Despite increased interest within translation studies to provide orientation for translation quality assessment (TQA), academic efforts in this area are still largely ignored, if not explicitly rejected by the profession. The purpose of this paper is to investigate why scientific models for evaluating translations are difficult to apply and to outline a number of ways in which the gap between theoretical approaches and practical needs may be negotiated. Following a critical analysis of some TQA models, the paper suggests that a reductionist view of translations as products and a neglect of the conditions under which translations are produced ultimately result in evaluation criteria which cannot account for the individuality of target texts. An examination of an actual instance of English-German translation demonstrates that the translation process is guided by case-specific values. These values, as well as the strategies employed to realize them, are set and agreed by the interested parties during the translation process. In order to judge the quality of a translation, the values should be made accessible to the evaluator and operationalized as evaluation parameters. Because the application of evaluation parameters depends on situational and individual factors, translation quality is ultimately a matter of agreement and consensus.
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