PACTE's Translation Competence Model And Translation Quality Assessment

The Old Man and the Sea is Hemingway‘s novella written in Cuba in 1951 and published in 1952.It is mainly because of this novel that Hemingway won Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Prize for Literature in 1953 and 1954 respectively,which laid a prominent position in literature world for Hemingway.Immediately after its publication,the work was introduced to China,and since then it has been highly praised.So far,there are more than300 Chinese versions of The Old Man and the Sea.The awards of the work,Hemingway‘s legendary experiences and the precious literary value of his work have contributed a lot to its popularity.In addition,in recent years,The Old Man and the Sea has been listed by the Ministry of Education as a compulsory reading book according to the new curriculum standard.All of this and many other opportunities including the 50^th anniversary of Hemingway‘s death have enabled this work to return to the reader‘s horizon,and made it even more enduring in the passage of time.This shows the strong vitality and influence of this work.This dissertation uses 5 sub-competences of PACTE‘s Translation Competence Model to explore the causes of translation errors in translated works.Taking the translated versions of Eileen Chang,Yu Guangzhong and Li Jihong as corpus,through comparative analysis,this paper evaluates the quality of translation,especially the translation problems in the translated versions,and points out the lack of corresponding translation sub-competences.The paper will provide certain references for translator training and the improvement of translation quality.Chapter One introduces the research background,research questions and significance,research methodology and structure of the thesis.Chapter Two reviews studies on translation competence both at home and abroad,as well as studies on the translation of The Old Man and the Sea.Chapter Three introduces the theoretical framework,the PACTE‘s Translation Competence Model,and its application in detail.Chapter Four begins with a brief introduction to The Old Man and the Sea and its three Chinese versions.Based on PACTE‘s Translation Competence Model,the present author makes an analysis of translation errors and the lack of translator‘s sub-competences in the three versions of The Old Man and the Sea.Chapter Five is the conclusion.Relatively speaking,the lack of translator‘s competence in Li Jihong‘s version is most obvious.The lack of translator‘s competence is mainly manifested in that of instrumental sub-competence and knowledge of translation sub-competence.