The Relationship between Translation Theories and Translation Quality under the Moderating Effect of Thinking Styles

Abstract

Translation quality is one of the most controversial issues in the field of translation studies because of its sophisticated and bewildering nature. The present study tackles important theoretical and cognitive perspectives since it pours at the heart of training, learning, teaching, and assessing translation. It is a multidimensional study aims to propose an exploratory, analytical, and empirical model that serves all those involved in assessing, learning, teaching, and researching in translation studies. It, also, seeks to explore the mechanism of the relationship between its two fundamental constructs: Translation Theories and Translation Quality in terms of the expected moderating effect of Thinking Styles. Besides, it is an empirical study comprising written translation and simultaneous interpretation tests for a group of trainee translators. Having considered the statistical results of both tests, which reported significant variations translation assessors practiced in their assessment criteria, six translation experts were interviewed as a focus group. The results of the interview uncovered certain classification of the assessment criteria for the translation quality. These criteria were accordingly categorized into: Content, Form, and Product Summation. The results, in addition, confirmed the role of the translation theories in affecting the translation quality. Accordingly, a questionnaire was developed and distributed to a number of translation experts and trainers in the fields of linguistics and translation who affiliate to Iraqi universities. After collecting the questionnaire copies and analyzing them statistically by means of multiple statistical methods such as SPSS and Amos, the results were reported accordingly. The hypotheses were tested; their results were duly reported and discussed. The present study, thus, yielded a set of results revealing significant variations in the views of the study sample towards the assessment of the translation quality and the factors that might affect it. These results indicate a profound relationship between translation theories and translation quality in terms of the moderating effect of thinking styles. One of the challenges faced by this study is the lack of studies and research papers on the assessment of translation quality. The study recommends conducting further studies on the concept of translation quality and delving deeper into its theory and practice. This study, in addition, recommends implying newer concepts and some other approaches to introduce a theoretical model that contributes, in a way or another, towards boosting the levels of translation trainees and translators.