‫نظريات الترجمة‬

Translation Theories

Equivalence and equivalent effect

‫ ظافر طحيطح‬.‫د‬
Key concepts:
• The problem of translatability and equivalence in meaning,
discussed by Jakobson (1959) and central to translation
studies for the following decades.
• Nida’s ‘scientific’ methods to analyse meaning in his work
on Bible translating.
• Nida’s concepts of formal equivalence and dynamic
equivalence and the principle of equivalent effect: focus
on the receptor.
• Newmark’s semantic translation and communicative
translation.
• Development of ‘science of translating’ in the Germanies
of the 1970s and 1980s.
• Pym’s ‘natural’ and ‘directional’ equivalence.
• Task 1: [30 minutes]

• Research the following questions in Chapter 3 of the book

Introducing Translation Studies and choose the correct
answer:

https://forms.gle/Zu9zjxLphVNma1tAA
Jakobson and the issue of translatability (1/5)
Three types of translation:
1. INTRALINGUAL or “rewording”
interpretation of verbal signs by means or other signs of the same language
2. INTERLINGUAL or “translation proper”
interpretation of verbal signs by means of some other language
3. INTERSEMIOTIC or “transmutation”
interpretation of verbal signs by means of non-verbal sign systems

LINGUISTIC MEANING

INTERLINGUAL TRANSLATION presents two main issues

EQUIVALENCE
Jakobson and the issue of translatability (2/5)
Jakobson followed the theory of language proposed by F. Saussure (1916):

LANGUAGE

LANGUE PAROLE
the linguistic system specific utterances

SIGNIFIER + SIGNIFIED = SIGN → ARBITRARY AND UNMOTIVATED

(signal) (concept)

JAKOBSON: it is possible to understand what is signified by a word

even if we have never seen or experienced that concept
Jakobson and the issue of translatability (3/5)
There can be equivalence in meaning between words in different languages?

“there is ordinarily no full equivalence between code-units”

(Jakobson, 1959/2004)

EX: what is cheese in English is not equivalent to the Italian formaggio,

because the Italian code-unit does not include the concept of, for example,
cottage cheese

Interlinguistic difference between terms and semantic fields

Jakobson and the issue of translatability (4/5)

LINGUISTIC UNIVERSALISM
Even though languages differ in the way they convey meanings,
there is a shared way of thinking and experiencing the world
VS
LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY
Differences in languages shape different conceptualizations of the world
(Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis)

…but full linguistic relativity would mean that translation was impossible,
but we know that it IS possible!
Jakobson and the issue of translatability (5/5)
INTERLINGUAL TRANSLATION consists in…
“substituting messages in one language NOT for separate code-units,
but for entire messages in some other language”
(Jakobson, 1959/2004)

For the message to be “equivalent”, the code units will necessarily be different because
they belong to two different verbal sign systems (languages)
which partition reality differently

According to Jakobson, the problem of equivalence focuses on differences

in the structure and terminology of languages

“All is conveyable in any existing language”

Towards a science of translating…

The problems of MEANING, EQUIVALENCE and TRANSLATABILITY

became central in Translation Studies in the ‘60s

A new scientific approach was proposed by the American scholar Eugene Nida
in his seminal work Towards a Science of Translating (1964)

His approach draws theoretical concepts and terminology from semantics,

pragmatics, and from Chomsky’s work on syntactic structure

(Jakobson, 1959: 139, in Munday, 2001)

Chomsky’s model (1/2)
Phrase-structure rules generate…

…a deep structure, which is transformed

and relates one underlying structure to another, to produce…

…a final surface structure,

which is subject to phonological-morphemic rules.

The structural relations summarized here, according to Chomsky,

are universal features of human language.

→ The most basic of such structures are called KERNEL sentences.

Chomsky’s model (2/2)

In transformational grammar, a kernel sentence is a declarative construction

with only one verb, and is always active and affirmative.

“basic content elements from which the usual, more complex sentences
of real life are formed by transformational development“
(Chomsky, Syntactic Structures, 1957)

The man opened the door (KERNEL)

The man did not open the door (NON-KERNEL)

Nida and Chomsky’s model
Nida saw Chomsky’s model as a technique for decoding the ST
and a procedure for encoding the TT
(Nida, 1964, in Munday, 2001)

The surface structure of the ST is analysed into basic elements of the deep
structure, which are then transferred in the translation process and
reconstructed
into the surface structure of the TT
Nida’s functional definition of meaning (1/2)

Nida moves away from the old idea that words have a fixed meaning
and towards a FUNCTIONAL definition of meaning

A word acquires meaning through context and can produce

different responses according to culture

MEANING

LINGUISTIC REFERENTIAL CONNOTATIVE

 Nida’s functional definition of meaning (2/2)

LINGUISTIC MEANING → the relationship between different linguistic structures (Chomsky)

REFERENTIAL MEANING → the denotative “dictionary” meaning
FUNCTIONAL MEANING → the associations a word produces

He borrowed a series of techniques from linguistics as aids for translators to

determine the meaning of different linguistic items:
- Hierarchical structuring (e.g. superordinate and hyponyms)
- Componential analysis
- …

(Nida, 1964a: 33, in Munday, 2001)

Formal vs Dynamic Equivalence (1/4)

Nida studied the various approaches adopted in Bible translation

throughout the centuries

The distinction between “literal” and “free” translation is address by NIDA

from a different but complementary point of view

Two types of EQUIVALENCE

FORMAL DYNAMIC
 Formal vs Dynamic Equivalence (2/4)

FORMAL EQUIVALENCE:
“focuses attention on the message itself, in both form and content […] One is
concerned that the message in the receptor language should match as closely as
possible the different elements in the source language”

DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCE:
based on what he calls ‘the principle of equivalent effect’, where the “relationship
between receptor and message should be substantially the same as that which
existed between the original receptors and the message. […] The message “aims at a
complete naturalness of expression”

(Nida, 1964a: 159, in Munday, 2001)

Formal vs Dynamic Equivalence (3/4)

FORMAL EQUIVALENCE
❑ Focus on both content and form of the message
❑ Oriented towards the ST structure

DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCE
❑ Focus on the function of the text
❑ Oriented towards the need of the receivers
❑ “Principle of equivalent effect”

The relationship between receptor and message should be substantially the

same as that which existed between the original receptors and the message.
(Nida, 1964a: 159, in Munday, 2001)
Formal vs Dynamic Equivalence (4/4)

According to Nida, a successful translation has to:

❑ Make sense
❑ Convey the spirit and manner of the original
❑ Have a natural form of expression
❑ Produce a similar response

Dynamic equivalence aims at meeting all these requirements, but…

…“correspondence in meaning
must have priority over correspondence in style”.

Nida’s contribution was pivotal in leading the way away from the word-to-word
equivalence towards a receptor-based approach to translation theory.
 P. Newmark: Semantic vs Communicative
Translation (1/2)
PETER NEWMARK
Approaches to Translation (1981) and A Textbook of Translation (1988)

Departing from Nida’s model, Newmark claimed that the success of equivalent effect is
“illusory”, and that “the gap between emphasis on source or target language will
always remain the overriding problem in translation theory and practice”.

(Newmark, 1981: 39)

TRANSLATION

SEMANTIC COMMUNICATIVE
(Newmark, 1981: 39)
P. Newmark: Semantic vs Communicative
Translation (2/2)
COMMUNICATIVE TRANSLATION → “attempts to produce on its readers an
effect as close as possible to that obtained on the readers of the original”

SEMANTIC TRANSLATION → “attempts to render, as closely as the semantic

and syntactic structures of the second language allow, the exact contextual
meaning of the original”
(Newmark, 1981: 39)

COMMUNICATIVE T. → Similar to Nida’s dynamic equivalence

SEMANTIC T. → Similar to Nida’s formal equivalence

…but he rejected the principle of equivalent effect,

because it’s “inoperant if the text is out of the TL space and time”
(Newmark, 1981: 69)
 W. Koller: equivalence relations (1/2)

WERNER KOLLER
Einführung in die Übersetzungswissenschaft (1979)

CORRESPONDENCE → compares two language systems and describes differences and

similarities contrastively (its parameters are those of Saussure’s
langue)
EQUIVALENCE → relates to equivalent items in specific ST-TT pairs and contexts (its
parameters are those of Saussure’s parole)

He claims that knowledge in correspondence is indicative

of competence in the foreign language, but only knowledge in equivalence
indicates competence in translation

…but what exactly has to be equivalent?

 W. Koller: equivalence relations (2/2)
Five types of equivalence relations:

1. DENOTATIVE → equivalence of the content of a text

2. CONNOTATIVE → equivalence of lexical choices (especially between near-synonyms)

3. TEXT-NORMATIVE → equivalence related to text-types

4. PRAGMATIC → or “communicative equivalence” (= Nida’s dynamic equivalence)

5. FORMAL → related to the form and aesthetics of the text (DIFFERENT from Nida’s
formal equivalence)
Mona Baker on equivalence

In Other Words (1992), a seminal work by Mona Baker,

structures its chapters around different kinds of equivalence
(at a word, grammar, text level, etc…)

…but Mona Baker also pointed out that

equivalence “is influenced by a variety of linguistic and cultural factors
and is therefore always relative”
(Baker, 2011: 6)
Summary

▪ We examined important questions of translating raised by linguists in the ‘50 and

’60.

▪ Jakobson discussed the key issues of “meaning” and “equivalence”,

which Nida further developed

▪ Nida claimed that a translation should aim for “equivalent effect”

▪ Nida suggested the dichotomy “formal” VS “dynamic” equivalence (moving away

from the old concepts of literal VS free translation) and focused on the receiver

▪ Newmark proposed his model of semantic vs communicative translation,

rejecting the principle of equivalent effect
References
BAKER, M. 1992. In Other Words – A coursebook on Translation. London and New
York: Routledge.
JAKOBSON, R. 1959. “On linguistic aspects of translation”, in Lawrence Venuti (ed).
2004. The Translation Studies Reader. London and New York: Routledge.
KOLLER, W. 1995. “The concept of equivalence and the object of translation studies”,
in Target 7. 2: 191-222.
MUNDAY, J. 2001. Introducing Translation Studies. Theories and Applications.
London and New York: Routledge.
NEWMARK, P. 1981. Approaches to Translation. Oxford and New York: Pergamon.
NEWMARK, P. 1988. A Textbook of Translation. New York and London: Prentice Hall.
NIDA, E. 1964a. Towards a Science of Translating. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
NIDA, E. 1964a/2004. “Principles or Correspondence” in in Lawrence Venuti (ed).
2004. The Translation Studies Reader. London and New York: Routledge.