Reflections On J.House's Model For Translation Quality Assessment

Translation quality assessment is a significant branch of translation studies, and with the advance of translation activities, translation quality has always been discussed, evaluated and criticized. However, compared with studies of other aspects such as translation theory and translation history, it is always in a less favorable position. This paper intends to reflect on J. House's model of assessing translation quality through a careful study of the model and its feasibility in practical translation quality evaluations. Some assumptions for further refinement will be made at the end of the thesis, so that House's model can be more perfect and hence play its role better in serving for translation quality assessment.J. House is a contemporary translation scholar, linguist and one of the out-runners of systematic translation evaluation. Her greatest contribution to translation studies must be the construction of such a model for assessing translation quality, which is the first attempt of this kind in the circle of translation criticism. The model, by drawing on the Hallidayan systematic and functional grammar, discourse analysis and pragmatic theory, provides for the analysis of linguistic-situational particularities of source and target texts, a comparison of the two texts and the resultant assessment of their relative match. It overrides other approaches at that time because of its detailed assessing procedures, comprehensive reviews and objective criticisms as well.Nonetheless, there are some difficulties in its application to real translation evaluations. A literature review of criticisms toward House's model for translation quality assessment made in China and in the west reflects that the model is by no means impeccable. By integrating and further enriching comments made by other scholars, as well as by closely analyzing the model and its applications, the author concludes four major aspects of defects. Firstly, parameters set at the discourse/text level are too clumsy to be put into practice, and also some refinements need to be done. For instance, some subcategories under "register" are essentially the same, and they can be combined for the sake of convenience. Besides, cohesion and coherence are two inseparable facets in discourse analysis, which are not affordable to be neglected when comparing two texts concerned. Secondly, social factors like cultural elements, target readers and translation purposes, are largely underrated. House's model for translation quality assessment is mainly established on the basis of systemic functional grammar, which makes it hard to jump out of the linguistic-oriented analysis. Admittedly, extra-linguistic aspects are, indeed, mentioned, but they are generally put into such a secondary position that they fail to be attached deserved importance. Thirdly, the case study approach employed is, in a large sense, casual enough in selecting paragraphs to conduct detailed analyses. The one suggested in the current thesis, which draws inspirations from the Canadian translation theorist, Malcolm Williams, and from the theory of "argument schema", is much more pointed and efficacious, since it is favorable to select proper paragraphs, and pick out "serious" mismatches. Lastly, the explanatory and commentary evaluative results are not straightforward enough, which will apparently lay obstacles for the reception of translation. Apart from those mentioned above, the author touches other aspects, such as assessing procedures and the influences of English as a "lingua franca", where further refinements are required. Apparently, just as the author has pointed, reflecting on House's model is not a denial to the initiator, nor her theories related. On the contrary, it aims at bringing forward translation quality assessment in a better direction. Then issues reflected from the defects are carefully considered. In the end, assumptions for further revision are tentatively made in an attempt to perfect House's model and make it more comprehensive and applicable.