Query: translation criticism

title: SECOND THOUGHTS ON TRANSLATION CRITICISM A Model of its Analytic Function

title: A semiotic approach to literary translation criticism
abstract: Gayatri C. Spivak once mentions that the issues of humanist discourse find their expression in three interchangeable <concepts> namely, Language, World, and Consciousness. The world we are living in is invariably constituted by language and our consciousness is inexorably structured like anguage. We cannot possess Language, for we are at the same time manipulated by Language. Consequently, even Language is determined by World and Consciousness, the paradigm of Language encompasses the paradigms of World and Consciousness. Literature, featuring the undetectability or un interpretability of truth as is opposed to the ultimate truth in other discourses, is also in the humanistic discourse. Literary translation criticism (LTC) as a theoretical criticism about literature, also consists of the three interchangeable concepts: World, Consciousness and Language. This thesis is to approach the issue of LTC from these three dimensions, while re terming them as Contextual, Receptual and Textual dimensions respectively. World refers to the intercultural perspective of LTC, emphasizing the relativism between the contextuality in which translator and the translation exist and the selectivity of strategies the translator adopt influenced by it. Consciousness is the receptual part in LTC. It stresses the reception and processing of the aesthetic message happening in the consciousness of the reader, though the target reader's participation is foregrounded by the translator's maintenance and artistic/technical process of the original literary text. Language is the textual part of LTC. It problematizes different levels of linguistic issues from the original text to the translated literary texts. And it is in this sense that we can term this attempt as within a boarder domain of culture study for it sets the humanistic discourse paradigm as its departing point.

title: The Problem of Generality in Models for Translation Criticism as applied to Eva Strom's new translation of the Shakepearean Sonnets
abstract: The Problem of Generality in Models for Translation Criticism as applied to Eva Strom's new translation of the Shakepearean Sonnets

title: Toward a Translation Criticism: John Donne by Antoine Berman (review)
abstract: Antoine Berman, Toward a Translation  John Donne, ed. and trans. Francoise Massardier Kennedy.  Kent State University Press, 2009. 249 pp. In his 1954 review of Lloyd Alexander's English translation of Sartre's La Nausee, Vladimir Nabokov makes the following statement: "It is hard to imagine (except in a farce) a dentist persistently pulling out the wrong tooth. Publishers and translators, however, seem to get away with something of that sort." (1) Nabokov then proceeds with a numbered list of various blunders and mistranslations, before panning the original just as harshly. In the more recent world of French letters, Henri Meschonnic is known for similarly bellicose reviews of translations (for example, his essay review "On appelle cela traduire Celan" in which he denounces a certain translator's renditions of Celan into French as "barbaric" (2) For translation theorist Antoine Berman, Meschonnic's critiques should be seen as "engage analyses," due to the fact that they rest upon a certain predetermined idea of the task of translation, and "are not satisfied with evaluating a translation from the vantage point of this idea, but they attack translations that do not conform to it" (32) Meschonnic's critiques of translations thus consist largely of "a meticulous tracking of the incoherencies, poor systematicity, and biases of the translators" (33) First published in 1995, Antoine Bermans Toward a Translation  John Donne aims to establish a set of ground rules for a translation criticism that would go beyond the vitriolic dissections of Meschonnic. Berman is respectful of Meschonnic's rigorous approach his technique of "denouncing with precision" (33) and is receptive to the ethical position of siding with the original and against the misappropriating translation. Yet Berman speaks of feeling an "uneasiness" with this critical orientation, hinting at his awareness of what Lawrence Venuti has referred to as the "third rail" of translation criticism: that when a critic's notion of equivalence differs from that of the translator whether or not this clash of opinion is acknowledged the assessment short circuits, resulting in a dismissive and unhelpful critique. Opposed to this "militant" criticism, Berman advocates a "productive" criticism (referencing Friedrich Schlegel) which, when assessing a good translation, would "reflect" or "send back to the reader, this excellence or greatness" (6) and when faced with a bad translation, would "shed light on the reasons for the translation's failure and prepare the space for a retranslation without acting as advice giver" (7) For Berman, the so called Tel Aviv school of translation theory, represented by such figures as Gideon Toury and Annie Brisset, functions as the antithesis to Meschonnic's caustic critiques. The Tel Aviv method presents itself as functionalist, sociological, and non prescriptive, concerned with the definition of certain socio historical norms that determine the process of translation. Though Berman considers this work to be useful and illuminating, he ultimately sees their "target oriented" critical approach as lacking "a general theory of literary transfer" (42) The Tel Aviv critics bind their own hands by asserting the "secondariness" of translation: if translation is always a secondary, socially determined function, then no translation can be better than any other. As Berman summarily states, "neutrality is not the corrective to dogmatism" (48) Berman spends the remainder of the first part of his text delineating his own "third way" between these two extremes. In describing his new method for translation criticism, Berman focuses on the very basic, practical concerns of the critical process, without sacrificing any degree of theoretical sophistication. Starting from a base of dense theoretical works such as those by Benjamin, Schlegel, or Schleiermacher Berman distills only those kernels which are useful to the practicing critic.

title: TRANSLATION CRITICISM: A THREE DIMENSIONAL (MODEL BASED ON CDA)

title: Research into Approaches to Aesthetic Translation Criticism
abstract: Aesthetic subjects of translation criticism adopts a certain approach to constant communication and argumentation on the purpose of reaching a consensus regarding the aesthetic values of a translation. Different perspectives in translation criticism require different approaches. Translation criticism from an aesthetic perspective calls forth Xu Yuanchong Approach and an example is given to illustrate its application.

title: On Translation Criticism
abstract: Translation criticism,as an important component of translation studies,has attracted attention from scholars.On the basis of defining the concept,this paper probes into the problems therein and discusses the criteria,methods,and roles of translation criticism.

title: The Development of Translation Criticism in China in Terms of Methodology
abstract: This paper reviews the development of the studies of translation criticism in China from 1950 to 2009,and analyzes the present conditions of translation criticism from the perspective of methodology.There are three features of the translation criticism in China,i.e.,1) it is characteristic of scientism in its humanistic philosophical foundation;2) it employs increasingly diversified disciplinary methods;3) it uses more technical methods that reflect the neutral attitudes of critics.

title: Comments on Translation Criticism: The Potentials and Limitations
abstract: The book,  The Potentials and Limitations, is a classical work for translation research field, which is written by German theorist Katharina Reiss. In the book, Reiss evaluated the translation process in terms of functional theory and formulated an objective standard for translation criticism. Although it is perspective by nature, it provides new translation methods and broaden views for Chinese translation research. This thesis made comments on The Potentials and Limitations, combining with the demonstration so as to further testify its motivation and guide the translation practice.

title: An Approach to Translation Criticism: Emma and Madame Bovary in translation
abstract: Lance Hewson's book on translation criticism sets out to examine ways in which a literary text may be explored as a translation, not primarily to judge it, but to understand where the text stands in relation to its original by examining the interpretative potential that results from the translational choices that have been made. After considering theoretical aspects of translation criticism, Hewson sets out a method of analysing originals and their translations on three different levels. Tools are provided to describe translational choices and their potential effects, and applied to two corpora: Flaubert's Madame Bovary and six of the English translations, and Austen's Emma with three of the French translations. The results of the analyses are used to construct a hypothesis about each translation, which is classified according to two scales of measurement, one distinguishing between "just" and "false" interpretations, and the other between "divergent similarity" "relative divergence" "radical divergence" and "adaptation"