Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1996. Vol. 1. Eger Journal of English Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 24)

Péter Ortutay: How to evaluate translation?

ORTUTAY PÉTER HOW TO EVALUATE TRANSLATIONS? {CLOSING IN ON PROBLEMS OF TRANSLATION CRITICISM) Abstract: The author of the article argues that there is a possibility to objectify translation quality assessment (performed so far intuitively and subjectively) on grounds of the equivalence concepts elaborated by different translation scholars. By this the point of departure can be the basic idea that translation equivalence is far from being a universally uniform notion in the theory of translation. 1.0. In order to give a general picture of the state of the art in the Held of translation criticism in Hungary, it is the best to start by asking the question: 'does it exist at all in this country?' István Géher, for instance, in one of his essays describes the situation in the following way: "Our translators of fiction, as men of literature and public educators, would doubtless be extremely pleased to have allies - objective critics of their activity - in their noble mission aimed at forming literary taste. Unfortunately they are looking for them (these critics) in vain... What translators know for sure about their work from experience is that they are working really hard; but there is no way to find an answer to the question 'how?', 'what is the quality of this work?'" (Géher, 1981:72). And to quote just another author, we could perhaps claim that "if there is anything in this country that actually does not exist at all, then it is a systematic translation criticism" (Lontay, 1975: 915). In general, we have to agree with this opinion. Because if reviewers of translated works mention the name of the translator at all in printed articles, they do it in clichés or commonplaces only, either patting him/her on the shoulder or trying to prove that the translation they speak about is full of mistakes and gross 127