Applying houses model of translation quality assessment on mark twain’s “the adventures of huckleberry finn”

House’s Model enables us to analyze and compare an original text andits translation on three different levels: Language/ Text, Register Field, Mode andTenor and Genre.. The frequency of

1 Rationale

People all over the world are now getting closer and closer thanks to manyfactors, among which literature is an important one Not only can readers entertain butthey can also approach the cultures of a far away country while staying at their home.However, it is a matter of fact that not everyone is competent enough to read the originaltext Therefore, the readers normally choose to read translation texts The increasingnumber of translations available calls for the need of assessing the quality of such works

so that the readers can enjoy reliable ones

Given the situation, the evaluation of a translation has become the concern ofTranslation Quality Assessment approaches and quite many attempts have been made tofind the answer to the question of how to effectively assess the quality of a translatedwork Along with those attempts are a numbers of related frameworks advocated bysome translation researchers; among which The Translation Quality Assessment Model

by the German scholar Juliane House is one of few approaches considered promising

This assessment model by House is based on Hallidayan Systemic-FunctionalTheory, but it also draws eclectically on Prague School ideas, speech act theory,pragmatics, discourse analysis and corpus-based distinctions between the spoken andwritten language House’s Model enables us to analyze and compare an original text andits translation on three different levels: Language/ Text, Register (Field, Mode andTenor) and Genre This study aims to apply House’s Model on Mark Twain’s “TheAdventures of Huckleberry Finn”-chapter XX and its Vietnamese translation by XuânOanh (2009)

It can be said that this research is a new exciting experience for the researcher inthat she is not a graduate majoring in translation Therefore, this research first andforemost is to fullfill the researcher’s interest in translation and in House’s Model inparticular In addition, being able to assess a translation will provide the researcherconfidence and knowledge to practice translation, particularly literature translation

Besides the above reasons, through library reasearch, it is realized that House’sModel has been widely applied to assess legal document translation Therefore, this

study seeks to explore new aspects on utilizing House’s framework to evaluate a literaltranslation work

2 Purpose of the study

In this research, an attempt will be made to apply the Housian TQA Model toidentify two kinds of errors in the translated work: overtly erroenous errors and covertlyerrornous errors The frequency of their occurences will be the foundation to assess thequality of the target text and to challenge House’s idea that to literary work, it has to be

an overt kind of translation

3 Reserch questions

 How good is the translation according to House’s model?

 What are the remaining problems of the translation?

 Whether the translation is an overt or covert kind of translation?

 What might be some implications for the translation of English literature intoVietnamese?

4 Research method

This study utilizes qualitative design First, the original text will be readthoroughly and comprehensively then the source text will be compared to its translationunder the framework of House’s TQA model Although, there are quite many modelsavailable for translation quality assessment, House’s model is applied in that this modelprovides a comprehensive set of parameters enable the researcher to assess thetranslation text on dimension of both functional and pragmatic equivalence In addition,

as stated by House, the model can be applied for a wide range of text The procedure isbriefly introduced by Munday (2001, p.92) as below:

 A profile is introduced of the ST register

 To this is added a description of the ST genre realized by the register

 Together, this allows a “statement of function” to be made for the ST, including the ideational and interpersonal component of that function (in other words, what information is being conveyed and what the

relationship is between sender and receiver)

 The same descriptive process is then carried out for the TT

 The TT profile is compared to the ST profile and a statement of

“mismatches” or errors is produced, categorized according to genre and

to the situational dimensions of register and genre

 A “statement of quality” is then made of the translation

 Finally, the translation can be categorized into one of two types: overt translation or covert translation

As it is impossible for the researcher to analyze the whole text due to limit oftime and knowledge and also to be suitable with the applied framework, only onechapter will be selected randomly to guarantee the objectiveness of the procedure(chapter XX) However, examples from other chapters will be taken to prove thegenerality of the obtained findings in possible cases

5 Significance of the study

It is very important to be able to evaluate a translation in that translation hasbecome an indispensable part in human civilization In Vietnam, English is a popularforeign language and is a tool of communication as well as a key to human knowledge.The demand for knowledge has fostered the development of translation and it seems thatmany non-professionals and semi-professional translators undertake the task oftranslating Hopefully, this study will be a source of reference for other researcherconcerning the same issue and important features of the framework will be ackowledged

to have successful translation works

CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEW

1 1.Translation theory

1.1.1 Definition of translation

Newmark (1981) defines translation as “a craft consisting in the attempt toreplace a written message and/or statement in one language by the same language and/orstatement in another language.” His definition of translation is then understood as

“rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the same way that the authorintended the text” (1988:5)

House (1977:29) defines translation, specifically written translation “is thereplacement of a text in the source language by a semantically and pragmaticallyequivalent text in the target language”

It can be seen that though definitions on translation are quite diverse, they allseem to imply that translation does not refer to language as a system but refers tolanguage in use In addition, the necessity to reach some kind of equivalence betweenthe two languages is emphasized in translation

1.1.2 Translation methods

Newmark (1988:45) introduces a number of translation methods via V diagram

as be low:

SL emphasis TL emphasis

Word-for-word translation Adaptation

Literal translation Free translation

Faithful translation Idiomatic translation

Semantic translation Communicative translation

This diagram can be briefly explained as follow:

- Word for word translation: The SL word order is maintained and only the mostcommon meanings of the words are used out of context

- Literal translation: The SL grammatical constructions are converted to theirnearest TL equivalents but the lexical words are translated singly, out of context

- Faithful translation: The SL text is reproduced in its precise contextual meaningunder the constraints of the TL grammatical structures

- Semantic translation: the aesthetic value of the SL text is greatly emphasized,compromising on ‘meaning’ where appropriate so that assonance, word-lay or repetitionjars in the finished version Consequently, it gains more flexibility and allows thetranslator to be intuitively empathetic with the original.

- Adaptation: themes, characters, plots are preserved, and the SL culture isconverted to the TL culture and the text is rewritten

- Free translation: the translated text or the so-called “intralingual translation” islonger than the original, often “prolix” and “pretentious”

- Idiomatic translation: nuances of meaning tend to be distorted by preferringcolloquialisms and idioms that do not exist in the original

- Communicative translation: the exact contextual meaning of the original isrendered in such a way that both content and language are readily acceptable andcomprehensible to the readership

According to Newmark (1988), among the above-mentioned eight methods, onlysemantic and communicative translation can fulfill the two main aims of translationnamely accuracy and economy

1.1.3 Translation equivalence

When analyzing a translation especially literary translation, equivalence is one ofthe standards that can not be missed However, due to its status as a central concept, it isalso a source of controversy A thorough knowledge of this notion would enable us tounderstand the principles underlying models of translation quality assessment presentedthereafter

1.1.3.1 Three main views on translation equivalence

According to Pym (1992:37) “equivalence is supposed to define translation, andtranslation, in turn, defines equivalence” In other words, equivalence is a major concept

in translation theory; however, approaches to this concept are considerably different Inthis part, three main views will be introduced

According to Baker and Sandanha (1992) in the Routledge Encyclopedia ofTranslation Studies, authors such as Cartford, Nida, Taber, Toury and Koller considerequivalence an essential requirement in translation and it can be achieved However,authors Snell-Hornby and Genzler reject the theoretical notion of equivalence They

claim that it is either irrelevant or causes damage to translation studies Yet othertheorists have a neutral viewpoint on this concept Baker uses the notion of equivalence

“for the sake of convenience- because most translators are used to it rather than because

it has any theoretical status” (p: 5-6)

It can be said that those contradictory views on translation equivalence resultsfrom different views on the nature of translation Authors in the first group considertranslation as a communicative process, the focus of which is to convey the messagefrom source text into target text The second group see translation as a brand oflinguistics absolutely, thus, translation equivalence is mechanically the transference ofmeaning units from source text into target text The third group although sees absolutetranslation equivalence is irrelevant, thinks that equivalence is still achieved andtranslation is a means of communication for people of different languages This is quite

a thorough view on translation equivalence in that both communicative aspect andlinguistic aspect are taken into consideration when translation is discussed

1.1.3.2 Interlingual and intertextual equivalence

It is a shortcoming to put equivalence in discussion without mentioning twoterms interlingual and intertextual equivalence From the early time when equivalence isdiscussed, theorists distinguish “elements of abstract language systems” from “elements

of real source texts and target texts” which are referred to as formal correspondence andtextual equivalence respectively Koller (1979: 183-4), in his similar attempt, introducestwo terms: “Korrespondenz”, formal similarity between language systems, and

“Aquivalenz”, equivalence relations between real texts and utterance According toKoller it is “Aquivalenz” that translation studies have to focus on

Similarly, Toury (1980:24-6) charts the evolution of the notion ofTRANSLATION ABILITY from an interlingual phenomenon to an intertextual one.Hence, the concept of equivalence was soon popularly understood as a relationshipbetween texts in two different languages, rather than between the languages themselves.According to Kenny (2001,99) this step enabled us to reject the translation-ability on thebasis of entire language systems with “all their unactualized meaning potential” Kennyalso adds that the shift from differences in language structures between languages to

texts and utterances makes translation “not only more tractable, but also more realistic”thanks to reference to co-text and context

Narrowing down the broad concept of equivalence into textual equivalence hasmade it easy for us to approach a translation text The next part will briefly present someprominent equivalence typologies

contexts in their respective languages) and pragmatic or dynamic equivalence introduced

by Nida (1964) (ST and TT have the same effect on their respective readers) and formal

equivalence (similar orthographic or phonological) respectively

Baker (1992) extends the concept of equivalence to cover similarity in sourcetext and target text information flow and in the cohesive roles that source text and targettext devices play in their respective texts She calls these two factors combined textualequivalence

Newmark (1994) stresses that not all the variables in translation are relevant inevery situation and that translator must decide which considerations should be given

priority at any one time, thus establishing a kind of functional equivalence.

Kade (1968) and other writers on lexical equivalence , in particular in the area ofterminology combine the above qualitative distinctions with a quantitative scheme thatcategorizes equivalence relationships according to whether there is: a single expression

in the target language for a single source language expression, i.e one-to-oneequivalence; more than one target language expression for a single source languageexpression, i.e one-to-many equivalence; a target language expression that covers part

of a concept designated by a single expression, i.e one-to-part-of-one equivalence; or notarget language expression for an source language expression, i.e nil equivalence Thisquantitative, lexical approach reflects an earlier concern with language systems and has

been criticized precisely because it is restricted to the word level and because it assumesthat the language system can be equated with concrete realization in text (Snell-Hornby,1988:20)

1.2 Literary translation

The above part has discussed some major terms in translation theory, which formthe foundation for any kind of research on translation The next part will present literarytranslation in general and challenges in literary translation

1.2.1 Definition

Bush (1998) defines literary translation as follow:

“Literary translation is the work of literary translators That is a truism which has to serve as a starting point for a description of literary translation, an original subjective activity at the center

of a complex network of social and cultural practices The imaginative, intellectual and intuitive writing of the translator must not be lost to the disembodied abtraction which is often described

as ‘translation’” (p:127)

Talking about the work of a literary translator, Lamberts (1998:130) considers “apublished translation is the fruit of a substantial creative effort by the translator, who isthe key agent in the subjective activity and social practice of translation.” He claims it isthe literary translator who decides how to translate and gives the literary translation itsexistence no matter what restraints of the network of social and cultural factors are Toemphasize the challenges of literary translation, Landers (2009:9) adds that “literarytranslation entails an unending skein of choices.”

While, the above mentioned authors view literary translation more as asubjective and creative activity of the translator, Toury (1993: 12-13) cited in Sanchez,emphasizes aspect of equivalence between source text and target text in literarytranslation and defines it as two different concepts:

i) the translation of texts which are regarded as ‘literary’ in the source culture.

The focus of this kind of translation is to construct the so-called “web of relationships”

of the source text, the one which makes that text a unique instance of performance

ii) the translation of a text (in principle, at least, any text) in a way that the product be acceptable as “literary” to the recipient culture.

In the first sense, the text is considered to be a literary piece of work in thesource culture and its rewriting is considered as such In another sense, the focus is onthe receiving end or the nature of the text in accordance with tastes, traditions, what isregarded as literary in target culture independent of the source culture In other words,source text and target text belong to two different genres However, it is not very oftenthat what is normally classified as a literary text in one language is not recognized assuch in another language

It can be seen that definitions of literary translation vary depending on theauthors’ emphasis While writers such as Bush, Lampert and Newmark emphasize thesubjective work of the translator, others focus on the degree of equivalence between the

ST and TT No matter how different they are in their view of literary translation, no onecan deny that literary is challenging The next part will discover prominent difficultiesthat translators have to cope with literary translation as “when there is any kind oftranslation problem, literal translation is normally (not always) out of the question”(Newmark, 1988:70)

1.2.2 Difficulties in literary translation

1.2.2.1 Cultural translation problems

It can be said that culture is an important key role that enables one to understand

a literary work, which is quite a relatively difficult issue to tackle even in the sourcelanguage, not that of target text It is crucial for a translator to understand beliefs,attitudes, values, and rules of the source language audience so that he or she cansuccessfully translate it for people of different sets of beliefs, attitudes, values, and rules.The closer the two cultures are, the less challenging the work of the translator Forexample, Larson (1984:95) points out that some societies are more technical and othersless technical; therefore, it will be really a hard job for the translator to work with a textoriginating from a highly technical society to a non-technical society target readers Forthose reasons, failure to understand the source language’s cultures will definitely affectthe quality of the translation

Though no translator can think low of cultural differences when translating, how

to overcome such challenges is not a question easy to answer, Larson (1984) says that:

“The receptor audience will decode the translation in terms of his own culture and experience, not in terms of the culture and experience of the author and audience of the original document The translator then must help the receptor audience understand the content and intent of the source document by translating with both cultures in mind.” (p.436)

Dealing with cultural specific problems in literary translation, Nida and Taber(1969/1982) have their own definition and approach They define cultural translation as

"a translation in which the content of the message is changed to conform to the receptorculture in some way, and/or in which information is introduced which is notlinguistically implicit in the original" (p:199) In the context of Bible translation, theystate that a cultural translation is one in which additions are made which cannot bedirectly derived from the original ST wording Thus, these additions might take the form

of ideas culturally foreign to ST or elements which are simply included to providenecessary background information (Shuttleworth & Cowie, 1997: 35)

Different authors use different terms to refer to words in source language that aretotally unknown in the target culture While Gambier introduces the concept “cultural-specific references”, and for Baker (1992) it is “cultural-specific items” or “cultureme”

by Nord (1997), Newmark (1988:96) uses “cultural word” and suggests that thetranslations strategies applied in such cases are dependent on elements such as text-type,requirements of the readership and client and the importance of the “cultural word” inthe text According to him, most “cultural words”, are not difficult to be realized in thatthey have associations with a particular language and cannot be literally translated

Newmark (1988) advocates the utilization of two translation procedures whichare of two opposite perspectives At one end, it is transference popular in literary textscharacterized by local color and atmosphere in specialist texts that make it possible forreaders to identify the referent in other texts without difficulty However, brief andconcise as it is, transference may block comprehension for its emphasis on the cultureand exclusion of the intended message At the other end, it is componential analysis, themost accurate translation procedure, which excludes the culture and highlights the

message In componential analysis, one can add extra contextual distinguishingcomponents in addition to a component common to the source language and the targetlanguage Unavoidably, a componential analysis is not as economical and does not havethe pragmatic impact of the original.

In addition, Newmark (1988) points out that many cultural customs are described

in ordinary language, where literal translation would distort the meaning and thus thetranslation “may include an appropriate descriptive-functional equivalent” (p:95).Besides the above-mentioned procedures, the author also reminds the necessity to takethe motivation and the cultural specialist and linguistic level of readership intoconsideration when dealing with cultural words

1.2.2.2 Stylistic translation problems

Style is also a problem challenging literary translation Style can be understood

as the way one says a things or the way something is written as distinct from its subjectmatter In a natural way, each language has its own problem of style, however, thedecisions that literary translators have to make seem to be similar when tackling withthis kind of problem

For a technical text, for example, style is not a problem in that its informationalcontent remains from ST to TT Landers (2001, p:7) use the metaphor freight-train toillustrate the importance of taking style into consideration in literary translation “Intechnical translation the order of the cars is inconsequential if all the cargo arrives intact

In literary translation, however, the order of the cars- which is to say the style- can makethe difference between a lively, highly readable translation and a stilted, rigid, andartificial rendering that strips the original of its artistic and aesthetic essence, even itsvery soul”

There are so many things to discuss concerning style According to Landers, intheory at least, “style’ in a translator is an “oxymoron” In order to perform his or hertask well, it would be best if the translator strives to have no style at all and disappearsinto and become indistinguishable from the style of the SL author Preferably, thetranslator should adapt to the style of each author translated but always as faithful to theoriginal as circumstances permit

1.2.2.3 Linguistic translation problems

Linguistic translation problems arise due to structural differences between thesource language and the target language Linguistically, each language has its ownmetaphysics, which determines the spirit of a nation and its behavioral norms, and this iswhat is known as linguistic relativity or the Whorfian hypothesis It rejects thecommonly held belief that all people of different countries have a common logicalstructure when processing with language independent of communication Instead, itemphasizes the influence of linguistic patterns on the way people perceive the world.Consequently, the modes of thinking and perceiving in groups utilizing differentlinguistic systems will result in basically different world views Since words or imagesmay vary considerably from one group to another, the translator needs to pay attention tothe style, language and vocabulary peculiar to the two languages in question in order to

produce an 'exact' translation of the source language text.

1.2.2.4 Text specific translation problems

These elements prove to be bound to this specific source text In order to be able

to understand and translate them, one must know what they are and what they refer to,and this is only possibly when the entire novel has been read

1.3 Translation quality assessment

1.3.1 Definition

Among a variety of definition on TQA, the one presented by Lawson (2011)would be the most comprehensive one Translation criticism, in Lawson approach, doesnot stop at “stating the appropriateness of a translation, which naturally also implies avalue judgment, though it need not be quantified or even made explicit” (McAlester1999:169) Lawson (2011:6) says that translation quality assessment “attempts to set outthe interpretative potential of a translation seen in the light of an establishedinterpretative framework whose origin lies in the source text”

1.3.2 Role of translation quality assessment

Newmark (1995) regards translation criticism or TQA as a crucial link betweentranslation theory and its practice and as ‘the keystone of any course in comparativeliterature, or literature in translation, and a component of any professional translation

course with the appropriate text-types as an exercise for criticism and discussion.’ Heclearly states the important role of TQA for three main reasons.

In the first place, by criticizing others’ translations translators could perfect theircompetences as well as gain essential professional experiences Besides, TQA couldhelp translators expand their knowledge and understanding of linguistics regarding theirmother tongues and the foreign language, as well as topics discussed in the translation.Last but not least, this activity is a good chance for translators to, first, re-organize theirknowledge of translation regarding translation principles and then, to sharpen theircomprehension of translation theories which are inevitably crucial for professionaltranslators

1.3.3 Approaches to assess the quality of a translation

Williams (2004) present a thorough study of available TQA models which arecategorized into quantitative and non-quantitative approaches

1.3.3.1 Models with a quantitative dimension

 Canadian Language Quality Measurement System (Sical): Developed by theCanadian government’s Translation Bureau, the best known one, at least on theCanadian scene

 Systeme devaluation positive des traduction (SEPT): Developed for theTranslation Bureau by Daniel Gouadec but never put into practice of itscomplexity

 J2450 Translation Quality Metric: Developed in 2000 by the U.S EngineeringSociety for Advanced Mobility in Land, Sea, Air and Space to give a

‘standardized grade’ to translations for technical maintenance and repairinstitutions

 Discourse analysis model

On the basis of works by Searle (1969), Halliday and Hasan (1976), Widdowson(1978), and van Dijk (1980), Bensoussan and Rosenhouse (1990) suggest a TQA

model for evaluating student translations by discourse analysis which differentiates

errors resulting from a lack of comprehension and those resulting from other

shortcomings or problems Errors from a lack of comprehension is then divided intotwo categories so called macro-level misinterpretations (frame, schema) and micro-level mistranslations at the utterance (propositional content, communicativefunction) and word (vocabulary/expressions, parts of speech/verb tense, pronounagreement, acceptability, and register) levels (1990:71)

 Teleological model

Larose (1987) points out a factor that is only implicitly mentioned in Sical andSEPT: the objective of the translator To avoid subjectivity and hypercriticism in TQA,Larose reminds the evaluator the necessity to assess a translation “in terms of theappropriateness of the translator’s intention to that of the author of the original, not ofthe appropriateness of the translator’s intention to that of the evaluator” (1987:223) Heproposes a multilevel grid for textological TQA, covering microstructures,macrostructures and superstructure and external factors The more frequent the level ofthe translation error, the more serious it will be

1.3.3.2 Non- quantitative models

1.3.3.2.1 Critique productive

Antoine Berman’s model (1995) incorporates a positive assessment of literarytranslation He is not in favor of the idea of pointing out defects in the target text or howconditions of the target culture assigns such translations Instead, he introduces anassessment that demonstrates not only the shortcomings but also the qualities andoriginality of the translation as work of art His design is then specialized by a generalprocedure, of which choosing significant passages in the translation that encapsulate itsessence and comparison of these “zones signifiantes” (1995:70) with the original is thekey point Then, the statement of “confrontation” may show the differences between thesource text and the target text However, such differences in some cases may beconsidered as strong points contributing to the originality of the translation

Nevertheless, Berman’s model is a closed system with no specific assessmentcriteria His overarching purpose is to demonstrate the superiority of a translationapproach that brings out the essence of the original.

1.3.3.2.2 Functionalist model

The first systematic approach to TQA is generally thought to be that of KatharinaReiss In her attempt to attack what she sees as arbitrary, subjective criticism of literarytranslations, she advocates a model of TQA based on text type and goals Reiss’smethod was groundbreaking in that she argued for a three-pronged approach, combininganalyses of: text type, linguistic components, and extra linguistic determinants Sheargues in favor of a text typology tailor-made for the specific purposes of translation

While admitting to the existence of an incalculable number of hybrid forms, sheidentified four major text-types-“content focused”, “form focused”, “appeal focused”and “audio medial” texts The critic’s task is then to see whether the hierarchy ofelements has been maintained in the target text: primarily the informational content forthe first text type, the formal principles for the second, the purpose for the third, and thespecific conditions of the “audio-medial’ text for the fourth As Laushcher cited inHewson (2011:4), there are several weaknesses in this approach: the vague notion of

‘optimum equivalence’ and the suggestion that ‘equivalence is established at least tosome extent by bilingual dictionaries’ One may also wonder how, in practical terms,such an apparatus can really account for the complexities of the literary text, which isdominated by its poetic function, and where contents is closely bound up with form Inaddition, she does not see much importance of the subjective conditions of thehermeneutical process and the translation critic’s personality

1.3.3.2 3 Skopostheorie

Sharing the same view with Reiss’s premise of translation as intentional,interlingual communicative action, Christian Nord introduces an analytical model on thebasis of the function and intention of the target text in the target culture and it can beapplied to instrumental as much as to literary documents Whether to keep all semanticand formal features of the original or adapt the source text extensively depends on the

function of the target text and the translation issued by the initiator of the translationrequest Therefore, she decides to set up grades of given types of translation on a scalerunning from extreme fidelity to extreme liberty Basing on the grades, statement of arelatively “literal” or relatively “free” translation can be made and unconscious errors bythe translator are not accepted According to Nord, it is the translation project that issues

the translation instruction and defines the skopos, or prospective target situation

For such reason, the evaluator must take the TT skopos as the starting point forTQA, which is similar to that of Larose’s emphasis on reader expectations and theclients’ requirements in the contract To illustrate the model, Nord analyses atranslation-oriented text and her judgments are mainly parameter-specific However, thequestion is how an overall assessment can be made from the parameter-specificcomparisons ,in particular when her judgment is based on the nature of the errors, nottheir number

1.3.3.2 4 Descriptive-explanatory model

In an update of a work first published in 1977, House introduces a detailed quantitative, descriptive-explanatory approach to TQA, in which she relies on thefunctional text features presented by Halliday (1978) and Crystal and Davy (1969) Inaddition, she also approaches the issue under the light of Skopostheorie because shethinks that it “relativizes the importance of the meaning of the source text in favor of theprimacy of target-culture norms and purpose” (cited in William,2004:13) Indeed, shepresents her model with a strong indication of her belief in autonomous meaning of thetext and, therefore, the importance of equivalence, although her notion of equivalence isinvolves the consideration of communicative and pragmatic aspects

non-Like Larose and Nord, House advocates a textological approach to TQA: “Theimportant of the textual aspect of meaning has often been neglected in evaluations oftranslations, although the necessity of achieving connectivity between successivesentences in another language while at the same time retaining the semantic meaningconveyed in the original is important, especially in covert translation” (1997:31) In hermodel, she distinguishes overt translation (source-text oriented) from covert translation(target-text-based) and applies a grid developed from established linguistic theory,House rejects the notion that TQA is a subjective activity At the same time, she does

not underestimate the “immense difficulties of empirically establishing what any ‘norm

of usage’ is, “especially for the unique situation of an individual text (1997:18), and ofdealing with differences in sociocultural norms (1997:74) She also says that “therelative weighting of individual errors is a problem which varies from individual text toindividual text” (1997:45) House presents the model and applies in a number of sampletexts However, like Nord, she states that “it is difficult to pass a ‘final judgment on thequality of a translation that fulfils the demands of objectivity” (1997:119) Houseultimately sees her model as descriptive-explanatory, as opposed to a socio-psychologically based value judgment (1997:116)

The last part of this chapter will present House’ original model and her revisitedmodel, under the light of which this study is conducted

1.4 House’s model of translation quality assessment

1.4.1 House’s original model

The key point in House’s model is to compare function of the source text and the targettext; therefore, to understand her model, it is necessary to understand “function” of anindividual text which is different from function of language According to House, the

“function of a text is the application or use which the text has in the context of asituation.” In order to see the degree of functional equivalence between source text andtarget text, an analysis of the source text must be done and taking the situation fromwhich the text is arisen is essential Thus, House designs a model in which theenveloping situation is discussed by breaking it into “manageable parts”- varioussituational dimensions as follow:

A Dimensions of Language User: 1 Geographical Origin

4.Social Attitude5.Province

The language users dimensions which simply concerns about the text producer’sgeographical origin, social class, and temporal provenance are quite clear

The dimension of language use mention fours terms:

Medium: may be either simple (written to be read) or complex (written to bespoken as if not written (as in a play), or simply written to be spoken (as in a draft of aspeech or sermon)

Participation may also simple or complex Simple here is for a monologue ordialogue; complex indicates various ways of “participation elicitation” and indirectaddressee participation in a monologue manifests linguistically, e.g., in the specific use

of pronouns, presence of contact parentheses, etc

Social Role Relationship is the relationship between addresser and addressee(s)

It may be symmetrical or asymmetrical according as some kind of authority relationshipdifferentiates them In considering the addresser’s social role via the addressee, oneneeds further to distinguish the relatively permanent position role and the more transientsituational role

Social Attitude describes the degree of social distance or proximity indicatingformality or informality Joo (1961) mentions five different styles or degree of formalitynamely: frozen, formal, consultative, casual, and intimate- this can be seen as a usefulschema

The dimension of Province is a large concept referring not only to the textproducer’s occupational and professional activity but also to the field or topic of the text

in its widest sense or “area of operation” of the language activity, as well as details ofthe text production as far as these can be deduced from the text itself

House says that the above set of situational constraints enables us to judge thefunction of a text presented by its linguistic evidence She then proposes to break thislinguistic evidence down into three types: syntactic, lexical, textual

Following the textual analysis of the ST, its ideational and interpersonal functioncan be deduced from the linguistic features that determine its situational dimensions.Afterwards, the TT should be analyzed in the same way in order to obtain its textualprofile By comparing both textual profiles, the quality of the translation can beevaluated The more the TT’s textual profile and its function are equal to those of the

ST, the better the translation is An analysis of the text on eight situational dimensions asabove mentioned will help us realize the function of the text She then claims the basiccriterion of functional match for translation equivalence: “a TT should not only match its

ST in function, but employ equivalent situational-dimensional mean to achieve thatfunction” By using situational dimensions for exploring the ST, a particular textualprofile is obtained for the ST, which then becomes criteria to assess the degree to whichthe TT’s textual profile and function match with that of the ST

In House’s model, any mismatch along the dimensions is an error which is thencategorized into covertly erroneous errors and overtly erroneous errors

 Covertly erroneous errors: those which result from a mismatch in onesituational dimension

 Overtly erroneous errors: those which result from a non-dimensionalmismatch Such errors can be divided into:

1 Breaches of the target language system:

- cases of ungrammatically ( clear breaches of the TL system)

- cases of dubious acceptability (breaches of the norm usage)

2 Mistakes in the denotative meanings if ST and TT

-wrong selections

- wrong omissions

- ambiguities

Covertly erroneous errors is a mismatch of the denotative meanings of ST and

TT elements or a breach of the target language system

The final stage in House’s model is to list both covertly and overtly erroneouserrors and a statement of the relative match of the two functional components is made

Depending on the ST, its context-situation, target audience and function, Housedistinguishes two types of translation

Overt translations are texts that do not directly address the target audience of thetranslation because they are tight to the culture and the language community where theyoriginate Therefore, to this type of translation, the function of the translation text cannotmatch with that of the ST’s function, “either because the source text is tied to a specificnon-repeatable historic event in the source culture […] or because of the unique status(as a literary text) that the source text has in the source culture” (House 1997:67)

In contrast to overt translation, covert translation appears to be “original sourcetexts in the target culture” (1977:69) The translation text aims at addressing theiraudience in the same way that the source text addresses their source culture community

A source text and its covert TT are pragmatically of equal concern for source and targetlanguage addressees and they have equivalent purposes: both are based oncontemporary, equivalent needs of a comparable audience in the source and targetlanguage communities She then introduces the concept “cultural filter” (p:70) to betteradapt the translation to the target culture In other words, a cultural filter between STand TT enables the TT audience to view ST through the glasses of the target culturemember

2.4.2 House’s revised translation quality assessment model

In her revised model, in order to thoroughly categorize a text’s function and thelanguage required, House introduces the category Genre Genre here is defined as “asocially established category characterized in terms of occurrence of use, source and acommunicative purpose or any combination of these” (p:107) Genre, Register andLanguage correlates to each other Genre is the content-plane of Register, which at thesame time is the expression-plane of Genre Besides, Register is also the content-plane

of Language while Language is its expression plane According to House, Genre serves

as a bridge connecting Register and Function In general, the application of her newmodel enables us to examine a text on four different levels: Function, Register andLanguage

Individual textual function

House’s Revised Schema for the Analysis of ST and TT

House bases on Halliday’s “trinity”: Field, Tenor and Mode to build her modeland make it easier to be applied Field refers to the topic of the text, it subject matter Inaddition, it includes the old category Province and the new one Social Action indicatingwhether the language used to present the topic is general or specific

Tenor concerns the participants, the author and the audience as well as theirrelationship The Author’s Provenance reveals his temporal, geographical and socialprovenance and thus represents the former Dimensions of Language User The Author’sStance indicates his intellectual, emotional and affective position towards the subject hepresents and his personal point of view Social Role Relationship and Social Attituderemain fairly the same as the old model However, for Social Attitude dimension, sheintroduces only three levels: formal, consultative and informal

In Mode category, two old dimensions Medium and Participation are stillremained Both can be simple or complex For dimension of Medium, she adopts Biber’sdimensions to make it more precisely as below:

1 Involved vs Informational Text Production

2 Explicit vs Situation-Dependent Reference

3 Abstract vs Non-Abstract Presentation of Information

- social role relationship

Determining by its genre, a written text can be both, involved (for exampleletters) or informational (for example laws) Written texts are normally more explicit andless situational-dependent than spoken language and therefore, the information is usuallyconveyed in a more abstract and elaborate way However, texts rarely correspond to onlyone of these dimensions, the three new parameters can not replace the old distinctionbetween simple and complex medium but can be a helpful addition to it.

In terms of the textual function, there is no change and it stills consists of anideational and an impersonal component, which should be equally represented in thetranslation The operation of the model is also kept in the same way

CHAPTER 2 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

This chapter will present the application of House’s translation quality assessment model

to assess the quality of the target text To be more specific, a source text profile will beanalyzed on dimensions of Field, Tenor, Mode and Genre via lexical, syntactic andtextual means A statement of function is then drawn to see the degree to which the

original text fulfills its ideational and interpersonal function The next stage is a

comparison of original and translation text on the above-mentioned dimensions: Field,Tenor, Mode Any violation of these dimensions is categorized as covert mistakes, andalso a demonstration of overt mistakes are also given Finally, statement of quality can

be drawn from such findings under House’s framework

1 SOURCE TEXT PROFILE

FIELD

Refers to the nature of the social action that is taking place, it captures “what is goingon”, i.e., the field of activity, the topic, the content of the text or its subject matter Inthis category, the degrees of generality, specificity or “granularity” in lexical items will

be differentiated according to rubrics of specialized, general, and popular Thisdimension is similar to Crystal and Davy’s Province; however, it specifies some featuresthat will now be subsumed under Genre such as professional character of a given field,i.e professional character of a religious sermon

The adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a novel telling about the adventures of Huck, hisfriend Tom and the run away nigger Jim Huck is the innocent who serves to illuminatethe hypocrisy and corruption of society through his pragmatic nature, his willingness toaccept others until they show their true colors, and his innate sense of honor andfairness The novel evolves around prominent themes that are racism and slavery,intellectual and moral education and the hypocrisy of “civilized” society In the studiedchapter, Huck narrates fraudulent activities of the duke and the dauphin in Parkvilletown

Lexical means:

 There is preponderance of dynamic verbs likely to be part of a narration andrepetition of phrase and words: “by and by”, “considerable”

It is typical for Huck to use phrase “by and by” in his narration and adjective

“considerable” to denote meaning “a lot”