A translation quality assessment of two translations of Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley / Randa M M Kullab

• Main Author: Randa , M M Kullab
• Format: Thesis
• Published: 2023
• Subjects: P Philology. Linguistics
• Online Access: http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/15251/1/Randam_Kullab.pdf; http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/15251/2/Randa.pdf; http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/15251/

Translation quality assessment (TQA) has been recently considered a productive research line and a fast-growing subfield of translation research. Reviewing the literature, TQA has been tackled either theoretically, applying a TQA model whereby the target text (TT) readers are completely ignored, or empirically, surveying the TT reader reception of the texts wherein the theory is marginalized. However, relying on a TQA model, in assessing the translation quality (TQ) without considering the TT readers concerns scholars since the major problem with whatever TQA model is lacking the empirical evidence from the TT readers. By contrast, TQA empirical studies are mainly inclined towards the TT readers, passing over the fact that translation is a linguistic act to be evaluated based on acknowledged TQA models, rather than relying on human subjective judgment. This thesis attempts to combine these two perspectives, i.e., the theoretical, and empirical as it aims to assess and compare the TQ of two translations of Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley, once theoretically utilizing House’s (2015) TQA Model and empirically through interviewing the TT readers, to serve a major objective of examining House’s (2015) model validity in translating Arabic novels, represented by Mahfouz’s Midaq Alley, into English. This thesis utilizes House’s (2015) TQA model, analyzing the text based on the register categories, Field, Tenor, Mode, and Genre. It adopts the qualitative approach for analyzing the data using qualitative document analysis of the source text (ST) and TTs and thematic analysis of the interviews. The data were first collected from books, i.e., the ST from Midaq Alley by Naguib Mahfouz (1947), the first translated text (TT1) translated by Trevor Le Gassick in (1975), and the second translated text (TT2) translated by Humphrey Davies in (2011) for the theoretical part then through interviews with twenty participants for the study’s empirical part. Since the data were analyzed based on House’s (2015) TQA model, the covertly erroneous errors along Field, Tenor, Mode, and Genre were listed, followed by the list of overtly erroneous errors. The participants were interviewed via Zoom application and viewed seven examples under each category, i.e., Field, Tenor, and Mode. Each example was translated overtly in one TT and covertly in the other, and the participants were asked to choose their preference and further justify it. The findings show that overall TT2 shows a better TQ based on House’s (2015) TQA model. Furthermore, the findings show that the participants’ preference contradicts House’s (2015) hypothesis in translating novels of significant authors overtly as they prefer a combination of the two translations under different dimensions whereby they choose overt translation under Field and Mode, and covert translation under Tenor according to six criteria including 1) culture reflection; 2) accuracy; 3) simplicity, clarity, and straightforwardness; 4) creativity; 5) naturalness in the target language and 6) expressiveness. The findings also reveal that House’s (2015) TQA Model requires some modifications at the situational dimension level to better accommodate the TQA of fiction. This thesis provides implications that could be useful for translators, researchers, and interested readers.