Business Translation Ethics from the Angle of Skopos Theory

Abstract

Translation is known to significantly contribute to business success, particularly in today's international business context. Many business translation works are produced to achieve target-side purposes, as opposed to the equivalence between a source text (ST) and a target text (TT). Translation guided by the TT's intended functions is claimed to fall under Vermeer's (1978) skopos theory that has been attracting active interest from scholars in translation studies. However, with great priority being assigned to the TT's determined purposes, many questions whether a TT that is not faithful to the ST should be deemed ethical. In the literature, business translation ethics under the skopos theory does not seem to abound. This paper therefore discusses this topic, commencing with examining business translation prior to associating it with the skopos theory. Then it explores translation ethics and proposes three ethical concerns to be pondered for business translation from the angle of skopos theory. These are functionality, loyalty and accountability.