A paper in Translation criticism

1. A paper in Translation Criticism
Safwan A. Aziz
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2. 1. House adopts a "functional equivalence" approach to
translation, that is, the basic principle of translation is that
the translation should match the original text in function.
Now in that framework the notion of "covert translation"
occupies a special place because "covert translations" are in
fact the only ones capable of actually achieving the main
goal of the theory, that is,"functional equivalence". By way
of contrast, the other major type of translation, called
"overt translation", necessarily falls short of this goal
However, even though "covert translation" is the only type
that can actually achieve functional equivalence, this does
not necessarily mean that it can do so easily, because of
differences in the sociocultural backgrounds of the source
and target language audiences.
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3. 2. How can the translator know whether or not his
translation of the original is "functionally equivalent",
for example in its flattering effects? Does he do so by
checking whether his translation flatters the receptor
language audience in corresponding parts of the texts,
or by making sure that the number of instances of
flattery that occur is equal between original and
translation, or by some comparison of the cumulative
flattering effect of the whole text?
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4. 3. House's Model, although a reasonable guideline, it
leaves unanswered a rather basic problem - and that is,
that the preservation of a function does not, in fact,
make the translation "functionally equivalent". This
problem is serious from a theoretical point of view
because it suggests that equivalence of function is not,
in fact, an adequate criterion for adequacy in
translation - a point that has been brought against
"functional equivalence" by Reiss and Vermeer (1984).
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5. 4. It becomes clear that the model is much less
straightforward, because for an evaluation it is not
sufficient to note similarities and differences; one also
has to place a value on them. It seems that House's
model for quality assessment provides a basis only for
systematic comparison - but not for value judgments:
those will follow from an assumed "detailed hierarchy
of errors" which is specific for the set of texts to be
compared and will depend "on the objective of the
evaluation". Thus for the actual evaluation no general
framework is provided but we are directed towards
text-specific "hierarchies".
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6. 5. House is concerned with the concept of function but,
again like Reiss, she sees the function of the target text as
being subordinate to that of the source text in the sense that
the latter has to be equivalent to the former.
6. House (1981) disallows any extratextual considerations,
which, of course, include customer considerations.Her
model discards quality management in translation. In brief,
translation practice is best served by attending to both
producer and customer requirements.Besdies,quality
management has no consequences for the teaching of
translation since the approach of this school precludes
quality management in relation to translation only, not
translation pedagogy.
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7. 7. True objective evaluation is not possible. The main
reason could be the lack of direct observation and
description of personal, social, and discoursal factors of
translation. The relative solution to this unattainability
is to use a comprehensive and systematic approach to
cover the “representations” of these factors (as much as
possible), and to manage and take into account all of
them properly in order to evaluate them in a valid and
reliable way.
8. From the perspective of relevance theory, House's
model raises the question as to whether it is possible to
recover authorial intention and ST function from
register analysis.
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8. 9. The basis of House‟s model is to discover
„mismatches‟ between ST and TT. Yet, while
mismatches may indicate translation errors, they may
also be caused by other translation strategies such as
explicitation or compensation. It is less clear how
House‟s model can interpret these.
10. House's analytical framework of translation, like
other discourse and register approaches, is English-
language oriented. Its applicability becomes
problematic with other languages, especially in the
analysis of thematic and information structures.
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9. 11. House's Model is based on the Hallidayan model
which itself has been famously attacked by Stanley Fish
(1981: 59–64) for being over-complicated in its
categorization of grammar and for its apparently
inflexible one-to-one matching of structure and
meaning.
12 Linguistic differences are of course indicative of
cultural differences, and Venuti (1998b: 21) is one critic
who sees linguistics-oriented approaches to translation
as projecting „a conservative model of translation that
would unduly restrict [translation‟s] role in cultural
innovation and change‟.
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10. 12. House‟s (1977, 1997) model of register analysis is
designed to compare a ST–TT pair for situational
variables, genre, function and language, and to
identify both the translation method employed
(„covert‟ or „overt‟) and translation „errors‟. However,
it has been criticized for its confusing and „scientific‟
jargon.
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