Assessing the Quality of Persian Translation of Kite Runner based on House’s (2014) Functional Pragmatic Model

Abstract

Translation quality assessment is at the heart of any theory of translation. It is used in the academic or teaching contexts to judge translations, to discuss their merits and demerits and to suggest solutions. However, literary translations needs more consideration in terms of quality and clarity as it is widely read form of translation. In this respect, Persian literary translation of Kite Runner was taken for investigation based on House’s (2014) functional pragmatic model of translation quality assessment. To this end, around 100 pages from the beginning of both English and Persian versions of the novel were selected and compared. Using House’s model, the profile of the source text register was created and the genre was recognized. The source text profile was compared to the translation text profile. The results were minute mismatches in field, tenor, and mode which accounted for as overt erroneous expressions and leading matches which were accounted for as covert translation. The mismatches were some mistranslations of tenses and selection of inappropriate meanings for the lexicon. Since the informal and culture specific terms were transferred thoroughly, the culture filter was not applied. Besides, as the translation was a covert one. The findings of the study have implications for translators, researchers and translator trainers.

Keywords

• Translation
• Quality
• Assessment
• Kite Runner
• Overt and Covert Translation