The problem of translation quality assessment: approaches to solution

The main principles of translation quality assessment worked out within the linguistic and communicative-functional approaches to translation are discussed in the paper. It is shown that thetheory of translation determines text as the main unit of the whole translation process. The main attention is given to the pure language peculiarities. Therefore, translation assessment implies that the equivalence parameters are predominant and are considered to be vital. The analysis of the various points of view connected with the problems discussed in the paper has allowed for making the following conclusion: when assessing the translation, one should take into consideration different parameters of the communicative situation, such as purpose of translation, author of the original text, translation consumer, recipient of translation. Another conclusion is connected with the supposition that equivalence and adequacy should be sharply differentiated. Otherwise, the mixture of these categories may lead to global misunderstanding, and this can be the reason of new disputable issues appearing within the field of the problem discussed. Assessing translation as a result of concrete substantive work makes such an assessment objective, because it reveals the roots of the communicative situation behind the translated text. Thus, such an assessment reflects both the linguistic and extralinguistic conditions, in which original and target texts exist.