House’s Model of

Translation Quality
Assessment
DISCOURSE AND REGISTER ANALYSIS APPROACHES
 INTRODUCTION

 House’s model is based on Hallidayan Systemic-Functional Theory (SFT). It

provides the means for the analysis and comparison of an original text and its
translation on three different levels:
 Language/text
 Register (Field, mode and Tenor)
 Genre
 According to House, translation would be ‘the replacement of a text in the source
language by a semantically and pragmatically equivalent text in the target
language’ (House, 1977).
FIELD

 It refers to a subject matter and social action, and covers the specificity of lexical
items.
 It can be a Novel, poem, and paly.
 Social Action: it can be specific, general or popular.
TENOR

 It includes ‘the addresser’s temporal, geographical and social provenance as well

as his/her intellectual, emotional or affective stance (personal point of view).
 Writer’s or translators provenance and stance.
 Social Role Relationship:
 Symmetrical means text contains features indicating solidarity and equality
between addresser and addressees; asymmetrical means the text contains features
indicating authority relationship between addresser and addressees.
 Social Attitude:
 It refers to formal, consultative, or informal style
 The Text contains features indicating the degrees of social distance or proximity.
MODE

 It refers to the channel (spoken/written) and the degree of participation between

addresser and addressee (monologue/ dialogue)
 Medium: it is simple if it is written to be read and complex if it is written to be
heard.
 Participation: it is simple if it means monologue or complex if it means addressing
a language community.
 EQUIVALENCE

 She believes that the Fundamental criterion of translation quality is the

equivalence. The first requirement for this equivalence is the function. This
function has two components which she calls them ideational and interpersonal.
She also uses the other two terms for these components as referential and non –
referential. The function of a text can be determined through opening up the
linguistic materials based on the situational constraints.
 OVERT TRANSLATION

 In House’s rather confusing definition (1997: 66; 2015: 54), ‘an overt translation is
one in which the addressees of the translation text are quite “overtly” not being
directly addressed’. In other words, the TT does not pretend to be (and is not
represented as being) an original and is clearly not directed at the TT audience.
 Such is the case with the translation after the event of a Second World War
political speech by Winston Churchill. The ST speech was tied to a particular
source culture, time and historical context; all these factors are different for the
TT. Another example is the translations of literary texts, which are tied to their
source culture.
 With such translations, House (1997: 112; 2015: 55) believes that equivalence
cannot be sought at the level of the individual text function since the discourse
worlds in which ST and TT operate are different. Instead, House suggests a
‘second level functional equivalence’ should be sought, at the level of language,
Register and genre. The TT can provide access to the function of the ST, allowing
the TT receivers to ‘eavesdrop’ on the ST. For example, Korean-language readers
can use a Korean TT of Churchill’s speech to gain access to the ST. But they know
they are reading a translation and the individual function of the two texts cannot be
the same.
COVERT TRANSLATION

 A covert translation ‘is a translation which enjoys the status of an original source
text in the target culture’ (1997: 69; 2015: 56).
 The ST is not linked particularly to the ST culture or audience; both ST and TT
address their respective receivers directly.
 Examples given by House are a tourist information booklet, a letter from a
company chairman to the shareholders and an article in the magazine The
UNESCO Courier.
 The function of a covert translation is ‘to recreate, reproduce or represent in the
translated text the function the original has in its discourse world’ (2015: 67). It
does this without taking the TT reader into the discourse world of the ST.
 House is at pains to point out the fact that the ‘overt’–‘covert’ translation
distinction is a cline rather than a pair of binary opposites. A text can be more, or
less, covert/overt. Furthermore, if functional equivalence is desired but the ST
genre does not exist in the same form in the target culture, the aim should be to
produce a version rather than a ‘translation’.
 Such would be the case, for instance, in the manufacturer’s instructions for playing
a board game, such as chess: imagine a ST which is directed at a ten-year old child
and is written in correspondingly appropriate language (e.g. The castle moves
sideways or up/ down. Try moving it as far as you want!).
 If the TL genre conventions called for a more formal text, directed at adults (or, at
least, treating children like adults), the instructions would need to be altered in the
TL version (e.g. The rook moves horizontally or vertically with no limit on the
number of squares it may travel).
 COVERT & OVERT ERRORS

 House suggest that researchers should prepare separate profiles for ST and TT; when
the source texts and the translation text profiles do not match, there is an error. House
describes two types of errors:
 Covert errors: those which result from a mismatch of one situational dimension with a
similar one in TT.
 Overt errors: those which result from a non-dimensional mismatch. Such errors can be
divided into seven categories:
 Non translated
 Slight change in meaning
 Significant change in meaning
 Breach of SL system
 Creative translation
 Cultural filtering
 There dimensional errors are called covertly erroneous errors. There are also
overtly erroneous errors which result from a mismatch of the denotative meaning
of ST and TT elements or from a divergence from the target language system.
CONCLUSION

 The comparative ST and TT analysis in House’s model is leading to

the translation quality assessment. This analysis focuses on lexical,
syntactic and textual means.
 It also focuses on the function of a text which she Categorized into
ideational and interpersonal function.
 The fundamental criterion of translation quality is equivalent. She
posits that a translation text have a function equivalent to that of its
source text. The function is recognized through linguistic materials in
the set of situational constraints. Any divergence of these constraints
lead the text to have covertly erroneous errors and any mismatches
of the denotative meanings of ST and TT elements cause overtly
erroneous errors.
 She proposes a typology for the translation, covert translation and overt
translation.
 Covert translation is a translation which enjoys the status of an original source text
in the target culture. Both ST and TT address their receivers directly. It is not tied
to source language, culture and community. It is created in its own right. The
function of ST is equivalent in TT; however, overt translation is overtly a
translation not a second original. It is tied to the source language, culture and
community.
 Original function of the ST doesn’t match TT function, so in overt translation, a
second level function is created. Choosing overt or covert translation is somehow
subjective but on the other side it depends on the text also. If the text is for special
purpose, overt translation is proposed. If not, it is based on the status of the text
producer to choose whether it is covert or overt translation.
THANK YOU