Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto Línguas e Literaturas Modernas INTRODUCTION TO TRANSLATION STUDIES Power Point Novem 29 November 2007

Katharina Reiss, Hans Vermeer, Holz-Mänttäri We will now work together at producing the next slides in this Power Point presentation. Search the web and your books and note the most important apects of the above authors’ work. Make notes and remember to be prepared to give your contribution to this collaborative learning task.

Katharina Reiss, Germany, 1970s Katharina Reiss – Möglichkeiten und Grenzen der Übersetzungskritik, 1971 Influenced by pragmatics Influenced by pragmatics Level of analyisis: the text (not the word or the sentence), i.e., the level at which communication takes place Level of analyisis: the text (not the word or the sentence), i.e., the level at which communication takes place Objective criteria for translation assessement Objective criteria for translation assessement

Reiss’s Text Typology 4 text types: 1. Informative (Inhaltsbetonte, predominant language function: informative) 2. Creative (Formbetonte:expressive function) 3. Operative (Appelbetonte:appelative function) 4. Audiomedial (films, commercials, visual and spoken ads; + images, music, etc.)

Which text varieties or genres fall within Reiss’s categories? Give examples of texts varieties belonging to the 4 categories suggested by K. Reiss. e.g., weather reports, newspaper articles, etc.

Functional characteristics of text types and links to translation methods (in Munday, 74)

Examples of translation strategies according to Reiss’s text typology Expressive t.Info t. Metaphor metaphornot needed Idiomidiom‘neutralized’ (equiv. idiom, expressive value) (semantic value retained)

?????Question????? Work in pairs or groups of three and think about the possible criticisms levelled at Reiss’s theory. Make a note of them and be prepared to give feedback to the class.

Strong and weak points in Reiss’s theory STRONG POINTS  Considering the text and not the level of word and sentence as the level of communication  Communicative purpose of translation  Search for strictly objective criteria to judge quality of T  Recognition that, while there is a predominant function in a text, all texts are hybrid forms WEAK POINTS  too rigid (why only 3 language functions?)  prescriptive generalizations  Typology is too clear-cut for real-life translation in all its complexity. (Snell- Hornby, 1995:30)  Fuzziness of STs and different function of the TT challenge the ‘box-like’ division into text categories  Translation method is not just result of text type (sociocultural context)

Germany, 1980s: 3 new approaches to translation Hönig und Kussmaul Vermeer – Reiss Holz-Mänttäri According to Snell-Hornby, they represented a new orientation in TS.

Common to the 3 approaches 1. T as cultural transfer 2. T as an act of communication (not as transcoding) 3. Oriented towards the function of the TT (prospective T) 4. Text seen as an integral part of a sociocultural context.