Wie viel Translationstheorie braucht die Historiographie? Zu Hans Vermeers translationshistorischen Studien

Abstract

Between 1992 and 2000, Hans Vermeer published some comprehensive monographs on the history of translation from the Antiquity to the Renaissance. In these publications, the historiography of translation theory and practice is based on functionalist translation theories, especially Vermeer’s skopos theory. In this paper, I will try to show how the theoretical framework of Vermeer’s analyses influences the evaluation of particular translations and translation theories. In three case studies from different periods, Vermeer’s approach will be compared to other approaches of translation analysis, especially philological and linguistic ones.