A Translation Quality Assessment Checklist For Translation Service Teams In Universities—a Systemic-functional Linguistics Approach

As China goes global,more and more translation talents are needed.Therefore,universities are beginning to set up translation service bases,such as the Translation Service Team of Shanghai International Studies University,the Department of Translation of Beijing Foreign Studies University,the Translation Service Team of Guangdong University of Foreign Studies and the Translation Association of Xi`an International Studies University,which are guided by teachers and composed of students majored in translation,to provide translation service for various organizations and individuals.Usually,these bases take the pattern of translation companies,so that students can integrate translation theories with real practice and be prepared for working in the translation companies in the future.For any translation team,translation quality cannot be ignored.To guarantee the quality,they have made various translation quality assessment checklists.However,the author finds that most of these checklists are made only in accordance with students' own translation experience,without any systemic or convincing theories.Some are directly borrowed from translation assessment organizations or translation companies.The problem is,these translation teams,which aim at enhancing students' overall abilities,are different from those organizations or companies which merely focus on judging whether a translator is qualified.Therefore,the checklists of translation teams should be different from those of translation organizations and translation companies.The former emphasizes supervising and encouraging students while the latter emphasizes judging them.In addition,the translation quality assessment checklists of translation organizations are not one hundred percent proper.For example,checklists of ATA and LISA are made according to translation experience without any scientific theory(Colina,2008).Some famous models like House's TQA Model and Si Xianzhu's Model are too complicated to apply in thedaily practice of these translation service teams.Therefore,it's necessary to make a translation quality assessment checklist which is theory-based and operative and can be applied to translation service bases in universities.Before assessing the translation quality,we first need to define it.As we all know,it is a controversial concept among various translation theories.However,systemic-functional linguistics always focuses on the meaning of language in use,similar with translation studies,which also emphasizes the meaning of language in use.Therefore,systemic-functional linguistics can be used as the theoretical basis for the making of translation quality assessment checklists.According to systemic-functional linguistics,the form describes the function,which,in turn,is reflected in form.If we want to compare the function of the source text and target text,then we have to proceed from the form.As Eggins puts that,the form is embodied in the lexico-grammar system.In this sense,we can start from the lexico-grammar system to set up parameters to make the assessment scale.