Nord's Functionalism and the Translation Brief
Christiane Nord built on Reiss and Vermeer's skopos theory with two additions: a structured translation brief and a loyalty principle that protects the source author from purely commissioner-driven manipulation.
The brief
Nord's brief lists target text function, target audience, time and place of reception, medium, and motive. Each row is information the translator needs before opening the source. An AI pipeline that asks for none of this falls back on default assumptions; one that asks for all of it can be reasoned with.
Loyalty
Loyalty is not fidelity. Fidelity is to the source text; loyalty is to the source author and the target reader. Loyalty prevents commissioner instructions from sliding into misrepresentation. AI translation services that accept any brief without resistance lack this restraint; humans-in-the-loop reintroduce it.
Further reading: skopos, Reiss text types.