Although at first sight it might sound like some kind of exotic disease, skopos is actually an important term in relation to document translation services, as it is the name of a very popular theory in translation studies. Skopos is a word from ancient Greek that boasts more than one meaning, such as ‘purpose’ and ‘aim’. The skopos theory was firstly formulated in the 1970s by Reiss, but Hans Vermeer – a German linguist and translation scholar – is generally considered to be the scholar who fully developed it in the 1980s.

Of course it would be impossible to present a full outline of the skopos theory, not only because of the impact it had on translation studies and practical areas of the industry such as document translation services, but also because this blog should not turn into a lecture! In a few words, Nord, another scholar who worked on the skopos theory, defined translation as a ‘purposeful activity’. This means that every time a translation is performed, the target text (i.e. the final text the translator creates) has a specific aim, is targeted for a specific audience in a specific time and so on. Often, all these requirements are set by the client, who should inform the translator about his/her needs. All these factors have an impact on how should translate documents and which strategy he/she should use.

Let’s look at two examples. There is a hotel brochure to be translated from German into Italian. The tone in Italian has to be as smart and attractive as the German one. In addition, there might be space constraints, since the layout of the piece might not be customizable, so the translator faces the challenge of deciding how the most important information should be kept, unless he/she receives specific information from the customer.

And what if the translation is of a user manual? The client will probably require the translator to harmonize with the style of past manuals and to pay attention to consistency in terms of terminology. Also, the tone of these documents is usually very formal. It might seem an easy task, but we have all encountered disatrous instances of document translation services, where for example everything was taken for granted and nothing clarified (I remember a couple of very mysterious menus).

So, if you are still with us and would like to know more about the skopos theory, you might want to read more online by following these links: Bookrags, Translation Directory and Translation Journal. Happy reading! Alternatively, please do get in touch and let us know your thoughts on the skopos theory.

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