ABSTRACT
The referential function is oriented towards objects in real or fictitious worlds. To carry out the referential function, the receiver must be able to coordinate the message with their model of the particular world involved. Functionalist approaches have been developed with an orientation towards translator training, and this is still one of the main fields in which they are most useful. A number of translation scholars have tried to systematize these considerations by establishing a typology of translations. The result of a documentary translation process is a text whose main function is metatextual. The result of an instrumental translation is a text that may achieve the same range of functions as an original text. A heterofunctional translation is used if the function or functions of the original cannot be preserved as a whole or in the same hierarchy for reasons of cultural and/or temporal distance.
