Towards a General Theory of Translational Action: Skopos Theory Explained

This is the first English translation of the seminal book by Katharina Reiß and Hans Vermeer, Grundlegung einer allgemeinen Translationstheorie, first published in 1984. The first part of the book was written by Vermeer and explains the theoretical foundations and basic principles of skopos theory as a general theory of translation and interpreting or ‘translational action’, whereas the second part, penned by Katharina Reiß, seeks to integrate her text-typological approach, first presented in 1971, as a ‘specific theory’ that focuses on those cases in which the skopos requires equivalence of functions between the source and target texts. Almost 30 years after it first appeared, this key publication is now finally accessible to the next generations of translation scholars. In her translation, Christiane Nord attempts to put skopos theory and her own concept of ‘function plus loyalty’ to the test, by producing a comprehensible, acceptable text for a rather heterogeneous audience of English-speaking students and scholars all over the world, at the same time as acting as a loyal intermediary for the authors, to whom she feels deeply indebted as a former student and colleague.

Table of Contents:
0. Introduction 0.1 Preliminary remarks 0.2 General epistemological considerations 0.3 The purpose of T&I studies 0.4 General remarks on terminology Part I. Theoretical groundwork 1. Terminological distinctions 1.1 The need for a generic term 1.2 The advantage of neologisms 1.3 Formal distinctions 1.4 Summary 1 1.5 Other definitions 2. Of worlds and languages 2.1 Framework for a theory of translational action: an overview 2.2 The concept of ‘language’ 2.3 Forms of transfer 2.4 Summary: ‘Transfer’ as a generic concept 2.5 Language and culture 2.6 What is translated? 3. Translational action as an ‘offer of information’ (functional definition) 3.1 Different translation strategies at work 3.2 Translation seen as a two-phase communication process 3.3 An ‘information’ theory of translation 3.4 In search of a consistent theory: five examples 3.5 Another short note on terminology 3.6 Translation as an IO about another IO 3.7 Types of ‘information offers’ about texts 3.8 The benefits of our theory 3.9 Translation as ‘imitatio’ 4. The priority of purpose (skopos theory) 4.1 Introductory remarks 4.2 The priority of functionality 4.3 Summary 4.4 The skopos rule 4.5 The sociological rule 4.6 Phases in decision-making 4.7 Skopos hierarchies 4.8 Source-text skopos vs. target-text skopos 5. Summary of the theoretical groundwork (3, 4) 6. Some further considerations regarding the theoretical groundwork 6.1 Success and protest 6.2 Intratextual coherence 6.3 Intertextual coherence (fidelity) 6.4 Types of coherence 7. General rules for translational action 8. Taxonomy for a theory of translational action 8.1 Preliminary remarks 8.2 Models of translational action 8.3 Taxonomy Part II. Specific theories 9. The relationship between source text and target text 10. Equivalence and adequacy 10.0 Preliminary remarks 10.1 Towards a definition of equivalence 10.2 Origin of the equivalence concept 10.3 On the fuzziness of the equivalence concept 10.4 Defining the scope of the equivalence concept 10.5 The concept of adequacy 10.6 Equivalence vs. adequacy 10.7 Equivalence as a dynamic concept 10.8 Text and textual equivalence 10.9 Equivalence criteria 10.10 Achieving textual equivalence in the translation process 10.11 The text 10.12 Hierarchies of equivalence requirements 10.13 Discussion of examples 10.14 Conclusions 11. Genre theory 11.0 Introduction 11.1 The concept of genre 11.2 Genre definition 11.3 Genre conventions and genre classes 11.4 The role of genre in the communicative event 11.5 The role of genre in the translation process 11.6 Summary 12. Text type and translation 12.0 Preliminary remarks 12.1 Text status 12.2 Text function 12.3 Text types 12.4 Hybrid forms 12.5 Identifying signals 12.6 Amplification of the typology 12.7 The relevance of text types for translation Epilogue

About the Author :
Katharina Reiß, Hans J. Vermeer, Christiane Nord, Marina Dudenhöfer