Chapter 03. Intro Video.

Equivalence and equivalent

effect
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Chapter three of the book is about equivalence and equivalent effect. Equivalence is

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perhaps the major concept in translation studies, in translation theory, and certainly was up till the
1970s.

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In essence, it deals with meaning.

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Meaning in source text A and meaning in possible target texts B, C, D, E, etc..

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It links directly to the work of the translator and to the way that the translator will question
themselves.

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“Is what I'm putting in target text B or target text C

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equivalent to

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what is written by the author

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in source text A?

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Is it the same?”

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Now it is almost impossible for it to be identical, because that would mean translating or transposing
from source text A to target text.

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B
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and repeating things word for word exactly as they are in the source text.

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So.

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the form is

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unlikely to be exactly the same.

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The question is,

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and this is where Eugene Nida

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comes in very importantly in the 1950s and 60s,

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the crux of the matter is

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that different translations are preferred in different contexts for different, as we'll see later, for
different purposes. So, Nida has dynamic and formal equivalence,

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terms which shift over time as well,

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and Newmark has semantic and communicative translation.

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So what you might

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translate…

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So the kind of translation you might have for a literary text may be very different compared to a
technical text.
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And

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then there's the question of

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“can the

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text,

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the translation, have an equivalent effect, the same effect on a different audience at a different time, in
a different language, in a different culture?”

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It is for this reason that equivalence has come in for some bad press from the 1970s onwards.

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But,

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although many of the theorists who we discuss in Chapter 3

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wrote long ago,

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the questions they raise are still valid and crucial to be considered in any form of translation theory
and translation studies.