Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto
Línguas e Literaturas Modernas
INTRODUCTION TO
TRANSLATION STUDIES
Power Point 13
Monday, 3 December 2006
Skopostheorie
Major work on skopos theory:
Grundlegungen einer allgemeiner
Translationstheorie (Reiss and
Vermeer, 1984)
Skopos sing. Skopoi pl.
Greek words meaning AIM, PURPOSE,
OBJECTIVE
Technical term introduced by Hans
Vermeer in the 1970s to refer to “the
purpose of a translation and of the
action of translating.” (Munday: 79)
Main focus in this theory


The purpose of the TT dictates T
methods and strategies so as to
produce a functionally adequate
result (called the TRANSLATUM).
For this reason, it is absolutely
essential for the translator to know
exactly why a ST needs to be
translated and what the function of
the TT will be.
Let’s see what Vermeer himself wrote.
“There is clearly no single translation for a
given text. On the contrary, there are
many. There is, in fact, an infinite number
of possible translations:

Let us take the example of a form used in
an insurance contract or as documentary
evidence in a law suit. In the two cases
there will be two different translations for
the same passage: one will be more
natural, the other more literal so as to
facilitate interpretation of the text by the
judge.
A literary text can be read by an
intellectual or serve as an exercise
for students learning a foreign
language. In the first case, the
translation must be stylistically at
the level of the original author; in
the second case, it should simply
imitate the linguistic structures of the
source text for the benefit of the
students.
And so on and so forth.

Never will a translation be possible without
a well-defined objective, and it is this very
objective which always determines the
strategy to be adopted so as to achieve
that specific objective in the best possible
way in the specific target situation. The
source text is NOT the determining factor,
nor is fidelity to the ST, but rather ‘fidelity’
to the objective, to the intention, to the
purpose of the target text.
The central factor in each and every
translation is the target text.”
From Hans J. Vermeer, Esboço de uma Teoria da
Tradução, Porto: Edições ASA, 1985. (my
translation)
According to Vermeer:
Our attention
should be
focussed on
the
“production”
of the TT
rather than on
the
“reproduction”
of a ST.
Basic rules of the skopos theory
1.
2.
3.
A TT (which Vermeer calls
translatum) is determined by its
skopos.
A TT is an offer of info in a TC and
TL related to an offer of info in a SC
and SL.
A TT does not initiate an offer of
information in a clearly reversible
way.
4. A TT must be coherent with the target
situation for which it is intended, and it
must be coherent in itself, that is, in its
internal structure (Intertextual and
intratextual coherence)
5. A TT must be coherent with the ST. A TT
will ‘imitate’ the semantic and formal
aspects of the ST, but the importance of
these aspects is always subordinated to
the objective of the TT. So in a scientific
text the content to be transmitted will
generally be more important than the
form, but in a literary text the opposite is
true.
A Boa Nova Para Toda a Gente
Em 1972, a agência portuguesa da S.B.B.E.
(Sociedade Bíblica Britânica e Estrangeira)
constituiu um grupo de tradutores de
competência académica (entre outros, os Prof.
Doutores João Soares Carvalho e José Augusto
Ramos, da Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa) ao
qual foi confiada a tarefa de fazerem uma nova
versão da Bíblia em Português corrente a partir
dos originais hebraicos e gregos. Deste trabalho
resultou, em 1978, a versão A Boa Nova do Novo
Testamento e, em 1989, ficou concluída a
tradução do Antigo Testamento, publicando-se
uma nova edição completa da Bíblia em 1993 que
já editou em cinco reimpressões cento e trinta
mil exemplares. A nova versão portuguesa da
Bíblia foi feita pelo moderno método da
equivalência semântica.
Same ST, different TT according to
different objectives of TT
Maria and the children do-re-mi lyrics
Doe, a deer, a female deer
Ray, a drop of golden sun
Me, a name I call myself
Far, a long, long way to run
Sew, a needle pulling thread
La, a note to follow Sew
Tea, a drink with jam and bread
That will bring us back to Do (oh-oh-oh)
The Sound of Music (1965)
Música no Coração
Original with Portuguese subtitles
Dó é ter pena d’alguém
Ré; a traseira dum navio
Mi é metade do nome duma Mimi
Fá é a nota antes do Sol
Sol dá brilho e nos aquece
Lá ali além bem longe
Si; dizer que sim em espanhol
E voltamos ao dó do começo.
Tutti insieme appassionatamente
Dubbed for the Italian audience
Do, se do una cosa a te
Re, é il re che c’era un dì
Mi, é il mi per dire a me
Fa, la nota dopo il Mi
Sol é il sole in fronte a te
La, se proprio non e qua
Si, se non ti dico no
E così si torna al Do (do do do do)