SOURCE:

BOOK TITLE: READINGS IN TRANSLATION THEORIES

11. Text types, translation types and translation assessment

- 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

reference book report

lecture

operating instructions
tourist brochure

biography sermon

official speech

play electoral speech

poem satire advertisement

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

105

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

further in chapter 14, below.

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

the two languages".

Even if perhaps nothing Absolutely new can be said, it may well still be possible to

discover hitherto unnoticed cross-relationships, or clarify hitherto overlooked associations. This

would contribute towards increasingly removing the translation activity from the sphere of pure

intuition, of subjective criteria;

106

it would thus serve to systematize translation problems, make translation itself teachable to some

extent, and also objectivize the assessment of translations.

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

mime, gesture, colour, pictures, etc.)

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

translated, there must nevertheless be some (secondary) will to communicate. Communication

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

Bühler (1934/1965) distinguished three functions of a linguistic sign: informative (Darstellung),

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

(= speaker, writer); receiver (= hearer, reader); and topic (= information).

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

types of communicative situation.

 (a) Plain communication of facts (news, knowledge, information, arguments, opinions,

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

e.g. in book and concert reviews, football reports and the

108

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

can be referred to as "expressive".

(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 -

_ An example, from Ortega y Gasset (1937/1965: 18-19): - "... es usted una

especie de último abencerraje, último superviviente de una fauna desapare

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

Abencerraje signifies (a once famous Moorish family in Granada).

(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

(i.e. aim in the first place at an analogy of the artistic form).

An example: two translations of a line from Rilke's first Duineser Elegie:

"Ein jeder Engel ist schrecklich".

-> (i) "IRound every angel is terror" (trans. by Wydenbruck)

-> (ii) "Each single angel is terrible" (trans. by Leishman and Spender). This second version mirrors

the form of the original. (Cf. Reiss 1975: 57f.)

(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

at the production of identical behavioural reactions).

An example: an advertisement "Füchse fahren Firestone-Phoenix". If this slogan is only

translated "informatively", as "Foxes drive (use) Firestone", the psychologically persuasive

("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,

then the translator has succeeded in his overall communicative task. ¡

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

communities in response to frequently recurring constellations of linguistic performance (e.g. letter,

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

110

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,

either in alternate stages or simultaneously. Examples might be a didactic poem (information

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

informative expressive operative

text type text type text type

111

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

types and translation methods, see Reiss 1976).

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

opinions about what a correct translation should be like.

1. A translation must give the words of the original.

2. A translation must give the ideas of the original. 3. A translation should read like an original work.

4. A translation should read like a translation.

5. A translation should reflect the style of the original.

6. A translation should possess the style of the translation. 7. A translation should read as a

contempory of the original.

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

literature, and are often advocated by a broad stream of adherents.

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

the same time should also reflect valid principles for

112

translation assessment - then we find at least three ways of explaining them, which can be appealed

to either separately or in combination.

(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

many theoretical discussions.

(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

therefore seen as fixed.

If a text is considered to be a collection of individual sentences, equivalence on the sentence-level

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

foreign language learners.

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),

following Schleiermacher's work on the different methods of translation (1813); Ortega

113

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

constitutes the "integral communicative performance" referred to above.

(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

designated as transfers (Übertragungen) because of the change of function.

5. It goes without saying that all the types of translation mentioned may be justified in

particular circumstances. An interlinear version can be extremely useful in comparative linguistic

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

114

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.

Text concept Translation type Translation aim

Text = sum of word-for-word comparative linguistic

words translation research (interlinear)

Text = sum of literal trans. foreign language

sentences (grammar trans.) learning

Text = basic learned trans. study of culture

linguistic sign (deliberately bound language

marked + differences

commentary)

Text = verbal communicative

component of translation a) integral comm.

a comm. process a) normal case performance

(text-with-a- b) special subtype b) all kinds of

function) changes of function Î

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.