Functional Translation Theories

After a brief description of the beginnings of university-based translator training and translation studies in Germany in the 1960s, the chapter first presents the groundwork of the functional approach to translation and interpreting laid by Katharina Reiß (functional text typology), Hans J. Vermeer (the skopos theory), Heinz Göhring (translation as intercultural communication), and Justa Holz-Mänttäri (the theory of translatorial action), as well as the contributions of the first translation teachers at university training institutions in Germany who applied it to their classes, e.g. regarding error analysis and evaluation, interpreter training, pre-translational text analysis, genre conventions, and ethical aspects of professional translation and interpreting. The main part of the chapter is dedicated to the development of reception and impact of functionalism both in Germany, where it met with harsh criticisms during the 1980s, and abroad, when more and more translations and international publications (mainly in English and Spanish) spread the information about the skopos theory and its applications around the world. From 2010 onwards, we may say that functionalism has become a widely recognized theoretical and methodological approach both in translator training and in many fields of translation and interpreting research.