skopos theory 目的论 英文材料.pdfVIP

THE END OF AN ERA? DOES SKOPOS THEORY SPELL THE END OF THE “FREE VS. LITERAL” PARADIGM? JONATHAN DOWNIE Introduction While most discussion of Bible translations take place around the traditional “free vs. literal” debate, modern, non-Biblical translation theory has become suspicious of such easy dichotomies (e.g. Pym 1997: 39). Many translation scholars now tend to examine translations based on the purpose for which they were written.1 This article will examine skopos theory, one of the most well-known purpose-based translation theories, in more depth and will discuss the potential objections to using it to examine and analyse Bible translations. This theory has been chosen as it is the only purpose-based translation theory so far to have been applied to Bible translation. I will argue for this theory to become the prevailing theory for examining entire Bible translations while the use of the more traditional terminology would then be restricted to the description of small-scale translation decisions, if used at all. Skopos theory explained In skopos theory, translation is seen as “an intentional, interpersonal, partly verbal intercultural interaction based on a source text” (Nord [1997] 2007: 18). To fully examine this theory, we must first examine the core notion of translation as an ‘intentional’ activity. Nord admits that viewing translation as “intentional” or “purposeful” seems to be self-evident (ibid p. 1). After all, the very act of doing anything implies intent or purpose (Sire 1988: 103, 227 [note 21]). However, to view translation specifically as an “intentional” activity means that the translation itself must be judged according to how well it fulfilled its purpose (Schäffner 1997: 2). This is the basis t