The Application Of House’s Model For Translation Quality Assessment On C-e Epc Contract Translation

In2013, China ranks the top trade country in the world, which results in thrivingSino-foreign business trade. Among increasing cooperation with foreign businessmen,dratfing, negotiating and signing all kinds of business contracts are vital in business tradeprocess, while the translation of the contract serves as a bridge and legal basis for signingparties to perform their rights and obligations during the process of Sino-foreign businesstrade. Therefore, high-quality translation of a contract is essential for parties to cooperatesmoothly.Translation quality assessment (TQA) relies on models for TQA. House’s model forTQA, with its features of objectivity, systematicness and operability of limited parameters,makes great contribution to translation studies. Her model is established by two stages一theoriginal model (1977) and a model revisited (1997). The original model is based on scheme ofsituational dimensions, which are consisted of dimensions of language user (geographicalorigin, social class, time) and dimensions of language use(medium, participation, social rolerelationship, social attitude and province). The assessment is conducted by comparing theseeight parameters between source text (ST) and target text (TT). The closer ST and TT matchin these eight parameters, the higher the translation quality is. The visited model assessestranslation quality by comparing and analyzing the ST and TT from Register (Field, Tenor andMode) and Genre perspectives. The quality of the translation can be judged by counting thenumber of mismatches of ST and TT in these two perspectives. The fewer the mismatches are,the higher the quality is.By reviewing the previous overseas and domestic studies on House’s TQA model, theauthor finds that this model is mainly applied to literature field, barely involving TQA ofbusiness contract (BC) translation. Therefore, on the basis of introducing and analyzing ofHouse’s original and revisited model for TQA, this thesis attempts to apply House’s revisitedTQA model on a Chinese-English translation case of Engineering, Purchasing andConstructing contract (EPC contract) to testify the applicability of the model. Atfer researching, this thesis achieves tree major findings:(l)House’ TQA model isapplicable and effective for Chinese-English translation of BC contract;(2) there appeardefects when applying it to BC contract translation. To a certain extent, its complex operation,heavy workload and time-consuming weakness, especially when applying it to long text,impede it effectiveness;(3) the author gives her revised TQA model based on the defects ofthe model when applying it on BC contract translation.