Translation

FUNCTIONALISM IN TRANSLATION
STUDIES
• Translation is viewed here as a socio-cultural practice
which is deeply immersed in its own context. Translation is
not an activity that happens in isolation. It is carried out by
individuals for various reasons and in order to fulfil specific
purposes. The study of translation in social practices
therefore, takes into consideration the position 'translation
as an activity' occupies in a particular cultural system. It
also considers the role of the translator in the transmission
of identities, in shaping images of communities and in the
spread of political and religious doctrines.
• Skopos theory
Skopos theory, in German Skopos theorie,
applies the notion of Skopos to translation.
Skopos is a Greek polysemic word (σκοπός)
which means ‘aim’, ‘purpose’, ‘objective’, or
‘intention’.
• Skopos, coherence and culture
• The concept of Skopos subsumes the concepts of
‘aim’, ‘purpose’, ‘function’, and ‘intention’ of the
target text. According to Skopos theory, any
translational action is determined by its Skopos. This
is called the ‘Skopos rule’, which recommends to
translate in a way that enables the target text to
function in the situation in which it is used, and with
the people who want to use it, and precisely in the
way they want it to function (Nord, 1997: 29).
• This rule is complemented by another rule, which
states that the Skopos is determined by the
receiver of the target text. It follows that in any
translational situation the translator will choose a
particular Skopos on the basis of the information
provided by the client in the translation brief.
Ideally, this will give details about the addressees,
time, place, occasion, medium, and intended
communicative function of the target text.
• Another rule of Skopos theory is the ‘coherence rule’. It
states that a translation should be coherent with the
receivers’ communicative situation, that is, it should be
meaningful to target-culture receivers and conform to the
principle of ‘intratextual coherence’. The relationship
between target text and source text is posited as the ‘fidelity
rule’, whereby source and target texts should be bound by
‘intertextual coherence’. Both rules are subservient to the
Skopos rule, in the sense that the Skopos determines the way
in which the standards of intertextual and intratextual
coherence are achieved in a particular target text.
Activities
(p.3)
1.4.2 Adequacy and equivalence
• Starting from the premise that a target text is a
new offer of information in the target culture
about an original offer of information in the
source culture, Reiss conceives of ‘adequacy’ as
a superordinate concept defined as “the goal-
oriented selection of signs that are considered
appropriate for the communicative purpose
defined in the translation assignment”
• ‘Equivalence’, on the other hand, is a concept which
describes a relationship of equal meaning, stylistic
connotations or communicative effect between
source and target text. It may be achieved at
different levels of linguistic analysis, e.g. lexical,
morpho-syntactic, textual, or stylistic, and is
subordinate to adequacy, which in turn is
subordinate to the target-text Skopos, which
determines the type of equivalence that is required
of an adequate translation.
Activity
 1.4.3 Theory of text types
• Reiss proposes to classify texts on the basis of
their principal communicative function, i.e.
informative, expressive, or operative.
• Informative texts inform readers about objects
and phenomena in the real world. When source
and target text are informative the translator
should relay the whole content of the source
text and adhere to the stylistic conventions
prevailing in the target language and culture.
• Expressive texts create an aesthetic effect
through the author’s stylistic choices. In these
texts the choice of form contributes
significantly to the expression of meaning.
When there is invariance of function between
source and target texts, the translator should
aim to achieve a similar stylistic effect,
therefore the translator’s stylistic choices are
guided by those made in the original text.
• Operative texts produce an extralinguistic effect on
the reader; they are intended to make the receiver
do something, such as change his/her behaviour.
Both content and form are subservient to this
extralinguistic effect and, providing the target text
fulfils an identical operative function, the translator
should aim to elicit the same response from the
target readership. This may involve modifying the
content and/or style of the original text.
Activity
 1.5 A model for translation-oriented text
analysis
• Christiane Nord’s model for text analysis in translation views
translation as the production of a functional target text that
maintains a relationship with the source text, which is
specified according to the intended or demanded function of
the target text (or translation Skopos). Although functionality is
the most important aspect of translation, the translator is also
expected not to falsify the author’s intention. The translator is
therefore responsible to the source-text sender and the target-
text receiver. This responsibility is what Nord calls ‘loyalty’.
Functionality and loyalty are the two principles which
determine the relationship between the source and the target
text.
The translation process is conceived in terms of
a) the general conditions and constituents of
the setting in which translation takes place
and
b) the procedure that leads from source-text
analysis to target-text production, defined as
the ‘process of intercultural text transfer’.
 1. Setting
• Source-text sender
• source-text producer
• source text
• source-text receiver
• initiator of the translation process
• translator
• target text
• target-text receiver
• The initiator defines the translation brief from which the
translator infers the target text communicative situation
and the intended function of the target text (or TT
Skopos). On the basis of the initiator’s intention, the
translator produces a target text which either serves as
an instrument of communication in its own right,
conveying a message from the source-text author to the
target-text receiver (‘instrumental translation’), or a
target-culture document of a source-culture
communication between the author and the source-text
receiver (‘documentary translation’).
• Examples of documentary translations are word-for-word, literal,
philological, or exoticizing translations.
• Instrumental translations can be of three types:
• a) equifunctional, when the target text fulfils the same function(s) as
the source text, for example the translation of business
correspondence;
• b) heterofunctional, when the translator adapts the function(s) of the
source text in a way which is compatible with the sender’s intention, as
is the case of an adult’s book translated for children;
• c) homologous, when the target text is intended to achieve in the
target-culture literary context a similar effect to the one produced by
the source text in the source-culture literary context, as is the case of
translated poetry.
The process of intercultural transfer is represented as a looping
model made up of the following steps:
• analysis and/or interpretation of the target-text Skopos on the
basis of the translation brief
• analysis of the source text
– assessment of the compatibility between the source-text function
with the requirements of the translation brief
– detailed linguistic analysis of the source text, paying particular
attention to those elements that are crucial for the production of the
target text
• structuring of the target text in keeping with the initiator’s
demands and the target-text Skopos.
the analysis of the source text starts with the examination of the
following interdependent extratextual (or external) factors:
• • sender and text producer (or author if they are the same
person)
• • sender’s intention about the function and effect of the text
• • audience
• • medium (i.e. the means or vehicle which conveys the text to
the reader, such as speech or writing)
• • place of communication
• • time of communication
• • motive of communication.
• Nord (1997: 40-45) puts forward a translation-oriented model of text
functions which comprises four basic types of function, two of which are
further subdivided into subfunctions.
1. The referential function involves reference to the objects and phenomena
of the real and fictional world. It comprises the following sub-functions:
• • Informative, when the referent is a fact or state of things unknown to the
receiver
• • Metalinguistic, when the referent is a language or a specific use of
language
• • Directive, when the referent is the correct way of using a piece of
equipment or of carrying out a certain operation
• • Didactic, when the referent is a whole field that the receiver has to learn.
2. The expressive function refers to the sender’s
attitude towards the objects and phenomena of
the world and is subdivided into three sub-
functions:
• • Emotive, when the sender expresses individual
feelings or emotions
• • Evaluative, when the sender expresses an
evaluation
• • Irony.
3. The appellative function aims to induce the
receiver to respond in a particular way
4. The phatic function aims to establish,
maintain or end contact between sender and
receiver. With the exception of purely phatic
expressions such as ‘hello’ or ‘goodbye’, texts
usually fulfil more than one function.
• The source-text function initially inferred from the analysis of the
extratextual factors will subsequently be confirmed or rejected by
the analysis of the following interrelated intratextual factors:
• • subject matter
• • knowledge presuppositions made by the author
• • content
• • text composition
• • non-verbal elements (i.e. the non-linguistic or paralinguistic
elements accompanying the text)
• • lexis
• • sentence structure and the suprasegmental features, i.e.
intonation, prosody and stress.