662 Functional and Skopos Oriented Approaches to Translation

Functional and Skopos Oriented Approaches to Translation

C Nord, Hochschule Magdeburg-Stendal, Magdeburg, The training was mainly practical; theoretical
Germany foundations were borrowed from linguistics. Equiva-
! 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. lence between source and target language was the
quality yardstick that was never questioned, although
Functional translation theories are gaining ground in the definitions of the concept were far from satisfac-
many parts of the world, especially where translation tory. The material used in the classroom comprised
needs are pressing and equivalence theories are out of mostly essays or literary texts used to train the stu-
the question because of (1) different stages of (lexico- dents’ linguistic and stylistic proficiency in both the
logical, terminological etc.) development in source source and the target language. Trainers were often
and target languages, (2) discrepant levels of knowl- language teachers with little or no experience in
edge and experience in source and target audiences, professional translation.
or (3) large gaps between source and target cultures, Employers, however, kept complaining about the
value systems, perspectives, world views, and so on. poor competence of graduated translators with regard
Nevertheless, criticisms have been leveled at the to the variety of text genres and tasks that had to be
theoretical foundations and applicability of functional- tackled in professional practice, where ‘equivalence’
ist approaches in general and of skopos theory in par- of whatever kind is often neither possible nor desir-
ticular. Although, as Toury pointed out with reference able. For example, resumé translations need not give
to both skopos theory and his own target-oriented more than the gist of the source-text information,
approach, ‘‘target-orientedness as such no longer specialist research reports sometimes must be trans-
arouses the same antagonism it used to less than 20 lated for a broader nonspecialist audience, and poorly
years ago’’ (Toury, 1995: 25), quite a number of criti- written operating instructions have to be adapted to
cisms are still, explicitly or implicitly, present in the needs of a target culture where technical or cul-
debates on translation theory today. Some scholars tural conditions are completely different from those
keep maintaining the view that equivalence is the of the source culture. Teachers needed a new yard-
only valid yardstick of translation quality, as well as stick to explain why different contexts call for differ-
being a constitutive characteristic of translation prop- ent translation solutions, and the pragmatic turn in
er (cf. Koller, 1995). linguistics seemed to point in the right direction.
Is equivalence a safeguard against manipulation? The publication of Hans J. Vermeer’s ‘Framework
Post-colonial translation studies show that the (theo- for a general translation theory’ (1978) seemed to
retical) notion of equivalence has never stopped any offer a theoretical foundation for translator training.
translator (or commissioner of translations) from ma- The theory was later explained in more detail in a
nipulating source texts consciously or unconsciously. book co-authored with Katharina Reiss, who had
A corrective is needed for both equivalence-based and prepared the ground for a functional approach in
function-oriented translation theories. For this pur- her work on translation criticism as early as 1971
pose, I have suggested the concept of ‘loyalty’ (cf. (cf. Reiss, 1971; Reiss & Vermeer, 1984). Using the
Nord, 1997a) to account for the culture-specificity Greek word skopos, meaning ‘purpose’ or ‘aim’,
of translation concepts, setting an ethical limitation Vermeer called his theory skopos theory because he
on the otherwise unlimited range of possible skopoi considered translation to be a type of human action.
for the translation of one particular source text. ‘Action,’ in turn, was defined as a behavior intended
to change a state of affairs. In accordance with action
theory (for example, von Wright, 1968), Vermeer
Historical Overview
defined translation as a purposeful behavior that
Functional approaches to translation developed in takes place in a given situation; it is part of the situa-
Germany in the beginning of the 1980s. At that tion at the same time as it modifies the situation.
time, university programs for translation and inter- Further, because situations are embedded in cultures,
preting could look back on quite a long tradition, any evaluation of a particular situation, of its verba-
since the first interpreter training had been estab- lized and nonverbalized elements, depends on the
lished at Humboldt University in Berlin as early as status it has in a particular culture system (cf.
1894. During and shortly after World War II, transla- Vermeer, 1989).
tor training departments were founded at several uni- According to this line of thought, translation can-
versities in both East and West Germany to meet the not be considered a one-to-one transfer between lan-
increasing demand for well-trained translators and guages, and a translation theory cannot draw on a
interpreters. linguistic theory alone, however complex it may be.
 Functional and Skopos Oriented Approaches to Translation 663

Skopos theory is, therefore, a culture-oriented It is a feature common to the functionalist scholars
approach. One of the most important factors deter- engaged in translator training that they try to focus
mining the purpose of a translation is the intended on the language-independent pragmatic and cultural
audience of the target text, specifically its culture- aspects of translation, emphasizing the specific nature
specific world knowledge, expectations, and commu- of translation competence, rather than language pro-
nicative needs. Every translation is directed at an ficiency. Obviously, they want to distance themselves
intended audience, because to translate means ‘‘to from the first phase of German translator training,
produce a text in a target setting for a target purpose which evolved from the philologies and from language
and target addressees in target circumstances’’ teaching.
(Vermeer, 1987: 29).
In the phrase just cited, the source text is not even
mentioned. Its status is clearly much lower in skopos Fundamental Principles of Functional
theory than in equivalence-based theories. Vermeer Translation
regarded a text as an ‘offer of information,’ from
The main hypotheses of a functional approach to
which any receiver picks precisely the items he or she
translation may be summarized in the following
wants, and is able, to process. Therefore, a translation
principles:
is an offer of information produced in the target lan-
guage and culture for target-culture addressees about . The purpose of the translation determines the choice
another offer of information that was produced in a of translation method and strategy. This means that
source language and culture for source-culture addres- any choice among two or more available solutions
sees. This means that, in the translation process, the to a translation problem must be guided by an
translator’s decisions are no longer guided by the lin- intersubjective criterion that, in the functionalist
guistic and stylistic characteristics of the source text but framework, is provided by the communicative
by the constellation of participants and conditions of function or functions for which the target text is
the communicative situation for which it is produced. needed.
Instead of equivalence between source and target . The purpose is defined, either explicitly or impli-
texts, the aim is adequacy for the translation purpose. citly, in the translation brief provided by the client
Right from the outset, skopos theory had a consid- or commissioner. The translator interprets the
erable impact on the methodology of translator train- translation brief in order to find out what kind
ing. Hans G. Hönig and Paul Kußmaul (1982), both of translation is needed and which translation
engaged in translator training, gave the starting signal strategy to choose.
with their book on translation strategy. They showed . A translation may be called functional if it ‘works’
how functional strategies lead to appropriate solu- for its receivers in a particular communicative situ-
tions to translation problems. Although their exam- ation precisely in the way the client wants it to
ples are taken from German-English translating, the work. The translator has, therefore, to evaluate
problems they discussed are clearly not language- the audience’s capacities for comprehension and
specific, but may occur, with slight variations caused cooperation, especially with regard to previous
by language structures and culture conventions, in knowledge about the topic, and anticipate the
any translation situation. Other scholars followed possible effects that certain forms of expression
suit, developing models for a functional approach to may have on the readership.
translation error analysis (Kupsch-Losereit, 1985), . Function is not an inherent quality of a text. It is
functional text analysis (Nord, 1988), functional attributed to the text by the receiver, at the moment
text typology (Göpferich, 1995), translator training of reception. It is the receiver who decides whether
(Kußmaul, 1995), a functional typology of transla- (and how) a text ‘functions’ (for him or her, in
tions (Nord, 1997b), and a functional redefinition of a specific situation). If, as we know, the same
the translation unit (Nord, 1997c). Applications of receiver at different moments of his or her life
functionalist methodology dealt with the descriptions may react in different ways to the ‘same’ text
of nonverbal behaviour in the Odyssey (Vermeer, (e.g., to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet), it is
1992), titles and headings (Nord, 1993, 1995), most improbable that different readers, at differ-
culture-references in literary texts (Nord, 1994), the ent moments, will react to the same text in the
cultural transfer in simultaneous interpreting same way, let alone readers belonging to different
(Pöchhacker, 1995), text-type conventions (Kußmaul, cultural environments.
1997), and the translation of paralanguage in literary . Yet, if this is true, how can we be sure that a
texts (Nord, 1997a), to name only a few contribu- text achieves the function we want it to achieve?
tions available in English. We cannot. Usually, we rely on the audience’s
664 Functional and Skopos Oriented Approaches to Translation

willingness to cooperate in a given situation; other- At different times and in different parts of the
wise, communication would be impossible. Any world, people have had and still have different con-
text producer, therefore, consciously or uncon- cepts of the relationship that should hold between
sciously uses some kind of verbal and/or nonverbal an original and the text that is called its translation.
‘function markers,’ which indicate the intended According to the prevailing concept of transla-
communicative function(s). Thus, printing the tion, readers might expect, for example, that the
text in tiny letters on a slip of paper that comes target text gives exactly the author’s words; other
with a box of pills indicates patient information; cultures might want it to express the author’s inten-
imposing a title, such as ‘Instructions for use,’ is a tion, even though this would mean changing the
most explicit function marker. Other types of mar- words. Still others could praise archaizing translations
kers might be a particular text format or layout, or ones that are comprehensible, readable texts. Tak-
such as a newspaper headline; certain sentence ing account of all these different expectations, which
structures, such as imperatives in a recipe; a partic- may vary according to the text type in question or
ular register, like that of an editorial; certain forms depend on the self-esteem of the receiving culture
of address for the readership, for example in a with regard to the source culture, the translator acts
student’s manual, and the like. If the receivers rec- as a responsible mediator in the cooperation develop-
ognize the function markers, they may accept the ing among the client, the target audience, and the
text as serving the intended function. However, source-text author. This does not mean that transla-
markers can only be interpreted correctly by a re- tors always have to do what the others expect – doing
ceiver who is familiar with the marker code used. so may even be impossible if the three parties expect
. Basically, the function (or set of functions) intended different translational behaviours. It just means that
for, and/or achieved by, the target text may be the translator has to anticipate any misunderstanding
different from that intended for, and/or achieved or communicative conflict that may occur due to
by, the source text. discrepant translational concepts and has to find a
way to avoid them.
This responsibility that translators have toward
Functionality and Loyalty
their partners can be called ‘loyalty.’ Loyalty is not
Looking at the basic principles presented above, we the old fidelity in new clothes, because fidelity usually
may wonder why there is no mention of such equiva- refers to an intertextual relationship holding between
lence-based criteria as ‘faithfulness’ or ‘fidelity’ to the source and the target texts as linguistic entities.
the source text. This is the reason why some critics However, loyalty is an interpersonal category refer-
reproach functionalism for producing ‘‘mercenary ring to a social relationship between individuals. In a
experts, able to fight under the flag of any purpose general model, loyalty would be an empty slot that, in
able to pay them’’ (Pym, 1996: 338). This criticism a specific translation task, is filled by the demands of
refers to an ethical quality related to the status of the the translation concepts of the cultures in question,
source text. If the linguistic and stylistic features of especially when the source-text author and the target-
the source are no longer regarded as the yardstick for text audience hold discrepant views of what a
translation quality, does this mean that the translator translator should or should not do. It is the transla-
is entitled to do whatever he or she likes? tor’s task to mediate between the two cultures, and
Indeed, the first basic principle of functionalism mediation cannot mean the imposition of the concept
could be paraphrased as ‘the translation purpose jus- of one culture on members of another.
tifies the translation procedures,’ and this statement The loyalty principle thus adds two important
could easily be interpreted as ‘the end justifies the qualities to the functional approach. Because it
means.’ In this case, there would be no restrictions obliges the translator to take account of the difference
to the range of possible ends: The source text could between culture-specific concepts of translation pre-
be manipulated, as clients (or translators) saw fit. In vailing in the two cultures involved in the translation
a general theory, this doctrine might be acceptable process, it turns skopos theory into an anti-universal-
enough, since one could always argue that general ist model, and because it induces the translator to
theories do not have to be directly applicable. Yet, respect the sender’s individual communicative inten-
translation practice does not take place in a void. tions, as far as they can be elicited, it reduces the
It takes place in specific situations set in specific prescriptiveness of ‘radical’ functionalism.
cultures, so any application of the general theory, The first basic principle of functional translation
either to practice or to training, has to take account theory mentioned above should, therefore, be comple-
of the specific cultural conditions under which a text mented by the following limitation: The acceptability
is translated. of translation purposes is limited by the translator’s
 Functional and Skopos Oriented Approaches to Translation 665

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