Outlining an original, discourse-based model for translation quality
assessment that goes beyond conventional microtextual error analysis,
Malcolm Williams explores the potential of transferring reasoning and
argument as the prime criterion of translation quality. Assessment
through error analysis is inevitably based on an error count - an
unsatisfactory means of establishing, and justifying, differences in
quality that forces the evaluator to focus on subsentence elements
rather than the key messages of the source text. Williams counters that
a judgment of translation quality should be based primarily on the
success with which the translator has rendered the reasoning, or
argument structure. Six aspects for assessment are proposed: argument
macrostructure, propositional functions, conjunctives, types of
arguments, figures of speech, and narrative strategy. Williams
illustrates the approach using three different types of examples:
letters, statistical reports, and argumentative articles for
publication. Translation Quality Assessment offers translators a new
set of flexible and modular standards.