A Theoretical Framework for Translation Criticism

Abstract

What is known at present as translation criticism is in fact translation assessment. It basically makes use of contrastive analyses to compare target text segments with their corresponding source text segments, and to look for right and wrong and matches and mismatches, both of which are inspired by the equivalence fallacy. This reductionist approach, although efficient as a technique in teaching translation, seems inadequate for translation criticism, which like literary criticism, needs a theoretical framework, for which contrastive analysis can no more account. The present article argues that Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) provides a proper theoretical framework which can accommodate in itself cultural and political perspectives for translation criticism. So, instead of looking for the right or wrong, translation criticism needs to look for what a translator’s choices (lexical, grammatical, etc.) imply, and what ideologies they represent. Within the framework of CDA, translation criticism can look into translations through the different ideological lenses of colonialism, post-colonialism, feminism, power relations, and the like. As such, translation criticism extends beyond linguistic analysis to analysis of ideologies, and requires a new language of its own, which is yet to develop.