“Is (This) Translation Any Good?”: The Evaluation of Literary Translation

Translators and translations are constantly evaluated at every stage and in all fields of translation. The process of evaluation is as crucial—both for translation practice and the establishment and evolution of translation theory—as it is complex and multifaceted. Literary translation has allowed the diffusion of literature beyond national and linguistic borders, and many scholars have recognized the vital function of translation as a driving force of the literary system. Different methods have been suggested for the evaluation of translation, more often referred to as translation quality assessment, although the most relevant research in this field has been made in the translation industry and is increasingly dedicated to machine translation rather than to human translation. Edwin Gentzler has suggested a way of evaluating translation on an entirely new level by focusing on the effect that translation has on the target culture rather than on the source text, the target text, or a comparison between the two.