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Source: Book Title: Readings in Translation Theories
Source: Book Title: Readings in Translation Theories
- Katharina Reiss
Reiss' work on text types has been a major influence in contemporary translation theory. Her
book on the subject dates from 1976; the present article summarizing some of her ideas appeared in
1977. Her approach relates translation closely to text linguistics and communication studies.
With respect to the classification of text types, Reiss starts by sticking to the traditional three based
on Bühler's functions of the linguistic sign, but adds an audio-medial type to cover the increasing use
of language (and translation) which is linked simultaneously to other media. The special
requirements of this text type can be very restricting indeed - such as the number of letters
permitted on the TV-screen for a given subtitle - and it makes sense to consider this kind of
translation separately.
In her book (1976) Reiss illustrates the relation between the traditional three text types and
various text varieties in the form of diagrams. The main points of these can perhaps be summarized
as follows. The diagram shows how examples of different text varieties can be approximately placed
with respect to the three functions: no text variety represents only one function; each has its own
characteristic mixture.
INFORMATIVE
lecture
operating instructions
tourist brochure
biography sermon
official speech
EXPRESSIVE OPERATIVE
These placings are of course only rough indications. The primary function of a translated
text clearly affects how the translator will operate. Reiss suggests (e.g. 1976: 20ff) that primarily
informative texts
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should be translated in plain prose, with expansions and explanations where necessary. A primarily
expressive text needs an "identifying" translation method, where the translator aims at empathy with
the original writer. Primarily operative texts require an "adaptive"translation, determined by the
way the intended TL receivers are assumed to react to the text. Audio-medial texts should be
translated in a"suppletory" way, supplementing what is expressed by the pictures, music, etc.
For Reiss's later work, see e.g. Reiss and Vermeer (1984, 1986). Translation assessment is taken up
The phenomenon of linguistic translation is probably not much younger than mankind itself,
although of course this cannot be established with any certainty: mankind's collective memory,
surviving in mythology, mentions the Tower of Babel and its disastrous consequences. We must be
content to state that there has always been translation; there has always been criticism of translations;
and there have always been clever heads to ponder the problems of translating, while streams of ink
have flowed as both homogeneous and heterogeneous views on this theme have been passed down to
future generations.
This state of affairs might well lead one resignedly to the following conclusion: enough of
the gruesome game - it's all been said already, for in the
old days they were certainly no more stupid than we are today. How can one find anything new
worth saying that has not already been said ages ago?
And yet - the old, eternally young problem of translation exerts an enormous fascination
on each new generation. This remains true today, when the phenomenon of translation has even
more relevance than earlier: people of the most varied tongues have surely never borne witness
so clearly to the urgent need of permanent interlingual communication on all levels and in all
spheres of life. Hence too the present-day trend to bring all kinds of translation material into
translation theory research: not only so-called "literary texts", but also "pragmatic texts",
concerning which even Schleiermacher (1813/1963: 42) maintained that translating them was
"almost a purely mechanical business which anyone can do who has a reasonable knowledge of
Even if perhaps nothing Absolutely new can be said, it may well still be possible to
would contribute towards increasingly removing the translation activity from the sphere of pure
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it would thus serve to systematize translation problems, make translation itself teachable to some
This aim fits with the development of modern linguistics, which aspires to precise
verifiable or falsifiable results on the model of the natural sciences. Earlier, the problems of
translation were primarily discussed, with very different motives, by language philosophers,
poets and writers, and also practical translators; in the second half of the present century,
however - especially owing to the ambitious aim of constructing a "translation machine" (cf.
Wilss 1973) - on the one hand linguistics has turned its attention towards translation, and on the
other translation research itself has begun to make use of strictly linguistic methods. The
significance and necessity of this cooperation between linguistics and translation research is well
illustrated by a formulation of George Mounin (1967: 61): "Translation is never a uniquely and
exclusively linguistic operation, but it is first of all and always a linguistic operation. "Of course,
like all such apodictic sentences, this statement needs to be qualified: it all depends on how one
interprets the word "linguistic". Without going any further into this problem area, I would just
like to point out here that the statement is the more readily accepted the more modern linguistics
extends its goals beyond the sentence boundary; in other words, the more it is prepared to adopt a
textlinguistic approach and see genuine translation as an act of verbal textual communication.
(This amounts to a semiotic definition of translation. Semiotically, the sign systems of natural
languages are only one means whereby texts can be realized; other possible sign systems include
1. For if we ask why texts are normally translated, the answer must - in a general sense -
be: a translation is a communicative service, and normally a service for a target language
receiver or receivers. The normal function of a translation service is to include a new (target
language) readership in a communicative act which was originally restricted to the source
language community. This holds even for texts which in their source language form might not be
thought to be truly communicative, such as diaries, personal memos, notes, etc. If such texts are
theory will thus be primarily concerned to establish some basic systematic order in the enormous
multiplicity of actual translation material. In order to set up a text typology that would be
relevant to translation, it thus makes sense to begin with the basic communicative situations in
which texts fulfil quite specific and fundamentally distinct communicative functions.
107 -
Since natural languages form the basic material of verbal texts, we first take a look at
language itself.
Language has long been classified intuitively, according to the predominant mode of
expression, as functional language, literary language or address. In the 1930's the psychologist Karl
expressive (Ausdruck ) and vocative (Appell ). The semanticist Ulrich Stiehler (1970: 32) associated
these three language functions with the realization of three types-of human cognition: thinking (or
perceiving), feeling and willing. The Tübingen linguist Eugenio Coseriu (1970: 27) sees the three
functions in terms of their relative dominance in linguistic utterances, and thus distinguishes three
language forms: "a descriptive, declarative or informative language form, the main object of which is
providing information about a given topic; an expressive or affective or emotive form, mainly
expressing the speaker's state of mind or feeling; and a vocative or imperative form which primarily
seeks to bring out certain behaviour in the hearer." This classification thus basically relates the main
objective of a language form to one of the three main elements in the communicative process: sender
This tripartite aspect of language itself suggests a similar tripartite division of basic verbal
communicative situations; moreover, the many verbal constituents of the secondary system of
language (i.e. its written form) can also be seen in terms of three rough types.
According to their communicative intention, verbal texts thus display three possible
communicative functions, correlating with the dominance of one of the three elements of a
communicative act as mentioned above. In this way we can distinguish the following three basic
feelings, judgements, intentions, etc.; this is also taken to include purely phatic communication,
which thus does not constitute a separate type: the actual information value is zero, and the message
is the communication process itself: see Vermeer 1976). Here the topic itself is in the foreground of
the communicative intention and determines the choice of verbalization. In the interest of merely
transmitting information, the dominant form of language here is functional language. The text is
structured primarily on the semantic-syntactic level (cf. Lotmann 1972). If an author of such a text
borrows aspects of a literary style, this "expressive" feature is neverthless only a secondary one - as
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like. The text type corresponding to this basic communicative situation is the "informative" type.
(b) Creative composition, an artistic shaping of the content. Here the sender is in the
foreground. The author of the text creates his topics himself; he alone, following only his own
creative will, decides on the means of verbalization. He consciously exploits the expressive and
associative possibilities of the language in order to communicate his thoughts in an artistic, creative
way. The text is doubly structured: first on the syntactic-semantic level, and second on the level of
artistic organization (Lotmann 1972). The text type corresponding to this communicative situation
(c) The inducing of behavioural responses. Texts can ,be conceived as stimuli to action or
reaction on the part of the reader. Here the form of verbalization is mainly determined by the
(addressed) receiver of the text, by virtue of his being addressable, open to verbal influence on his
behaviour. The text is doubly, or even triply structured: on the semantic-syntactic level, (in some
circumstances, but not necessarily, on the level of artistic organization,) and on the level of
persuasion. The corresponding text type may be called the "operative" one.
(One consequence of this threefold division is of course that in addition to these linguistic functions,
an expressive text must also fulfil an artistic function in translation, and an operative text a
psychological one.)
2. We now have three basic types which are relevant to translation. If we now apply this
classification to the assessment of translations, we can state that a translation is succesful if:
- in an informative text it guarantees direct and full access to the conceptuäFcontent of the SL text;
- in an expressive text it transmits a direct impression of the artistic form of the conceptual content;
and
- in an operative text it produces a text-form which will directly elicit the desired response.
In other words:
(a) If a text was written in the priginal SL communicative situation in order to transmit news, facts,
knowledge, etc. (in brief: information in the everyday sense, including the "empty" information of
phatic communion), then the translation should should transmit the original information in full, but
also without unnecessary redundancy (i.e. aim in the first place at invariance of content). (This relates
to the controversy about target text additions or omissions vis-à-vis the source text - see e.g. Savory
1957: 49.)
109 -
cida ..." -> "you are a kind of last 'Abencerraje', a last survivor of an extinct fauna..." This translation
is inadequate, because the English reader lacks the Spanish reader's understanding of what the name
(b) If the SL text was written because the author wished to transmit an artistically shaped creative
content, then the translation should transmit this content artistically shaped in a similar way in the TL
-> (ii) "Each single angel is terrible" (trans. by Leishman and Spender). This second version mirrors
(c) If the SL text was written in order to bring about certain behaviour in the reader, then the
translation should have this same effect on the behaviour of the TL reader (i.e. aim in the first place
("operative") alliterative element is lost and false associations are evoked: metaphorically, Fuchs is
not equivalent to "fox". Suggested version, preserving alliteration: "Profs prefer FirestonePhoenix".
If a given translation fulfils these postulates, which derive from the communicative function of a text,
Of course, the full achievement of this goal entails not only a consideration of the text type in
question - this only indicates the general translation method - but also the specific conventions of a
given text variety (Textsorte). Text varieties have been defined by Christa Gniffke-Hubrig (1972) as
"fixed forms of public and private communication", which develop historically in language
recipe, sonnet, fairy-tale, etc). Text varieties can also realize different text types; e.g. letter: private
letter about a personal matter -> informative type; epistolary novel -> expressive type; begging-let
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ter -> operative type. Limitations of space prohibit a further discussion of this in the present context,
but see Reiss (1974) on the problem of text classification from an applied linguistic viewpoint.
The three text types mentioned cover in principle all forms of written texts. However, one must not
overlook the fact that there are also compound types, where the three communicative functions
(transmission of information, of creatively shaped content, and of impulses to action) are all present,
transmitted via an artistic form), or a satirical novel (behavioural responses aroused via an artistic
form).
3. However, there is one circumstance which still needs special attention. Written texts often occur in
communicative acts together with "texts" of other signs, where the texts in the different sign systems
have been produced to relate to each other in a constant way. The written language is supplemented
and accompanied by "texts" in the 'language" of music or of pictures. Examples are: songs, comic
strips, advertisements, medieval morality ballads etc. Translation must also take account of these
mutual references within the text, lest the interrelation be lost in the TL text. (In the translation of
songs, for instance, the target language intonation and prosody must be made to fit the rhythm and
melody of the accompanying music, which of course remains constant and, as it were, "sets the
tone".) Furthermore, it should be recalled that not all written texts to be translated are ultimately
intended to be read; some are better seen as written substrata for an oral communicative act (see Chiu
1973). Examples include songs again, and also plays, speeches, texts for radio and television, etc.
The translation of these texts too is based on certain principles, which derive from the special
characteristics of the spoken language and oral communication. These factors do not in any way
diminish the validity of the three basic communicative situations and corresponding text types
outlined above. Rather, they represent a kind of superstructure; all texts exhibiting these additional
factors can be included, as regards their translation, within a single audio-medial text type. From the
point of view of translation method, the special requirements of this type take precedence over what-
ever basic text type a given text otherwise belongs to, thus:
Figure 1. audio-medial text type
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There is not the space here to examine in more detail how translation methods and optimal
choices of translation procedures are affected by the above-mentioned requirement that translation
should normally bring about an integral communicative performance. (For detailed discussion of text
4. The assessment of translations does not only have to take into account the ideal case of
integral communicative performance, in which the aim in the TL is equivalence as regards the
conceptual content, linguistic form and communicative function of a SL text. The practice of
translation is subject to a great many conditions which determine that such an integral
communicative performance cannot, or even should not, be achieved. Theodore Savory (1957: 49)
listed ten translation principles gleaned from the literature, some of which are directly contradictory
while others are mutually complementary; they provide an impressive picture of the abundance of
2. A translation must give the ideas of the original. 3. A translation should read like an original work.
6. A translation should possess the style of the translation. 7. A translation should read as a
8. A translation should read as a contemporary of the translation. 9. A translation may add to or omit
from the original. 10. A translation may never add to or omit from the original.
These heterogeneous views cannot simply be dismissed as more or less scurrilous notions of
individual theoreticians or practising translators, for they recur far too frequently in the translation
It is easy to see that none of these principles, taken alone, can be valid for all text translations. On the
other hand, they could never have arisen and been defended without some support from translation
practice. What speaks against them is above all their undifferentiated claim to be defining the best
way of translating. If we examine the causes of such contradictory translation principles - which at
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translation assessment - then we find at least three ways of explaining them, which can be appealed
(a) The principles apply to only one kind text at a given time - usually this means the
translation of the Bible or major works of world literature (especially the Greek or Latin classics) -
and their validity is then disputed or erroneously applied to all texts, i.e. made absolute. This is
approximately the case with the controversies on which Jerome and Luther took issue (the wordfor-
word principle against the sense-for-sense principle), and which thereafter reappeared in a great
(b)-To some extent, the principles are closely bound up with a given conception of a text.
Roughly speaking, if the attainment of equivalence between source and target text is the aim of all
translation, it follows that this equivalence will be sought and achieved to different degrees according
to the conception of the text, and of equivalence, that one happens to hold in any given case (cf.
Vermeer 1973).
Thus, if a text is regarded as being built up of a sum of words, equivalence on the word-level
will be the ideal of all translation - word-for-word translation (= an interlinear version) is then a
"good translation". This view carries the day when the word is taken not only as a formal linguistic
unit but also as an independent semantic unit, - or even, as used to be the case with many Bible
translators, as something "holy"; its position in the sentence, the next linguistic unit above, is
will be taken as the ideal for all translation. Within the sentence the syntax should be adapted to that
of the TL. "Literal translation" is "good translation". (For the difference between word-for-word and
literal translation, see e.g. Wilss 1975.) This kind of translation is still practised today as so-called
"grammar translation", in order to point out and teach differing linguistic structures in SL and TL to
If the text is seen as the basic linguistic sign, as in modern text linguistics, equivalence on the
text level will be the ideal of all translation. Yet account is taken here only of linguistic equivalence,
regarding content and style. The source language sets the criteria. Pragmatic or cultural differences,
which come up not only in text variety rules but also in clichés (turns of speech, proverbs, etc), are
ignored or at best tacitly flattened out. This kind of translation leads to a kind of marked translation
(Verfremdung) of the original. The method has been defended inter alia by Ortega y Gasset (1937),
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Gasset argued that this method would lead to a better understanding of the linguistic and cognitive
structures of the foreign (i.e. source) language community. Fritz Güttinger (1963) calls this "learned
translation".
Only when the text is seen as a verbal component of a total communicative event, i.e. as a
text- with- a- function, can all the factors of the communication situation be brought into account.
The aim is then a communicatively effective translation, of an appropriate text type and text variety,
with equivalence not only of content and meaning but also of effect. It is this type of translation that
(c) A third and final explanation of translation types that appear to deverge from this integral
communicaton has to do with the intended function of the SL text and the original communication
situation. This concerns all cases where a translated text undergoes a change of function, either
because the original function can no longer be identified (e.g. in particular texts of earlier periods
and/or past cultures); or because the original situation can no longer be reproduced for a modem
reader, so that it needs to be clarified by means of notes, explanations, commentaries etc, which
supplement the actual text (as in scholarly Bible translations and other "learned translations"). If this
is not done, the function of the translation necessarily alters: a satirical novel such as Gulliver's
Travels - i.e. an operative text - turns into ordinary entertaining fiction, an expressive text. Finally, a
change of function may be deliberately preferred because the translated text has different
communicative aims from the original. It is an open question whether such translation performances
should ultimately still be called translations (Übersetzungen), or whether they should rather be
5. It goes without saying that all the types of translation mentioned may be justified in
research. Grammar translation is a good aid to foreign language learning. Learned translation is
appropriate if one wishes to focus on the different means whereby given meanings are verbally
expressed in different languages. And the changing of function of a text, as a verbal component
within a total communicative process, may also be a justified solution. However, when the translation
is an end in itself, in the sense of simply seeking to extend an originally monolingual communicative
process to include receivers in another language, then it must be conceived as an integral
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communicative performance, which without any extra-textual additions (notes, explanations etc)
provides an insight into the cognitive meaning, linguistic form and communicative function of the SL
text.
The main points discussed above are summarized in the following diag
ram.
Figure2.
marked + differences
commentary)
6. In conclusion: the assessment of a translation, therefore, requires that in the first place one
must determine the kind of text the original represents (in terms of text type and text variety); the
translator's conception of the translation (to be inferred from his manner of translating, and perhaps
also explicitly stated in a translator's preface); and the aim of the translated text. Only when these
factors have become established is one in a position to judge a translation "fairly", in accordance with
the appropriate criteria. In this way one can avoid the risk of taking one of Savory's provocatively
juxtaposed principles as an absolute and biased criterion for the evaluation of translations of all
kinds.