Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto Línguas e Literaturas Modernas

1. Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do PortoLínguas e Literaturas Modernas INTRODUCTION TO TRANSLATION STUDIES Power Point 13 Monday, 3 December 2006

2. 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)

3. 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

6. 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)

7. According to Vermeer: Our attention should be focussed on the “production” of the TT rather than on the “reproduction” of a ST.

8. Basic rules of the skopos theory • 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.

9. 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.

11. 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.

13. 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 sunMe, a name I call myselfFar, a long, long way to runSew, a needle pulling threadLa, a note to follow SewTea, a drink with jam and breadThat will bring us back to Do (oh-oh-oh) The Sound of Music (1965)

14. Música no CoraçãoOriginal 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.

15. Tutti insieme appassionatamenteDubbed 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)