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?

the most outstanding figure of modern translation theory, approaches this problem:"... it goes without saying that the mere enumeration of all that is possible in acts (or texts) which are presented and/or regarded as translational would yield no satisfactory laws. While no doubt theoretical in nature, these lists would simply have flattened out and neutralized all the factors which affect decision-making in real-life situations; from the languages involved in the act and their genetic and/or historical relations, through the texts in which the problem-items are, and will be embedded, respectively, the models underlying those texts and the tradition to which each model (and text) pertains, through whatever is inherent to the 'bilingual brain' and/or acts of linguistic mediation, to the general concept of translation underlying the act, which is always norm-governed, and hence culture-specific. Lists of this kind are thus equipped to deal with options rather than actual choices and decisions

, which, in terms of a translation theory, makes them very elementary indeed: nothing to object to, but far from sufficient" (Toury, 1993:21-22; the emphasis is mine - P.O.). 1.3. Does it mean then that translation quality assessment should always remain as it is without any hope of ever becoming objectified? My opinion is that it is far from being so, and on the basis of the latest linguistic findings it is perhaps quite possible to elaborate the rudiments of a much more objective translation criticism. As a point of departure we can accept the supposition that when comparing the original with the translation, or rather when trying to establish the (new) text of translation, that is to re-encode the original information, every translator has, on the basis of certain professional intuitions, concrete ideas about the degree of the greatest possible and the smallest necessary similarity between the two texts. By describing the different types of this similarity, which, as a rule, is termed equivalence in books on translation, we can make an attempt to model this intuition, and by doing so scientifically grounded points of view can be offered for critics of translations, who have been performing their task so far in the hope that their intuition and literary taste will serve as a more or less reliable compass in pointing out the merits and the drawbacks of the translation under review. 130