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?

2.6. Thus a contrastive examination of the SLT-s and the TLT-s shows that there are at least five different types of linguistic equivalence in translation. The peculiarity of each separate type lies in containing the information which is present in the previous ones, and also in preserving part of the original meaning or content which is lost in the previous types. (Whether this lost information is compensated or not in the translation, is another problematic issue in translation theory which is not going to be discussed here). And if there are sufficient linguistic data at our disposal to analyze and compare, it will by no means be an exaggeration to conclude that these five types (or systems) of information, the preservation of which is crucial in any interlingual communication (called translation), can easily be discovered in any discourse. These systems will, as a rule, create those essential featuers of the content through which any information can be delivered to the recipient. 3.0. Now, from the point of view of translation practice and theory what is the use of knowing that we have at least these five types of equivalence to deal with? In other words, what is the difference between this equivalence concept and all those we have had so far (formal and dynamic, precise and free, etc., the essence of which is not my task to investigate here)? First of all, one is expected to note that this idea about translation equivalence is totally devoid of normativity (prescriptivity), and is characterized by a shere descriptive approach. Secondly, it gives a much more detailed picture of equivalence than the ideas trying to define it through invariance in meaning or content. On the other hand, on the basis of what was said above the question arises: if there is a possibility to create different types of equivalence, then which is the one the translator is expected to choose? 3.1. To answer this question means to give a clue, the required criteria or 'gauge' if you please, for a more objective translation quality assessment. Every professional translator and/or interpreter knows it very well from experience that from a linguistic point of view it is always the easiest to start creating equivalence on the last, the fifth level of the description suggested above. Of course linguistic peculiarities, the lack of isomorphism between languges, the notion of linguistic 138