Chapter 05. Intro Video.

Functional theories of
translation
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Chapter 5 looks at functional theories of translation, which were

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developed in

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Germany in the 1970s, 80s and beyond.

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These

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key concepts are

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fundamental in the development of translation theory and are still valid for the analysis of translation
today, more so perhaps than ever.

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And here we're talking about

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two

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main

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theorists:

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Katharina Reiss

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who developed

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the analysis of genre
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and text type.

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And

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so, when you read that section of the chapter, be sure that you've got a good definition for the two
terms text type and genre.

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and that you can differentiate between the two.

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And....

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And then there's Hans Vermeer, once a student of Katharina Reiss, who

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developed what's known as skopos theory.

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That is, the

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translation depends on the purpose to which it will be put. So it's successful,

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translation is successful, if it fulfils that

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role, that instruction,

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never mind

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whether it conforms to more traditional

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equivalence of meaning that we looked at in Chapters 3 and 4.
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For example, if I'm given a

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birth certificate to translate

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for someone seeking a job,

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it's fundamental that I get the date and the name correct

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because that is

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the feature that's going to be most prominent in

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the purpose to which it is going to be put. It doesn't make so much difference if I haven't got all of the

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layout absolutely identical to the original.

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So

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that's something to think about, also the interrelation between the genre

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and the translation method.

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How does that vary according to different genres? Does it vary?

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If you've got a metaphor in a literary text, is that going to be translated differently from a metaphor in
a business text?

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These are the type of questions that Katharina Reiss

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brings to the fore and Hans Vermeer tries to tackle
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- does tackle -

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with Skopos theory.