Skopos Theory Case Study

2.4.2. Basic Concepts of Skopos Theory
“A. Theory of Action: The theory of action provides the foundation for Skopos theory. Action is the process of acting, which means “intentionally (at will) bringing about or preventing a change in the world (in nature)” (Wright, 1968, p. 38, cited in Nord 2001). Action can thus be defined as an intentional “change or transition from one state of affairs to another” (Wright, 1968, p. 28, cited in Nord 2001). If there are two or more agents, the theory of action can become a theory of interaction. Considering the multiple factors involved in a translation procedure, translation is also an interaction. Translation theorists of the functionalist approaches view translating as a form of translational interaction,
Skopos, Aim, Purpose, Intention, Function: Skopos is a Greek word for “purpose”. According to Skopostheorie, the prime principle determining any translation process is the purpose (Skopos) of the overall translational action. This fits in with intentionality being part of the very definition of any action. We can distinguish between three possible kinds of purpose in the field of translation: the general purpose aimed at by the translator in the translation process, the communicative purpose aimed at by the target text in the target situation, and the purpose aimed at by a particular translation strategy or procedure (Vermeer, 1989a, p.100, cited in Nord 2001). Nevertheless, the term Skopos usually refers to the purpose of the target text. Apart from the term Skopos, Vermeer uses the related words aim, purpose, intention and function. In order to avoid the conceptual confusion, Nord have proposed a basic distinction between intention and function (Nord, 2001). “Intention” is defined from the viewpoint of the sender, who wants to achieve a certain purpose with the text. Yet the best of intentions do not guarantee a perfect result, particularly in cases where the situations of the sender and the receiver differ considerably. This distinction is particularly useful in translation, where the sender and receiver by definition belong to different cultural and situational settings. Because of this separation of sender and receiver, intention and function may have to be analyzed
Culture: Vermeer’s definition of culture focuses on norms and conventions as the main features of a culture. For him, a culture is the entire setting of norms and conventions as individual as a member of his society must know in order to be „like everybody‟-or to be able to be different from everybody (Vermeer, 1987a, p.28, cited in Nord 2001). Translating means comparing cultures. Translators interpret source-culture phenomena in the light of their own culture-specific knowledge of that culture, from either the inside or the outside, depending on whether the translation is from or into the translator‟s native language-and-culture (Nord, 2001). v. Adequacy and Equivalence In the case of a translation, the translator is a real receiver of the source text who then proceeds to inform another audience, located in a situation under target-culture conditions, about the offer of information made by the source text. The translator offers this new audience a target text whose composition is guided by the translator‟s assumptions about their need, expectations, previous knowledge, and so on. These assumptions will be different from those made by the original author, because source-text addressees and target-text addressees belong to different cultures and language communities. This means the translator can not offer the same amount and kind of information as the source-text producer. What the translator does is to offer another kind of information in another form. Within the