Linguistic Description vs. Social Evaluation in Translation quality assessment (TQA)

In TQA it is important to be maximally aware of the difference between linguistic analysis and social judgment. In other words, a distinction must be made between describing and explaining linguistic features of the original text and comparing them with the relevant linguistic features of the translation text on the one hand and judging "how good a translation" is on the other hand. Judgments of the quality of a translation depend on a large variety of factors that enter into any linguistic as well as social evaluative statements. Critical in the case of TQA is the fact that evaluative judgments emanate from the analytic and also comparative process of TQA, i.e., it is the linguistic analysis which provides grounds for arguing an evaluative judgment.

As mentioned previously, the choice of an overt or a covert translation depends not on the text alone, or on the translator's subjective interpretation of the text, but also on the reasons for the translation, the implied readers, on a variety of publishing and marketing policies, i.e., on factors which clearly have nothing to do with translation as a linguistic procedure because these are social factors which concern human agents as well as socio-cultural, political or ideological constraints and which in the reality of translation practice turn out to be often more influential than linguistic considerations or the professional competence of the translator him/herself. However, it must be stressed that despite all these "external" influences, translation is at its core a linguistic-textual phenomenon, and it can be legitimately described, analyzed and evaluated as such. It is for this reason that the primary concern of TQA should be linguistic-textual analysis and comparison, and any consideration of social factors if it is divorced from textual analysis must be of secondary relevance in a scientific discipline such as translation studies. Of course, linguistic description and explanation must not be confused with evaluative assertions made solely on the basis of social, political, ethical or individual grounds. If we take translation seriously as an object of scientific inquiry, translation must be seen first and foremost for what it is, namely a phenomenon in its own right: A linguistic-textual operation. And the nature of translation as a linguistic-textual operation should not be confuse with issues such as what the translation is for, what it should, might, or must be for.

Translation quality is a problematic concept if it is taken to involve individual and externally motivated value judgment alone. Obviously, passing any "final judgment" on the quality of a translation that fulfills the demands of scientific objectivity is very difficult in deed. As an evaluator, one will always be forced to flexibly move from a macro-analytical focus to a micro-analytical one, from considerations of ideology, function, genre, register, to the communicative value of individual linguistic items. In taking such a multi-perspectival viewpoint, a responsible translation critic will arrive at a position where he or she can give a probabilistic reconstruction of the translator's choices, and with the support of the translator's own voice, be able to throw some light on his or her decision processes in an objective manner as possible.