What should a general theory of translation look like? This slim volume is a discussion of one possible answer: Vermeer's skopos theory, positing the skopos (goal, purpose) as the ultimate cause of a translator's action. Most work on this theory has so far been in German, and this long essay in English now makes the central ideas accessible to a wider audience. (The book also contains a number of untranslated quotations in several Indo-European languages.) The essay is the first in a series of four (the others are in German) in which Vermeer presents his main tenets and relates the theory to wider cultural and philosophical issues. It opens with a brief summary of the main skopos theses, discusses some criticisms and assesses some other candidates for a general theory of translation, in particular those based on concepts of equivalence, relevance or loyalty.

References

Gutt, Ernst-August

1991 Translation and Relevance: Cognition and Context. Oxford: Blackwell.

Holz-Mänttäri, Justa

1984 Translatorisches Handeln: Theorie und Methode. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakate1ia.

Toury, Gideon

1995 Descriptive Translation Studies and beyond. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins.  

Vermeer, Hans J.

1989 “Skopos and Commission in Translational Action”. Andrew Chesterman, ed. Readings in Translation Theory. Helsinki: Finnlectura 1989 173–200.