Argumentation-based literary translation quality assessment: A multidisciplinary model

Abstract

This study correlates argumentation, translation, and literature to construct a new model for assessing the quality of translated literature. Literary translation is described as being compatible with the rhetorical stream of argumentation studies, while the study rests on the overriding notion of ethics of difference in argumentative cross-cultural and translational encounters. The model incorporates ethics of difference and interpretive act, pragma-dialectical contributions of scheme/structure and rhetorical/dialectical situations, and aesthetic features including figures of speech and (sub)genres of literature. Application of the model to an English translation of a classical poem (a Rumi’s allegory) shows that the model can be systematically applied to quality assessment of translated literature (and literary genres e.g. plays, novels, audiovisual/cinematic products, etc.). Considering the implications and suggestions for further research, the study can progressively develop into a literary or cross-linguistic subgenre of argumentation theory, with implications for comparative literature, philosophy of meaning, translation theory, and dialectical hermeneutics.