Didactics of Translation: Text in Context

4.2 House’s text analysis model

House’s text analysis and translation assessment model (1977) sets as a primary goal the characterization of the individual text’s function (i.e. the individual function of the source text and that of the translation text). Since the context of situation is intimately related to its text, and since, as she defines it, the function of an individual text is “the use which the text has in the particular context of situation” (1997: 36), characterizing this individual text function, “involves a systematic linguistic-pragmatic analysis of the text in its context of situation leading to the textual profile of the text” (Ibid). This text analysis is in fact an attempt to establish register membership.
In order to analyze the context of situation, House uses Crystal and Davy’s (1969) model of situational dimensions while at the same time introducing some slight modifications into it. The resulting new model of the context of situation thus has the following shape:

1. 
   Dimensions of language user
   
   1. 
      geographical origin
      
   2. 
      social class
      
   3. 
      time
      
2. 
   Dimensions of language use
   
   1. 
      medium: simple / complex
      
   2.