A Framework for Translation Evaluation

Abstract

'Survey of Islamic Texts Translated into English' is one of the courses offered in the English Language and Literature BA programme and also in the English Translation BA programme. The main objective of this actually four credit course is to teach the students how to evaluate the Islamic texts translated into English (and probably other languages) and determine the merits and demerits of the translation and decide whether it is a satisfactory and acceptable translation or not. To the best of my knowledge, a unified and systematic format has not yet been developed to achieve this goal. That is why some university professors teaching this course encourage the students to do translation rather than evaluate the Islamic texts translated into English. In this paper I suggest a format which can be used to evaluate the English translation of Islamic texts and decide whether the translation under discussion meets the requirements of a successful translation or not. This format is practically a set of criteria, which can be used to systematically evaluate the translation of a text from a source language into a target language and establish its merits and demerits.