A Functional Approach To Translation

This bestselling text is a comprehensive overview of functionalist approaches to translation in English. Christiane Nord, one of the leading figures in translation studies, explains the complexities of theories and terms in simple language with numerous examples. Covering how the theories developed, illustrations of the main ideas, and specific applications to translator training, literary translation, interpreting and ethics, Translating as a Purposeful Activity concludes with a concise review of both criticisms and perspectives for the future. Now with a Foreword by Georges Bastin and a new chapter covering the recent developments and elaborations of the theory, this is an essential text for students of translation studies and for translator training.

German-language approaches to translation have been revolutionized by the theory of action (Handlungstheorie) and the related theory of translation's goal or purpose (Skopstheorie). Both these approaches are functionalist: they seek to liberate translators from servitude to the source text, seeing translation as a new communicative act that must be purposeful with respect to the translator's client and readership. As one of the leading figures in this field, Christiane Nord gives the first full survey of functionalist approaches in English. She explains the complexities of the theories and their terms, using simple language with numerous examples. The book includes an overview of how the theories developed, illustrations of the main ideas, and specific applications to translator training, literary translation, interpreting and ethics. The survey concludes with a concise review of the criticisms that have been made of the theories, together with perspectives for the future development of functionalist approaches.

This volume contains a generous selection of articles on translation by Professor José Lambert (K.U. Leuven). It traces the intellectual itinerary of their author, who started out as a French and Comparative Literature scholar some four decades ago trying to get a better grip on the problem of inter-literary contacts, and who soon became a key figure in the emergent discipline of Translation Studies, where he is widely known as an indefatigable promoter of descriptively oriented research. This collection shows how José Lambert has never stopped asking new questions about the crucial but often hidden role of language and translation in the world of today. It includes some of the author’s classic papers as well as a few lesser known ones that deserve wider circulation. The editors’ introduction and the bibliography complete this thought-provoking survey of the career of one of the most creative researchers in the field.

This book addresses translation and interpreting with Arabic either as a source or target language. It focuses on new fields of study and professional practice, such as community translation and interpreting, and offers fresh insights into the relationship between culture, translation and interpreting. Chapters discuss issues relating specifically to Arabic and the Arab cultural context and contribute views, research findings and applications that come from a language combination and a cultural background quite different from traditional Eurocentric theoretical and professional positions. This volume is a significant addition to resources on Arabic translation and interpreting and contributes fresh perspectives to translation studies in general. It is of interest to students, researchers and professionals working in public service, community, legal, administrative and healthcare translation and interpreting, as well as intercultural communication and translator education.

Text Analysis in Translation has become a classic in Translation Studies. Based on a functional approach to translation and endebted to pragmatic text linguistics, it suggests a model for translation-oriented source-text analysis applicable to all text types and genres independent of the language and culture pairs involved. Part 1 of the study presents the theoretical framework on which the model is based, and surveys the various concepts of translation theory and text linguistics. Part 2 describes the role and scope of source-text analysis in the translation process and explains why the model is relevant to translation. Part 3 presents a detailed study of the extratextual and intratextual factors and their interaction in the text, using numerous examples from all areas of professional translation. Part 4 discusses the applications of the model to translator training, placing particular emphasis on the selection of material for translation classes, grading the difficulty of translation tasks, and translation quality assessment. The book concludes with the practical analysis of a number of texts and their translations, taking into account various text types and several languages (German, English, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Dutch).

Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2,3, University of Paderborn (Anglistik/Amerikanistik), course: Linguistics and the Theory of Translation, language: English, abstract: 1. Introduction "Translation ist eine Sondersorte des kommunikativen Handelns, welches kulturspezifisch ist. Ihr oberster Primat ist der funktionale Zweck. Die Skopostheorie sieht im Translat ein Informationsangebot in der Zielkultur über ein Informationsangebot aus einer Ausgangskultur. Wichtiger als die Nähe zwischen Ausgangs- und Zieltext ist die kulturspezifische Kohärenz des Translats." This is an appropriate summary of what the functional translation theory according to Radegundis Stolze is about. In this paper I want to explain what the fundamental ideas are, how exactly this theory works and where some of its difficulties lie. I will also show the theory of translation Nida and Taber developed originally to translate texts from the Bible, but that can be used in every situation. Because of this universality Nida and Taber’s theory of translation can be well compared to the functional translation theory as both consider function as a priority.

This book begins by investigating, through the use of think-aloud protocols, the mental processes of students when they translate. The creative and successful processes observed can be used directly for teaching purposes, while the unsuccessful ones can serve to find out where remedial training is needed. The book then goes on to discuss methods for improving a translator's competence. The strategies offered are based on the pragmatic and semantic analysis of texts from a functional point of view, and they include such practical matters as the use of dictionaries and the evaluation of translations and error analysis. The book is intended for teachers in translator-training institutions, but it can also be used by students for self-training.

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.

A replacement of the author's well-known book on Translation Theory, In Search of a Theory of Translation (1980), this book makes a case for Descriptive Translation Studies as a scholarly activity as well as a branch of the discipline, having immediate consequences for issues of both a theoretical and applied nature. Methodological discussions are complemented by an assortment of case studies of various scopes and levels, with emphasis on the need to contextualize whatever one sets out to focus on.Part One deals with the position of descriptive studies within TS and justifies the author's choice to devote a whole book to the subject. Part Two gives a detailed rationale for descriptive studies in translation and serves as a framework for the case studies comprising Part Three. Concrete descriptive issues are here tackled within ever growing contexts of a higher level: texts and modes of translational behaviour — in the appropriate cultural setup; textual components — in texts, and through these texts, in cultural constellations. Part Four asks the question: What is knowledge accumulated through descriptive studies performed within one and the same framework likely to yield in terms of theory and practice?This is an excellent book for higher-level translation courses.