one question to answer (3,000 words).
1. You have been commissioned to translate the same text to two different skopoi. You have been asked to translate online information about a tourist destination (1) for an audience of wealthy potential tourists and (2) to form part of an information pack for students who are going to spend a year studying there. What differences in translation strategy and procedures would there be? How would the quality of the translation be evaluated? Are there any drawbacks to Skopos theory in translating such texts?
2. Systems theories have focused almost exclusively on literary translation. To what extent can these theories – particularly Polysystems theory – be applied to non-fiction, journalistic and technical texts? Provide examples to support your argument.
3. How far do you agree with Venuti’s statement (1992: 10) that ‘any attempt to make translation visible today is necessarily a political gesture’? What kinds of ethical decisions does a translator have to make? To what extent is the decision to take a foreignising approach a ‘political gesture’ by the translator? Provide examples from translated texts to support your argument.
4. To what extent can translators apply Reiss’ proposed ‘translation methods’ when translating informative, expressive and operative texts? Can ‘translation methods’ ever actually be precisely fixed depending on the type/genre and primary function of a text? Provide examples to support your argument.
5. “The whole question of equivalence inevitably entails subjective judgement from the translator or analyst” (Munday 2012: 68). To what extent do you agree with this statement? How is equivalent ‘effect’ supposed to measured? How can a text have the same effect and elicit the same response in two different cultures and at two different times? Provide examples to support your argument.
6. “Translation is the most obviously recognisable type of rewriting, and … it is potentially the most influential because it is able to project the image of an author and/or those works beyond the boundaries of their culture of origin” (Lefevere 1992: 9). To what extent do you agree with this statement? Draw on specific examples to support your argument.
7. Lawrence Venuti is famous for his notions of domestication and foreignisation which in some ways resemble Nida’s notions of formal and dynamic equivalence. Discuss how well Nida’s dynamic equivalence matches up with Venuti’s notion of domestication. How do these two frameworks diverge and converge? Provide examples to support your argument.
8. What is the connection or disconnection between Skopos theory and Venuti’s notion of foreignisation? Address this question in terms of 1) the power dynamics within the industry and 2) the translator’s role. Provide examples to support your argument.
