An Introduction And Review Of Malcom Williams' Argumentation-Centered Translation Quality Assessment Model

With the deepening of globalization in modern society, especially the successful host of Beijing Olympic Games and 2010 Shanghai World Expo, China is expecting an increasing number of international communications, which makes translation between Chinese and English become more and more important. As a result, large quantities of translated texts of different purposes are constantly emerging. Then, how to assess the quality of translations really becomes an issue of the related scholars'great consideration.Being compared with studies of such related matters as translation history and translation theory, the field of translation quality study has always been of less emphasis. However, with the expanded scopes of translation activities, this field is becoming more and more eye-catching. Since translation assessment has long been in an experiential and subjective stage, there exists no unified study approach. However, together with the development of translation theories, translation quality assessment, in which translation quality is always being discussed, judged, and criticized, is much more on the way to a theory-based and objective state. In spite of the fact that among many translation quality assessment approaches put forward by some scholars like Nord and J—House, M-Williams'argumentation-centered model for translation quality assessment, which is based on concepts of argumentation theory is still in its initial stage comparing with other models in the related field, it has aroused more and more attentions since 2004.Through a careful study of theoretical basis and development of the model, and with the hope to establish a judgment upon the model under discussion to make it more convenient to play a full role in serving for translation quality assessment, this thesis intends to make a reflection upon M-Williams'argumentation-centered model for translation quality assessment, and thus to broaden the scope of domestic TQA studies and to provide some rational backbones for future TQA models. From the discussion upon Williams'TQA model, the thesis comes to a conclusion that this model is gradually being recognized by scholars in the related field as one of the innovative progresses. It is creative because it is, for the first time, generated from a newly-introduced theory named argument schema originated from argumentation theory, and contains detailed assessing procedures and relatively objective criticism. The reflection upon Williams'model also reveals that it is still in an initiative stage open for improvements.This thesis consists of six parts, including a brief introduction to the thesis wherein the theoretical nature and orientation is highlighted and the objective the study is situated, a review of present studies introducing studies made both at home and abroad, a theoretical background for the study which sketches the theoretical origin for Williams' model and exemplifies two direct theoretical sources for the model,the main body of the whole thesis which thoroughly deals with Williams'argumentation-centered TQA model by respectively analyzing its preliminary model,revised model,rating scale, and working process, a reflection upon Williams'model from the aspects of theoretical structure, error classification, parameter setting, etc.,and finally a summarization of the whole thesis, offers some suggestions for improving the studies on translation quality assessment.The writing of the thesis does not mean that the research of Williams'TQA model and related theories are exhausted. The author will go on with the study in her future research, with the hope that more diversified explorations in this field will be generated by related scholars both at home and abroad.