an overt translation,
i.e., one openly and unashamedly recognizable as a translation. In critical theory this very
process is revealed as resulting in the translator's self-annihilation and marginality.
Venuti rightly points out "a fluent strategy effaces the linguistic and cultural difference of the
foreign text; this gets rewritten in the transparent discourse dominating the target-language
culture
FUNCTIONALISTIC AND ACTION AND
RECEPTION-THEORY RELATED APPROACHES
In their functionalistic or "Skopos-theory" of translation, Reiss and Vermeer (1984)
claim that it is the "skopos", i.e., the purpose of a translation, which is overridingly
important. Given the primacy of the purpose of a translation, it is the way target
culture norms are heeded that is the most important yardstick for assessing the quality
of a translation.
"Der Zweck (der Translationshancflung) heiligt die Mittel" is Reiss and Vermeer's
admitted credo, and a translation counts as a "felicitous interaction" whenever it is
interpreted by a recipient to be sufficiently coherent with his situation and no fault is
found with transfer, language and intended meaning" (p. 112).
Translation is rather mysteriously seen as "gesamtmenschliches Handeln" which, as a
special case of transfer, also provides for the possibility of converting linguistic action
into "aktionales Handeln", and vice versa (p. 91).
Of more relevance for my discussion here is the failure of the authors to spell out
exactly how one is to determine whether a given translation is either adequate or
equivalent let alone how to linguistically realize the global "skopos" of a translation
text.
Further, given the crucial role assigned to the purpose of a translation, the source text
assumes a minor, secondary importance it is reduced to a simple
"Informationsangebot" i.e., an "offer of information", with the word "offer" implying
of course that it can be accepted or rejected, or changed and "improved upon" as
the translator sees fit.
Operating in the same functionalist paradigm, Holz-Marir6ri (1984) entertains an
equally cavalierly notion of a translation. She states, for instance, that it is of
secondary importance what exactly one means by a "translation" (p. 78).
Kussmaul (1995) situates himself within "a functional approach" stating that it has a
great affinity with the Reiss/Vermeer approach, and in particular with their insistence
that the function of a translation depends on the target readers and their cultural
environment. Kussmauls concept of 'function" is, however, difficult to grasp, i.e., he
seems to confuse the notions of illocution, function of a passage and function of an
entire text, and fails to distinguish between micro- and macro-textual analytical levels
and to precisely define what "function" is.
According to Reiss and Vermeer (1984), it is the translator who decides which function
he selects for his translation and his route of translation, he is given an important new
role of "co-author" (Vermeer, 1994: 13). The notion of function, critical in their theory,
is not clear to me at all. I can only hypothesize that they consider it to be the real-
world effect of a text.
In Reiss/Vermeer's Skopos theory, then, the translator is elevated to a much more
important position than he is normally credited with a fact that, as Wilss (1995)
remarked may indeed be one of the motivations for setting up Skopos-theory. I
would agree that one of the plausible reasons for legitimizing manipulations of the
source text is an attempt to lift the translator up from his "invisibleness", and that the
sub-text in all the target text/target culture- and response-centered approaches to
translation may well "up-grade the status of the translator".
As for the task of translation quality assessment, Honig associates himself closely with
the response-oriented approach to translation quality assessment: "Ubersetzungskritik,
die diesen Namen such verdicnt, sollte immer klar diagnostizieren, welche Wirkung
der iibersetzte Text in seinen) Umfeld und fur seine kezipienten hat" (1995: 123). As
pointed out above (p.,,4), it is an empirically open question whether it is in fact
possible to "diagnose" precisely the effect a text has in any valid and reliable
manner, given the fact that many texts are multiply, ambiguously, and indeed vaguely
addressed.
The functionalistic approach as proposed by Reiss and Vermeer and others cannot, in
my estimation, be said to belong to linguistics which is regarded as an empirical
science. Given the functionalists' concern with the target culture, the theory might be
classified as part of cultural studies. Since its propagators believe that the original is a
quantite negligable and emphasize the translation's total dependency on its purpose
and its recipients, it is in fact very similar to the response-oriented approaches to
assessing translation quality.
The functionalistic approach is not concerned about the relationship between original
and translation, nor is it concerned with establishing criteria for delimiting a translation
from other textual operations. As it stands, functionalistic approaches are solely
concerned with the relationship between (features of) texts and the human agents
concerned with them.
LINGUISTICALLY-ORIENTED APPROACHES

In these approaches the source text, its linguistic and textual structure and its meaning
potential at various levels (including the level of context of situation in a systemic
framework), is seen as the most important, indeed constitutive factor in translation.
To equate linguistic-textual approachesas has been done (implicitly or explicitly)
by Honig and Kussmaul (1982), Snell-Hornby (1986), Kupsch-Losereit (1988) and
others with a narrow concept of traditional or structural syntax and semantics, is
inappropriate.
As Koller (1995) has explicated, one may, of course, find "narrow" linguistic
approaches (Koller refers to Klein 1992) that focus on only one aspect of translation,
e.g., the semantic one, but there are many others that do not fit this description
Linguistic-textual approaches cover many different schools, the most promising for the
development of models of translation assessment being those that encompass
pragmatic, socio-cultural and discoursal meanings. That it is possible to firmly base
one's approach to translation on a linguistic model which includes textual, situational
and cultural aspects of translation.
An early and highly influential linguistic-textual approach is Reiss (1971).
Reiss suggested that the most important invariant in translation is the text type to which
the source text belongs, as it determines all subsequent choices a translator has to
make. She claims that different types of texts can be differentiated on the basis of
Buhler's three functions of language: content-oriented texts, e.g., news, scientific-
technical texts, form-oriented texts, such as poems and literary genres, and conative
texts, e.g. advertisements and texts of a persuasive bent. To cover translations of texts
involving other media than print, Reiss suggested a fourth additional type: subsidiary
or audio-medial texts, e.g., operas, radio plays etc., for which different rules of
translation apply, if translation adequacy is to be reached.
According to Reiss, it is these textual types which have to be kept equivalent in an
adequate translation:
in the case of content-oriented texts, invariance on the content-plane is the primary
consideration;
in the case of form-oriented texts, invariance on the content-plane as well as on the
expression-plane is to be established to the greatest possible extent;
and in the case of conative texts, the "effect" of the source text is to be upheld in the
translation text above all other features.
An adequate translation of subsidiary texts must keep the adaptation of the "text"
proper to such extralinguistic components as musical rhythm etc. invariant.
Koller (1972) pointed to the necessity of developing a comprehensive linguistic model
for translation quality assessment. Such a model should consist of three main stages:
(1) source text criticism with a view to transferability into the target language, (2)
translation comparison in which the particular methods used in the production of a
given translation are described, (3) evaluation of the translation not according to
vague, general criteria such as "faithful" or "highly intelligible" but according to
"adequate" or "not adequate" in terms of the text-specific features established in (1)
and measured by native speakers' meta-linguistic judgments. Although presenting
insightful, original and stimulating ideas, Koller does not go beyond a very general
outline with no suggestions for operationalization.
Wilss (1974; 1977) also stresses the necessity of building a consistent model
featuring criteria both for the detailed description and interpretation of the source
text and for the evaluation of the "dependent" translation text. He suggests that the
area of the "norm of usage" in a given language community with reference to a
given situational context should be taken as a yardstick. It is the norm of usage which,
according to Wilss, as part of any native speaker's competence, accounts for a.
speaker's ability to make metalinguistic judgments. Therefore a translation may be
judged according to whether or not it is adequate vis-a-vis the "normal" standard
usage of native speakers in a given situation. However, there will always be several
variants which are legitimately possible within the norm of usage and which depend
on the individual's creative choice.
Another classic linguistic-textual contribution to translation evaluation is the work by
the Leipzig school (Otto Kade, Gert Jager, Albrecht Neubert) who expressly
considered their work on translation as part of linguistics. "Translationslinguistik"
investigated translational processes as essentially linguistic processes with analyses of
translations focussing on linguistic mechanisms of transfer.
Especially relevant for translation quality assessment is Neubert's (see e.g., 1985)
textual and pragmalinguistic approach, and in particular his work on the
"directedness" of source texts that determine potential equivalence frameworks and
set up pragmatic translation types and translation procedures. Early on, Neubert
stressed the textual and pragmatic nature of translation (see Neubert 1968) and the
obvious relevance of text linguistics for translation.
Neubert claims that "communicative values are the proper objects of translation."
(1994: 19), adding "the often-heard dictum that we translate meanings blurs the fact
that it is only communicative values that can be equivalent. Meanings as well as
language systems cannot be translated, Equivalence turns out to be a textual
phenomenon. It is a relation between texts, source texts and target texts. Textual
equivalence, again, is the basis of the equivalence at lower-level units such as partial
texts, sentences, phrases, and words.
House also set up a linguistically oriented model (1977) that aimed at providing a
detailed description and explanation of whether and how a translation is equivalent
to its source.
Noteworthy in the context of a linguistic textual approach to translation is also Peter
Newmark's (e.g., 1981; 1988) applications of linguistic models (e.g., componential
analysis, and case grammmar) to the analysis of translations.
Newmark has always spoken against the conception of translation as solely a
"science" maintaining that the translation process is also a "basic artistic process ...
requiring the translator's taste, wit and elegance" (1981: 137). Consequently he has
refrained from setting up a consistent model of translation quality assessment. In his
writings on "quality in translation" he strongly emphasizes the fact that "ultimately
standards are relative, however much one tries to base them on criteria other than
norms...
Newmark is thus close to the hermeneutic approach to translation evaluation in that
he gives priority to the relationship between (features of) the texts and human beings.
In the nineties, four linguistically-oriented books on translation appeared in Britain:
Hatim and Mason (1990), Bell (1991), Gutt (1991) and Baker (1992).
Baker (1992) and Hatim and Mason (1990) recognize that any theory of translation
and translation assessment must concern itself with how meaning is generated within
and between different groups of people in different cultures. They emphasize the
fact that translators whose raw material is language must not only have an expert
knowledge of the two languages in which they are operating, but also about what
these languages can do, how they do it and how they do it for their speakers.
Hatim and Mason (1990) give a broad overview of the field of "translation and
translating" describing the relevance of linguistics in general as well as sub-fields such
as register and discourse analysis, text linguistics as well pragmatics and semiotics.
Hatim and Mason (1990) go beyond register analysis on the grounds that the insights
which register analysis affords into the communicative dimension of context are
insufficient. They distinguish an additional "pragmatic dimension" with which to take
account of the textmakers's ability to "do things with words", capturing phenomena
such as speech act sequences, inference, implicature, presupposition, the cooperative
principle. Hatim and Mason also distinguish another dimension with which to
supplement register analysis, which they refer to as "semiotic" i.e., treating
communicative items as signs inside a system of signs, including considerations of
genre, discourse and textuality.
Gutt (1991) presents a "relevance-theoretic approach" to translation. In line with this
approach, he stresses the point that meaning is far from being determinable in
advance of the actual performance of an utterance, but depends on the addressee's
interaction with various contextual factors by means of his ability to make inferences.
Context in this theory is bound to the addressee's assumptions about the world, which
he uses to interpret the utterance. Interpretation is achieved on the basis of the
relevance of a given assumption, which can be roughly described as the likelihood
that adequate contextual effects are achieved with minimum processing efforts.
TWO RECENT LINGUISTICALLY ORIENTED APPROACHES WHICH CONSTITUTE
SERIOUS ATTEMPTS TO OBJECTIFY TRANSLATION QUALITY ASSESSMENT ARE
GERZYMISCH-ARBOGASR (1994) AND STEINER (1995).

Steiner applies register analysis to the evaluation of translations, and considers the
register of a text as the functional variety the text represents, linking up its main
variables of field, tenor, and mode with the context of situation, and beyond this the
context of culture. Steiner assumes that, in as much as translation is considered to be a
phenomenon different from other forms of multilingual text production, the register
will remain relatively constant across original and translation, and that, the more
certain register values have changed in a translated text, the more the translation will
no longer be a translation in the narrower sense.
Gerzymisch-Arbogast (1994) presents a more intersubjectively verifiable method for
translation evaluation.
In describing the translational process, Gerzymisch-Arbogast considers the tension in
any translation between micro-structural decisions (such as e.g., theme-rheme
sequences, reference relations) and macro-structural ones (e.g., textual type). Basing
her work on Mudersbach's (e.g., 1992) theoretical and methodological studies and
especially his attempt to specify invariance aspects, she develops a methodology in
which she tries to unite both the holistic textual perspective and the detailed micro
perspective. A list of different "aspects" is used according to which both original and
translation are analysed and evaluated.
TRANSLATION QUALITY ASSESSMENT AND TRANSLATION
EQUIVALENCE

The fundamental characteristic of a translation is that it is a text that is doubly bound:


on the one hand to its source text and on the other hand to the recipient's
communicative conditions. This double-binding nature is the basis of what has been
called in many linguistic-textual approaches the equivalence relation. in other words,
the equivalence relation equals the relation between a source text and its translation
text.
INVARIANCE VS. EQUIVALENCE
I want to first clarify the relationship between "equivalence" and "invariance". I here
follow Albrecht (1987; 1990): Invariance in translation captures that which is the
tertium comparationis in translation. The concept of invariance is not an absolute one,
but must be decided in each and every individual case by the goal, the purpose of
the translation. Certain demands of invariance are (externally) set up for a
translation, and when these demands are fulfilled, the translation is "equivalent".
Equivalence is therefore always and necessarily relative, and has nothing to do with
identity.
KOLLERS FRAMES OF REFERENCE FOR
EQUIVALENCE
the extralinguistic referents to which the text relates. The concept of equivalence, which orients
itself to the extralinguistic referents is called "denotative equivalence".
the connotations conveyed through the specific means of the verbalisations present in the text.
The equivalence relation constituted here is called "connotative equivalence.
The linguistic and textual norms of usage ("Gebrauchsnormen") that characterize a particular
text. Koller calls this type of equivalence that relates to certain text types "text normative
equivalence".
The recipient (the reader) of the translation, for whom the translation is "specially designed",
such that it can fulfill its communicative function. This type of equivalence that relates to the
addressee is called "pragmatic equivalence".
Certain aesthetic, formal and idiosyncratic characteristics of the source text. The concept of
equivalence that relates to these characteristics of the source text is called "formal-aesthetic
equivalence".
Thanks for your patience

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