The quality, or lack thereof, of any possible subject under evaluation is its adherence to any existing norms intended to measure the appropriateness of a given action. Bartsch (1987 as cited in Chesterman 1997: 54) defines norms as” orders or prescriptions which are issued by a superior to a subordinate.” Toury (1995: 55) acknowledges that failing to adhere to norms makes a subject liable to sanctions, whether negative or positive. According to him, norms
“are the key concept and focal point in any attempt to account for the social relevance of activities, because their existence, and the wide range of situations they apply to (with the conformity this implies), are the main factors ensuring the establishment and retention of social order.”
Toury (1995: 54) positions norms to a middle position between laws and idiosyncrasies. He acknowledges that some norms are stronger and closer to laws whereas some are weaker and closer to idiosyncrasies. Furthermore, the borders can be diffuse and grading may be subjective.
Chesterman (1997: 55–56) also distinguishes norms as in a middle position between laws and conventions as conventions do not provoke “generally justified criticism.” Following Bartsch (1987), he gives three conditions for norms: first of all, they merely state a common practice or a condition as such. Secondly, they add to the point that a practice is accepted as being valid and desirable. Thirdly, norms must exist in intersubjective consciousness: they are known and they can be talked about. As for the validation of norms, they may, according to Chesterman, be validated by a norm authority, by someone deemed prestigious enough to make such a judgment or simply by their very existence: they are automatically acknowledged to be valid if acknowledged to exist.
It could be argued that norms do indeed provide insight into what is deemed more and less acceptable in a given community or a given instance. But it is also evident that defining and grading norms does not escape personal judgment and intersubjective consensus may be difficult to establish. But deviation from norms is always a possibility and norms change over time. Thus deviations from norms may eventually lead to new ways of doing and thinking, i.e.
to new norms. According to Toury (1995: 64), for example, deviant instances in the behavior of a translator may eventually lead to changes in the system itself. Indeed, one could argue that solutions that were once deviant may become standardized and endorsed.
Toury has done academic groundwork in providing definitions for norms in translation. I will next introduce Toury’s norms followed by norms provided by Chesterman (1997).
3.1.1 Toury’s norms
Toury’s categorization is quite complex and contains three main categories: the initial norm, preliminarynorms andoperational norms.
The initial norm means making a choice between the aim of the translation. More specifically, should the translation follow the norms of the source text or the target text? According to Toury (1995: 56 61), the first option leads to an adequate and the latter to an acceptable translation. However, he does point out that regardless of any initial choice, a translator may still opt for solutions that do not adhere to any initial principle and absolute regularities cannot be expected in any domain.
The preliminary norms contain two considerations, the translation policy, i.e. what should be translated in the first place and secondly, the directness of the translation i.e. whether the translation should be direct or adapted.
The operational norms again fall into two categories: matricial norms including such decisions as the fullness of the translation, its location, distribution and textual segmentation.
Textual-linguisticnorms determine the selection of material for the target text or material with which to replace the original material. In other words, they have to do with the relation between the source and the target text and the nature and degree of changes introduced in the translation.
Toury’s norms have not escaped criticism: first of all, the initial norm defines what is deemed adequate and acceptable. I would agree to the criticism presented by Hermans (1999, as cited in Pedersen 2011: 35): adequate or acceptable by whose standards? The source or the target culture? Acceptable by the author or the target text readers? Furthermore, according to Pedersen (2011: 35) the terms are somewhat ambivalent. Also, deciding upon a text to be translated as dictated by preliminary norms cannot take place after an initial norm: the text to be translated forms the basis of translation activity. Toury also places equal emphasis on all of the norms. Pedersen (2011: 35) points out that whereas other norms can be relatively easily investigated, the textual-linguistic norms are quite complex and of great importance in the actual process of translation.
I agree that textual-linguistic norms are of particular importance in the formation of a translation. Chesterman (1997) has introduced a norm system that is particularly target-oriented. The target text and community are of great importance and translations are seen as products for a receiving audience.
3.1.2 Chesterman’s norms
Chesterman’s (1997: 63 70) translation norms form two main branches: product norms and process norms. Product norms are also referred to asexpectancy norms, meaning that norms are based on the expectations of the intended readers concerning text type, discourse conventions, style, register, grammaticality, statistical distribution of text features, collocations, lexical choices etc. The process norms are subordinate to the expectancy norms and are subdivided into three norms: following the accountability norm, the translator is responsible for any actions taken and that demands of loyalty are met between all relevant parties, the communication norm obliges the translator to “optimize communication, as required by the situation, between all the parties involved. Finally, according to the relation norm, a relevant similarity is maintained between the source text and the target text.
Albeit Pedersen (2011: 36) claims that Chesterman’s norms contain the weakness of aspiring to be prescriptive rather than descriptive, Chesterman (1997: 65) does acknowledge that quality in translation can be met in a variety of ways and that different countries have different translation traditions. Actual translation can be closer or more distant to any norms.
Chesterman does accentuate the position and role of translations as products that are designed
to meet any given need. Some translations, such as business letters, could be expected to follow the source text quite closely whereas, for example, literal texts could be expected to preserve some of the “local color” of the original. Similarly, according to Tomaszkiewics (2001: 240), it is sometimes justified to retain certain terms, such as pizza or hamburger in order to keep the “local color” of the original text.
It could seem logical to allow prospective readers to decide whether a translation fits its purpose being thus, by definition, of good and acceptable quality. This approach is also problematic. Colina (2009) criticized the functional-pragmatic model of translation quality evaluation developed by House (1997). In House’s model, the quality of a translation is measured by the equivalence of linguistic-situational factors between the source text and the translation. As Colina (2009: 237 238) points out, reader response may not always be the optimal solution in defining quality as not all texts are necessary reader-oriented (e.g. legal texts). Furthermore, according to Colina, such an approach concentrates merely on one aspect of a translation and the purpose of the translation could, for example, require a different response from the readers of a translation.
Also Toury (1995: 53 54) acknowledges translations as potential products aimed at certain readers and recognizes that “‘translatorship’ amounts first and foremost to being able to play a social role, i.e., to fulfil a function allotted by a community – to the activity, its practitioners and/or their products – in a way which is deemed appropriate in its own terms of reference.” It other words, they must be able to make communication possible in a given community by following any existing norms established in the community in question. As for translations as products, Toury mentions that “translators performing under different conditions (e.g.
translating texts of different kinds, and/or for different audiences) often adopt different strategies, and ultimately come up with markedly different products.”
I agree to these views: translation should, first and foremost, be regarded as products designed to meet the requirement of the prospective clientele. It is of course true that stated norms do not give practical insight into individual situations in the translation process as definition of quality and the needs of readers depend largely on the judgment of whoever is deemed appropriate to make such a judgment. Nevertheless, I agree to Pedersen (2011: 37) according to whom Chesterman’s norms make a difference between the actual translation process and the end product and that such a difference is important in the field of subtitling where a
complicated process “often results in a product that is effortlessly accessed by the reader/viewer.”
3.1.3 Translation quality, audience expectations and norms
If translations are to be thought of as consumable products, what kind of norms could be seen as definite indications of a high-quality product? Definitions and views vary to some extent.
According to Brunette (2000: 174), the most important factor in defining quality is the logic of the translation: it has to be semantically coherent and textually cohesive in order to achieve an effective communication act in the target community. Gouadec (2007: 7) also points out that translations must be “readable, coherent, logical and (preferably) well-written.” He also stresses the importance of the target culture: any source text or cultural elements will have to be altered or omitted to avoid confusion or misunderstanding and the translation must be adapted to the receivers’ level of technical competence.
According to Brunette (2000: 176 177), the purpose of the communication has two components: intention and effect. In other words, communication sought by the author (action aspect) and communication sought by the translator (reaction aspect). Gouadec (2007: 7 8) presents similar views: is the purpose of the translation to assist in something? Explain something? Seduce etc.
Undoubtedly, if translations are to be viewed as products to be consumed by clients or consumers, the client’s point of view becomes critical in determining quality. According to Mossop (2014: 22), “Quality is always relative to needs. There is no such thing as absolute quality. Different jobs will have different quality criteria because the texts are meeting different needs.”
Mossop (2014: 24 26) defines quality as whatever satisfies the communicational need and is fit for the purpose at hand. He points out that even an inaccurate translation could still serve its purpose (see also Hansen 2010: 386). Mossop and Hansen also discuss the position of machine translation: machine translations result in errors which can be accepted in such a communicative situation. Mossop (2014: 23 26) takes the thought even further by claiming that the quality produced by machines could actually lead to new norms: quality in translation is what machines can produce and everything else becomes undesirable. It would merely be up to human translators to eliminate the worst wrong collocations, unidiomatic expressions
and wrong prepositions. This may or may not be the case at least for some purposes in translation, but in general sense Mossop does acknowledge that “purpose” may be difficult to determine and that the concept of quality may vary between countries, language pairs or even by direction.
Gouadec (2007: 6 8) also agrees that the most important factor is the effectiveness of the communication process, not the ways used to express the message. In order to be effective, the translation has to take into account the linguistic and cultural standards and usages, rules and regulations, terminological and technical standards and physical and functional limitations concerning, for example, screen displays or Internet-sites. Furthermore, the end users’ value systems, their commonly accepted rhetorical and stylistic conventions, the various cultural contexts, such as national or corporal, as well as the most effective way of providing arguments accordingly will need to be taken into account.
To sum up, the most important aspects in defining quality are logical and understandable texts that meet the requirements of the clients and are carefully adapted from the target receivers’ point of view. These requirements may vary from insightful presentations to throwaway leaflets. But the purpose and especially the desired effect of the translation and the various social, cultural, professional etc. contexts that define such characteristics remain elusive and generalizations are difficult to make (see e.g. Brunette 2000: 177).
The factors that emerge from various authors could be called normative and they seem, by their most essential core, to adhere to Chesterman’s (1997: 69) communication norm: “a translator should act in such a way as to optimize communication, as required by the situation, between all the parties involved.” It should be pointed out that such findings have to do with translations in general. In the next section, I will examine any norms and definitions that are inherent in AV translation. This is not to say that AV translation and the evaluation of quality would be separate from other forms of translation but in AV translations there are certain important special aspects, such as considerations for technical limitations.