《Nord-Translation as a purposeful activity-Nord》.pdf

TRANSLATING AS A PURPOSEFUL ACTIVITY: A PROSPECTIVE APPROACH 1 Christiane Nord University of Applied Sciences of Magdeburg-Stendal, Germany Abstract: Taking a prospective approach to translation, translators choose their translation strategies according to the purpose or function the translated text is intended to fulfil for the target audience. Since communicative pur- poses need certain conditions in order to work, it is the translators task to ana- lyse the conditions of the target culture and to decide whether, and how, the source-text purposes can work for the target audience according to the speci- fications of the translation brief. If the target-culture conditions differ from those of the source culture, there are usually two basic options: either to trans- form the text in such a way that it can work under target-culture conditions (= instrumental translation), or to replace the source-text functions by their re- spective meta-functions (= documentary translation). Key words: offer of information, communicative functions, translation strat- egy, documentary translation, instrumental translation, translation brief Traditional approaches to translation usually view translations as being a re- production of an existing source text, where the source text is the main yard- stick governing the translators decisions. This means that if we look at the translation process leading from a point S (the source) to another point T (the target) they take a retrospective view on translation. 1 The author recently retired from a Chair of Translation and Specialized Communication at the University of Applied Sciences of Magdeburg-Stendal, Germany, Department of Commu- nication and Media. She is also a research fello