Methodology of assessing the quality of translation and its role in the teaching process

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the problem of translation quality assessing. After the study of various translation quality assessment methods proposed by theorists in the field of translator training methodology the conclusion is made that the translation process, being quite a complex process, requires a holistic approach to its evaluation. The proposed article describes the research into translation assessment process, the classification of errors found in translations, and correction of mistakes, viewing the last one as an inherent part of teaching translation. The study is carried out within the confines of traditional contest of literary translation by the systematically working jury members. The researchers use three methods proposed by modern methodology of translation quality assessment, preliminarily adapting them to literary translation evaluation. The authors of the current paper add retaining the image of the literary text to one of the methods, which includes the transfer of the character image and the basic descriptions. Systematic application of these methods in correction of mistakes during 4 years led to a serious enhancement of quality of translation executed by the project participants. Especially notable success is observed in translation of national realia, idioms and fixed or set-expressions, which is explained by the fact of their data base accumulation by the students, learning specificities of such linguistic units meaning and translations.