TRANSLATION THEORIES - مصر

1 TRANSLATION THEORIES Damanhur UniversityFaculty of ArtsDepartment of English Language and Literature 4thYear (Language Section) To continue .. Lecture 6 Outline Functional THEORIES The background and development of the functional THEORIES Basic THEORIES or concepts from functional TRANSLATION THEORIES Skopos theorya) Skopos rule b)Coherencerulec)Fidelityrule. ReferencesFunctional TheoriesThebackgroundanddevelopmentofthe functionaltheories Functionalism meansfocusingonthefunctionoftextsandtran slation. ,functionalismhasitsrootsinearlytranslat ionpractice,especiallyinliteraryorBiblet ranslation. Inthewest,asindicatedinthepreviouslectur e, ,itishardlysurprisingthattranslationtheo riesemphasizinglinguisticequivalencewere authoritativeandexertedgreatinfluenceatt hattime. However,inthe1960s,duetotheprofoundinflu enceofthedisciplineoflinguistics, , (Newmark,1998:40) Inasense,translatingconsistsinreproducin ginthereceptorlanguage(TL)theclosestnatu ralequivalentofthesource-language(SL)mes sage(Nida&Taber,1969:12).

2 Forthisequivalence-basedapproach,theemph asisisonthefaithfulnessorequivalenceofth etargettext(TT)tothesourcetext(ST).Theor iginaltexthasanabsoluteprivilegeoverthet ranslatedtext. ,itsdemeritsobviousreveal. Intranslationpractice, ,news,businessdocumentsandinstructions. Tosumup,suchanequivalence-basedlinguisti capproachstillfocusesonthesourcetext(ST) ,accordingtowhichthecharacteristicsofthe sourcetextmustbepreservedinthetargettext (TT)andtheTTmustbeequivalenttotheST. However, ,translatorsencountermanycasesinwhichfun ctionalmatterstakeprecedenceoverthenorma lstandardofequivalence,especiallyatthein formationagebeginningfromthe1970s. Linguistics-orientedtheoristsdidsomeadju stmentsintheirownapproaches, ,itwasnecessarytocallforanewtheorywhichc ouldexploretranslationstudiesfromanalter nativeperspective. The1970sand1980switnessedashiftfromthest aticlinguistictypologiesoftranslationand theemergence,inGermany,ofafunctionalista ndcommunicativeapproachtotheanalysisoftr anslation. AccordingtoNord(1991:28),althoughtheFunc tionalistApproachmarkstheimportanceofthe TT,itdoesnotneglecttheimportanceoftheSTa ndhighlightsitsimportancefortheproductio nofaTTthatishighlyacceptedbythetargetrea dership.

3 Inthisvein,NordreinforcesthatintheWester nculture,twopointsareparticularlyexpecte dfromaTT: functionalityoftheTTbutalsoloyaltytoward stheSTsenderandhisintention . Moreover,Nord(1991)pointsoutthatbeing loyal inFunctionalisttermsmeanstobeintunewitht heSTintention, ,butthetranslatormustbeloyaltoitsintenti on,adaptingthestructureoftheTTtoadiffere ntfunction(skopos). , THEORIES or Concepts from Functional TRANSLATION Theory 1. Skopos Theory Functionalismisabroadtermforvarioustheor iesthatapproachtranslationbasedonthefunc tionoftexts. Themostpopularamongthefunctionalistappro achesisthewhatwecall theSkopostheory . TheSkopostheory,originatinginGermany,has twomajorleadingexponents, ,atthelatertime. Skopos isaGreekwordfor purpose,intent,goal,aimandfunction . InVermeer spointofview,anyformoftranslationalactio nmustbeconceivedasanaction,andanyactionh asanaimorapurpose. VermeerarguesthattheSTisproducedforasitu ationinthesourceculturewhichmaynotbethes ameinthetargetculture. Itthenfollowsthatthetranslationshouldbep roducedtosuitthepurposeforwhichitisneede dinthetargetculture: theSTisorientedtowards,andisinanycasebou ndto,thesourceculture(Vermeer,1989:229).

4 Thus,itisquitedifferentfromequivalence-b asedtheories, ,whattheoristsmostconcernedaboutisthepur poseortheeffectofthetargettext. TherearethreeguidingrulesintheSkopostheo ry: a)Skoposrule b)Coherencerule c)Fidelityrule. Thetop-rankingruleforanytranslationsisth e Skoposrule ,whichsaysthatatranslationalactionisdete rminedbyitsSkopos;thatis, theendjustifiesthemeans (ReissandVermeer,1984:101). Itisnotthesourcetextthatdeterminesthetra nslationprocess, ,thatis, ,aliteraloneorsomethingelse?a) Skopos Rule Itdependsonthepurposeortypologyforwhicht hetranslationisneeded,becausetheSkoposof aparticulartranslationtaskmayrequirea free ora faithful TRANSLATION , , freeform,butfaithfulcontent isimportantbecausemessageorinformationis moreimportantthantheformat. This rule specifies that a TRANSLATION should be acceptable in the sense that it is coherent with the receivers situation (Reiss and Vermeer, 1984:113). In other words,translators should produce a text that is likely to be meaningful to the receiver of the target culture.

5 B) Coherence Rule ThethirdruleintheframeworkoftheSkoposthe oryisthefidelityrule,or intertextualcoherence inVermeer swords,referringtothefaithfulnessoftheta rgettexttothesourcetext. Itmeans,thetranslationshouldbearepresent ationofthesourcetextatleastinoneoftheasp ectsofcontent,formoreffect. Theimportantpointisthatintertextualcoher enceshouldexistbetweensourceandtargettex t,whiletheformittakesdependsbothonthetra nslator ) Fidelity Rule In informative texts TRANSLATION is generally a representation of the content of the source text. These three rules are ordered according to their importance. That is to say, the first concern of the translator is the purpose of a specific TRANSLATION task rather than faithfulness to the source text. This is quite different from the other TRANSLATION THEORIES , which always advocate faithfulness and equivalence . References Nord, C. (1991). Text analysis in TRANSLATION : Theory, Methodology and Didactic Application of a Model for TRANSLATION -Oriented Text analysis .

6 Amsterdam: Rodopi Nord, C. (1997). Translating as a Purposeful Activity -Functional Approaches Explained. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press Reiss, K. and Vermeer H. J. (1984). General Foundations of TRANSLATION Theory. Tubingen: Niemeyer Vermeer, (1989). Skopos and TRANSLATION Commission. Heidelberg: Universitat