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to be sacrificed to the content. The translation is honest and
accurate but not necessarily as effective as the source text.
3. THE EXPERIMENT
This experiment was conducted in the section of Arabic Language and
Linguistics, Department of Modern Languages, University of Salford.
Six informants were chosen from among post-graduate students of
Translation and Applied Linguistics. The aim of the experiment is two-
fold: (1) to test the informants' ability to analyse texts following
the procedural steps suggested in our model; and (2) to assess
translation quality in the light of the model. The experiment was
conducted over two weekly long sessions, each lasting about two hours.
For the purpose of analysis, photocopies of an excerpt from 'Lord
of Arabia' by H C Armstrong were handed out to the informants. It is a
relatively small chapter covering pages 82-85 of the said book. The
informants were told to peruse the text thoroughly and identify the
three interlocked layers of meaning: obligatory, extended, and
accessory, in accordance to the model. They were given lmple time to
carry out the meaning identification process. Before they embarked on
this endeavour, they had been briefed on how the model works. Diagrams
of literary, non-literary, and hybrid texts with obligatory meaning
control centres (0MCC5) surrounded by extended and accessory meanings
were sketched out on the blackboard. The theoretical framework of the
model was also reviewed. Armed with sufficient theoretical and
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