THE END SHOULD JUSTIFY THE MEANS:
TRANSLATION IN FUNCTIONALIST THEORIES OF TRANSLATION STUDIES
By
Umar
Ahmad & Muhammad Zayyanu Zaki
Department
of Modern European Languages and Linguistics
Usmanu
Ɗanfodiyo University
PMB
2346, Sokoto-Nigeria
muhzayzak@gmail.com
Abstract
Over the years,
various scholars and researchers have approached the discipline of Translation
Studies from different perspectives. Their works have offered, in varying
degrees, insight into the nature of translation and the complexity of
translation processes. However, one issue that has remained unresolved is the
decision on the best method of translating a text. This study examines some approaches to translation from
functionalist theoretical perspective. This perspective treats translation as
an activity whose end should justify its means. Starting off with a discussion
on earlier approaches to translation studies, the paper offers a review of the
functionalist approaches to translation processes, highlighting their major
postulations, criticisms against them and their major contributions to
translation studies. The paper concludes with a suggestion for more research on
functionalist approaches to translation studies.
Introduction
The purpose of
this paper is to examine some approaches to translation from functionalist
theoretical perspective. Translation Studies have witnessed the emergence of a
number of approaches to translation in the last 30 years. Many of these
approaches have introduced functionalist perspective into translation studies,
which as Oyali (2015, p. 51) observes, “brought about a paradigm shift in the
system.” In the paper, we argued that functionalist approaches to translation
tend to treat translation as an activity whose end should justify its means. In
this presentation, we review of the functionalist approaches to translation
processes, highlighting their major postulations, criticisms against them and
their major contributions to translation studies. In the paper, we argued that
functionalist approaches to translation tend to treat translation as an activity
whose end should justify its means. First, however, the next section defines
the concept of translation.
The
concept of translation
The word
“translation” is Latin which means “carry or bear across”. Bhatia (1992, p. 1051)
defines translation as “the communication of the meaning of a source-language
text by means of an equivalent target-language text”. However, for the purpose
of our discussion today, we see translation as the process of and/or the
product resulting from transferring or mediating written texts from one
language to another.
This
definition attempts to capture the essence of the concept of translation, i.e.,
the core elements that many translation scholars and practitioners will agree
are present in the concept of translation: (i) written text;
(ii) transfer;
(iii) and from one language to another.
It
is important to point out here that translation deals with the transfer of
written text. When the text or the medium is oral, however, the term used is
interpretation. It is also important to say that when the word “translation” is
written with an upper-case “T”, it refers to both translation and
interpretation as forms of mediation, whereas the word “translation” with a
lower-case “T” means translation. Similarly, in translation, the language from
which a text is translated is the source language (SL), and the language of the
translated product is known as the target language (TL).
Functionalist
approaches to translation studies
Functionalist
approaches to Translation studies are the results of developments in the
linguistic field of pragmatics. Fawcet (1997, p. 104) observes that in order to
make translation “scientific or objectively justifiable”, functionalists felt
that it is necessary to adopt the idea of text function in translation. That
is, translation should involve analyzing the way in which a text works to
produce meaning. In her attempt to find a better way to assess the quality of a
translation work, the German translator Katharina Reiss observes that the text
type should determine what translation strategies to be used. She thus,
classifies text types according to their functions into informative, expressive
and operative. Regardless of possible
interferences between text types, she notes that one function often predominate
in any text. Consequently, informative texts may use logical language,
expressive texts may rely on aesthetic language, and operative text types may make
use of dialogic language.
It
is the type of the text that will determine the translation strategies to be
used. However, identifying the text type does not mean that a particular
strategy has to be used in its translation. Thus, regardless of the strategy a
translator employed, what is important is the result achieved. Thus, as Fawcett
(1997, p. 107) observes, “giving primacy to the function may seem like a
sensible thing to do; and it may seem like a desirable thing to do Ɗ…] but it is still not a necessary thing to do.”
Functionalist
approaches generally believe that the function of a text in the target
language/culture should determine the method of translation to be employed.
Quite a good number of translation scholars have subscribed to functionalism.
Notable among these scholars are Vermeer (1978, 1989, 1996), Reiss and Vermeer
(1984, 1991; Nord 1997, 2005), Holz-Manttari (1984, 1993), and Honig (1997). In
what follows, we examine two functionalist approaches to translation,
highlighting their contributions to the field of Translation Studies.
Skopos
Theory
The Skopos theory
is one of the most popular functionalist approaches to Translation Studies.
Developed by Hans Vermeer in 1978, the theory conceives translation as an
action determined by a skopos, from Greek meaning ‘purpose’. This purpose, as
Vermeer points out, determines how the translation should be done. Vermeer
argues that the text in the source language is produced for a situation/context
in the source culture which may not always be the same in the target culture.
Thus, Vermeer argues that the translation should be done to suit the purpose
for which it is needed in the target culture. He maintains that “the source
text is oriented towards, and is in any case bound to, the source culture. The
target text...is oriented towards the target culture, and it is this which
ultimately defines its adequacy” (Vermeer, 2004, p. 229).
Building
on Vermeer (1978), Reiss and Vermeer (1984) see “translation as an offer of
information existing in a particular language and culture to members of another
culture in their language” (cf. Oyali, 2015:59. According to them, the needs of
the target text receivers should determine the specification of the skopos as
well as the selection made from information in the source text (Schaeffner, 1998,
p. 236). Thus, they see translation as something that goes beyond linguistic
considerations, to also include cultural issues.
In
later work, Vermeer (2004) gives two translation rules, namely: coherence rule and fidelity rule. Coherence rule
requires that the target text must be coherent for the target audience to
comprehend, while the fidelity rule
centres on the intertextual relationships between the source text and the
target text. Schaeffner (1998) observes that the nature of this intertextual
coherence (between the source text and target) should be determined by the
skopos.
The
theory of translatorial action
Developed by
Holz-Manttari, the theory of translatorial action sees translation as something
that involves transferring information embedded in one culture to receivers in
another culture. Holz-Mantarri identifies the following eight players in the
translatorial process:
(i)
the
initiator,
(ii)
(ii)
the person in need of the translation;
(iii)
the
commissioner,
(iv)
the
person that contacts the translator;
(v)
the
source text producer or author;
(vi)
the
target text producer, the translator or translation
agency;
(vii)
the
target text user, teachers for example;
(viii)
and
the target text recipient.
While describing
the role that each of the above mentioned players can play in the translational
process, she emphasizes that the need for a translation tend to arise in
situations where there is an information in culture X that members of culture Y
do not have access to, which as Nord (1997) observes,
Ɗ…] situations where differences in
verbal and non-verbal behaviour, expectations, knowledge and perspectives are
such that there is not enough common ground for the sender and receiver to
communicate effectively by themselves. (Nord,
1997, p. 17)
This quotation, it
can be argued, buttresses the point that Translation is a process of
intercultural communication that aimed at producing a text, which as Schaeffner
(1998, p. 3) notes, is “capable of functioning appropriately in specific
situations and contexts of use”. And since the focus of a translation activity
should be on producing functionally adequate texts, the text in the target
language should then conform to the genre requirements/conventions of the target
culture. This requires a translator to be an expert in translatorial action,
who can determine what is suitable for the translatorial text operation and
make sure that the information from the source language to the target language
is transmitted satisfactorily.
Contributions
of functionalist approaches to translation studies
Nord (1997, p. 29)
points out that one major contribution of functionalist approaches is that it
addresses the “eternal dilemmas of free vs. faithful translations, dynamic vs.
formal equivalence, good interpreters vs. slavish translators, and so on”.
Thus, a translation can be free or faithful or “anything between these two
extremes” depending on its skopos for which it is needed. In this regard, the
translator does not need to always go back to the source text to work out
translational problems; rather a translator can base his/her translations on
the function of the text in the target language/culture.
Functionalist
approaches have also introduced the cultural dimension to translation studies
and break the unnecessary recourse to the “authority” of the source text.
Ouyang (2009, p. 104) notes that they operate a top-down process, starting on
the pragmatic level by deciding on the intended functions of the translation.
Another
contribution of functionalist approaches to translation is that they are
flexible and accommodate a wide range of translational situations. Schaeffner (2001,
p. 15) notes that most functionalist approaches are “presented as being
sufficiently general to cover a multitude of individual cases, i.e. to be
independent of individual languages, cultures, subject domains, text types and
genres”. She further observes that in functionalist paradigm, a text is seen as
something that does not have a stable intrinsic meaning, but that the meaning
in the text is something that can be affected by the cultural, historical and
ideological circumstances surrounding its production (Schaeffner, 2001, p. 12).
Furthermore,
by their nature, functionalist approaches have bridged the gap between
theorization and the practice of translation, as they provide practical ways of
dealing with many translational problems. Additionally, before the introduction
of functionalist approaches, little or no attention is given to the identity or
status of the translator in the translational processes. However, with the
introduction of functionalism, the translator takes a key role in the process
as they are now seen as experts in the translational process, who are equipped
with the necessary translation skills to carry out their functions.
Criticisms
against functionalist approaches to translation
Functionalist
approaches to translation, just like many approaches to translation, are not
free from criticisms. In what follows, we summarize some of the issues raised
against their approaches. A key criticism against functionalist approaches
concerns the question of the definition of translation. Oyali, for instance,
observes that skopos theory, a functionalist approach, “makes no distinction
between a real translation and adaptation or what Koller (1995) calls
non-translation”
(Oyali, 2015, p. 59). They thus, as
Nord (1997, p. 141) observes, see translation from a broader perspective, as
“any translational action where a source text is transferred into a target
culture and language”.
Another
important criticism against functionalist approaches comes from Pym (1991), who
accuses functionalists of producing what he describes as “mercenary experts
able to fight under the flag of any purpose able to pay them” (Pym, 1991, p. 2).
However, despite these and other criticisms labelled against functionalist
approaches, we observe that they have made significant contributions to the
study of translation.
Conclusion
In this
presentation, we have examined some approaches to translation from
functionalist theoretical perspective. This perspective treats translation as
an activity whose end should justify its means. We have reviewed Skopos theory
and the theory of translatorial action, highlighting their major postulations,
criticisms against them and their major contributions to translation studies.
We would like to conclude by reiterating that the positions of functionalist
approaches have helped in transforming translation process.
References
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