A Study On The Application Of A Translation Quality Assessment Model Based On Argument Schema To News Translation

Translation Quality Assessment(TQA)provides a standard for translation and translation market.In spite of the fact that TQA is an area of significant importance and diversified TQA models have been proposed,there are various problems to be solved.The development of translation quality assessment is much more on the way to a theory-based and objective state.Besides,even though existing models didn't stipulate exact text types to be assessed,empirical analyses tend to assess literature texts and some parameters used are inadequate.Therefore,this thesis attempts to establish a TQA model for news texts.Through a careful study of theoretical foundation and assessment method of this model,it is discovered that Malcom Williams' model introduced argument schema which has hyper-text features into the study of TQA.As a result,this thesis makes an assumption that Williams' evaluation model can be applied for the assessment of news texts.This thesis considers that Williams' model has many deficiencies that might cause the lack of operability in actual practice.The parameters in the model are not given selection criteria,and the confirmation of parameter weights is also lacking in scientificity.This thesis is based on Williams' TQA theory and improves the model for the above problems.It combines the characteristics of the news text,and selects the following evaluation parameters through the analysis of news texts: terminologies and target language quality(including style,usage,grammar,and typography).After that,this thesis uses Analytic Hierarchy Process(AHP)to build matrices which treats the entire TQA model as a system,and uses Williams' existing parameters as part of the system to make qualitative and quantitative analysis.By comparing the relative importance of each parameter,a comparison matrix is established,the feature vectors and index weights of the matrix are calculated,and the specific parameter assignmentcan be obtained after consistency verification,thus initially improving the scoring criteria and establishing an argumentation-centered TQA model for news.Through the analysis of evaluation,the thesis draws the following conclusions:Firstly,Williams' TQA model needs to adjust field/specific parameters according to the type and characteristics of texts.When evaluating news texts,people can use terminologies and target language quality as parameters.Secondly,while using this model,parameters weights and assignments needs to have unified standards,and the improved model that can be established by AHP is practical for news translation.Compared with other models,this model has significant advances: it can simplify translation evaluation decisions and draw visual numerical conclusions which is strongly operable;it can also assess the quality of news translation texts from both the macro-structure and micro-text levels,achieving relatively comprehensive results.In addition,this model combines the three disciplines of operation,translation and journalism,which is conducive to further broadening the interdisciplinary research of translation.