Interpreting
Communicative/Functional Approaches
IAN MASON
The terms communicative and functional group together a variety of approaches to translation. Sometimes loosely used and not always defined, they broadly represent a view which refuses to divorce the act of translating from its context, insisting upon the real-world situational factors which are prime determinants of meaning and interpretation of meaning.
We may distinguish three main strands of thinking which have influenced this perspective on translation:
(a) the functionalist views of the British tradition in linguistics, stemming from
J. R. Firth and continuing in the work of J. Catford, Michael Gregory, Michael
Halliday and others
(b) the notion of communicative competence developed originally by Dell
Hymes in response to the Chomskyan view of language competence
(c) within translation studies, a tradition stemming from Karl Buhler, which sees judgements about the communicative purpose/skopos (Reiss and Vermeer) or set of functions (Nord) of the act of translating as lying at the root of translators' decisions (see SKOPOS THEORY).
The functionalist tradition
Whereas it would be true to say that linguistics and translation studies have, until comparatively recently at least, undergone separate development and even denied any mutual relevance, it remains the case that agendas set by various schools and strands within linguistics have, sooner or later, found their way into thinking and writing about translation. Thus, structuralism, functionalism, transformational-generativism, sociolinguistic and psycho linguistic issues have all influenced the debate. In general, those ideas have been most influential which place meaning and communication at the centre of linguistic analysis. Thus, Firth, building on Malinowski's notion of 'context of situation', saw meaning in terms of function in context and rejected those approaches to the study of language which sought to exclude the study of
IAN MASON
The terms communicative and functional group together a variety of approaches to translation. Sometimes loosely used and not always defined, they broadly represent a view which refuses to divorce the act of translating from its context, insisting upon the real-world situational factors which are prime determinants of meaning and interpretation of meaning.
We may distinguish three main strands of thinking which have influenced this perspective on translation:
(a) the functionalist views of the British tradition in linguistics, stemming from
J. R. Firth and continuing in the work of J. Catford, Michael Gregory, Michael
Halliday and others
(b) the notion of communicative competence developed originally by Dell
Hymes in response to the Chomskyan view of language competence
(c) within translation studies, a tradition stemming from Karl Buhler, which sees judgements about the communicative purpose/skopos (Reiss and Vermeer) or set of functions (Nord) of the act of translating as lying at the root of translators' decisions (see SKOPOS THEORY).
The functionalist tradition
Whereas it would be true to say that linguistics and translation studies have, until comparatively recently at least, undergone separate development and even denied any mutual relevance, it remains the case that agendas set by various schools and strands within linguistics have, sooner or later, found their way into thinking and writing about translation. Thus, structuralism, functionalism, transformational-generativism, sociolinguistic and psycho linguistic issues have all influenced the debate. In general, those ideas have been most influential which place meaning and communication at the centre of linguistic analysis. Thus, Firth, building on Malinowski's notion of 'context of situation', saw meaning in terms of function in context and rejected those approaches to the study of language which sought to exclude the study of