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The word Skopos is a Greek technical term for the purpose or aim of a translation action. In the framework of Skopostheorie, any form of translational action including translation itself, may be conceived as an action, as the name implies. According to Skopostheorie, the primary principle determining any translation process is the purpose (Skopos) of the overall translation action. As translation is a means of communication across cultural barriers, it cannot be regarded as one-to-one transfer between languages. The main task of translators is to fulfill the purpose of the translation process. The notion helps to ease the increasing need for the translation of non-literary text types in the latter half of the twentieth century. In the translation of instructions for use, tourist guides, scientific and academic papers, etc, Skopos theory decides that contextual factors surrounding the translation like the target culture and, especially, the function of the target text which is determined by the translation Skopos should be paid due attention to (Baker 2004), and the translation is conducted in a way to function in the target situation for the target reader’s expectations.
3.1.2 Text Typology
Besides German functional school, the British translation theorist Peter Newmark also combines linguistic function with translation. Based on Karl Buhler’s linguistic function theory (representation, expression and appeal) as well as Reiss’s text typology which is the most relevant in achieving the “Skopos that requires the target text serve the same communicative function, or functions as the source text, thus preserving invariance of function between source and target text (Nord 2001), Newmarkreclassifies various kinds of texts into three types—expressive text, informative text and vocative text, each with a basic translator’s loyalty to the source language writer or the truth, the facts of the matter or the readership respectively. He also clearly points out:
The main functions of language are expressive (the subjective or ‘I’ form), the descriptive or informative (the ‘it’ form) and the vocative or directive or persuasive (the ‘you’ form), the minor functions being the phatic, the metalingual and the aesthetic. All texts have aspects of the expressive, the informative and vocative function.(Newmark 2001)
On the basis of the above, Newmarkgeneralized serious imaginative literature, authoritative statements, autobiography, personal correspondence as expressive texts; texts of natural science, technology, economics as the informative texts; and notices, instructions, public propaganda, popular fictions as the vocative texts. Meanwhile he further pointed out the respective core and the author’s status in translation.
According to Newmark, an expressive text should be author-centered, and thus the personal components constitute the “expressive” elements. He suggests that semantic translation should be adapted to render the exact contextual meaning of the original as closely as the semantic and syntactic structures of the second language.
Informative texts emphasize the external situation, the facts of a topic, and the reality outside the language (Newmark 2001). Thus, to transfer the correct and authentic information is the keystone in translation. Newmark advised that communicative translation should be adopted, which attempts to produce on its readers an effect as close as possible to that obtained on the readers of the original.
In a vocative text, Newmark further pointed that its core is the readership, and thus the status of their authors is not important. What is important is to call upon readers to act, to think, to feel, and to react in the way intended by the text. Therefore, translators have to consider the reading habit and psychological feeling of the target readers and try to employ the language style familiar to them or to reform the sentence structure to enhance the readability of the translated texts.