On The Theoretical Framework Of Translation Criticism

As an important part of translation study, translation criticism means more than commenting on translation texts. Yet it is always being neglected. In China, there are few books and papers on this field. Many translation criticisms are spontaneous and empiristic. Therefore, this thesis attempts to explore translation criticism from many angles such as aesthetics, hermeneutics and reader-response theory, etc, to accelerate the translation criticism theory and serve the translation practice better.Translation criticism is the overall assessment of quality and value of the translated text and translation procedure according to a certain standard. As a social phenomenon, translation criticism develops side by side with translation practice. So it is necessary to review the history of translation criticism, especially that in China from the 20th century till now.What is translation criticism? People may have misconceptions towards it. This thesis attempts to explore its nature from four points: First, translation criticism is a kind of activity of aesthetic evaluation in which the critics aesthetically comprehend the translated text, the translation phenomena, etc. Second, translation criticism is a scientific, complete and systematic research activity. From another angle, we can see that translation criticism is basically a participation of dialogue, a synthesis of several dialogues. Translation criticism functions in regulating and guiding translation activities. It stands between translation theory which is rational and translation practice which is always done more perceptually, so it bridgesthese two ends and judges the application of translation theories in the practice. In this way, it not only guides the practice, but also enriches translation theories.The author maintains that a critic of translation may be a bilingual professional critic, or a reader who knows the target language only. Basically the objects of translation criticism include translations, translation affairs, translators and translation criticism as such. As far as the models of translation criticism are concerned, there are mainly three. They are the authored-centered traditional model, the text-centered equivalence model and the reader-centered reader response model. The thesis also elaborates on the four levels of translation criticism, that is, the intention level, the reality level, the ethics level and the aesthetic level. So they will adopt various criteria to evaluate translation texts. This thesis further discusses two criteria put forward by two Chinese translation scholars.