Equivalence

and equivalent effect

PREPARED BY: ROXANNE M. CASTILLO
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)

Can there 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
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

…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)

“Languages differ
essentially in what they
must convey and not in what
they may convey”
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
Which is the Generative-transformation model.
(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 most basic of such structures are called KERNEL sentences.

DEEP STRUCTURE : Not she is
playing golf.

SURFACE STRUCTURE : She is

playing golf.
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)
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”
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, and…

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

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