Proper and geographical namesThus, compression and development are the basic interpretation tools and they should determine the methods of interpretation training.
39. Equivalents in Translation: the Notion of Equivalence By “equivalence” we understand a measure of semantic similarity between the ST and the TT. Translation equivalence is the key idea of translation. According to Hornby equivalent means equal in value, amount, volume, etc. The principle of equivalence is based on the mathematical law of transitivity that reads: if A is equal to C and B is equal to C, then B equals A. As applied to translation, equivalence means that if a word or word combination of one language (A) corresponds to certain concept (C) and a word or word combination of another language (B) corresponds to the same concept (C) these words or word combinations are considered equivalent (connected by the equivalence relation). In other words, in translation equivalent means indirectly equal, that is equal by the similarity of meanings. It is very easy to observe an apparent lack of scientific ecology in the current equivalence terminology. There we have 'equivalence in difference' (Jacobson 1959), 'functional equivalence' (Jäger 1973, House 1977), 'maintenance (retention) of translation invariance on the content level' (Kade 1968), 'closet natural equivalent' (Nida 1964), 'formal equivalence (correspondence)' vs. 'dynamic equivalence' (Nida 1964), 'communicative equivalence' (Jäger 1975; Reiß 1976), 'pragmatic equivalence' (Wilss 1980; Baker 1992; Koller 1992), 'adequacy' (Reiß 1984; Puurtinen 1992); 'acceptability' (Toury 1980; Nord 1991; Puurtinen 1992); 'faithfulness', 'fidelity', 'loyalty' (Nord 1991; Puurtinen 1994), etc. We employ the term “equivalence” while comparing ST and TT in order to assess the quality of the latter. With regard to implications of all these terms on translation quality assessment (TQA), however, two significant developments in these notions would be Nida's (1964, 1969) distinction between formal vs. dynamic equivalence, and the functionalist's orientation from referential equivalence towards pragmatic or functional equivalence.
40. Formal vs. Dynamic Equivalence One of the fundamental debates on the translation equivalence, the 'literal' verses 'free' controversy, has been more or less a constant in translation studies. Nida shifts attention away from the debate of literal versus free towards the effects of different translation strategies by distinguishing 'formal equivalence', meaning the closest possible match of form and content between the ST and the TT, and 'dynamic equivalence', which is the principle of equivalence of effect on TT reader, as basic orientations, asserting that if we look at translations in terms of the receptors, rather than in terms of their respective forms, then we introduce another point of view; the intelligibility of the translation. Formal equivalence is, of course, appropriate in certain circumstances. It is a means of providing some degree of insight into the lexical, grammatical or structural form of a source text. Orientation towards dynamic equivalence, on the other hand, is assumed to be the normal strategy. In a later work dynamic equivalence is defined as follows: “ Dynamic equivalence is therefore to be defined in terms of the degree to which the receptors of the message in the receptor language respond to it in substantially the same manner as the receptors in the source language. This response can never be identical, for the cultural and historical settings are too different, but there should be a high degree of equivalence of response, or the translation will have failed to accomplish its purpose”. That is to say, a translation of the Bible must not only provide information which people can understand but must present the message in such a way that people can feel its relevance (the expressive element in communication) and can then respond to it in action (the imperative function). Thus, according to Nida and Taber (1969), a normal translation should aim at the comprehension of the message of the original which is defined as 'the total meaning or content of a discourse; the concept and feelings which the author intends the reader to understand and perceive’.
41. Referential vs. Functional Equivalence Functionalist approach is a kind of cover term for the research of scholars who argue that the function or purpose of the TT is the most important criterion in any translation. Referential equivalence seeks to reproduce the meaning of the words as symbols which refer to objects, events, abstracts, relations. Implicitly, such an approach is based on the assumption that normally one can imitate syntactic structures and semantic-lexical distributions fairly closely (Hönig 1998: 7). However, the beginning of a new approach, known as functionalism, is marked by Vermeer (1978) in terms of the skopos theory. He went one step further than Reiß by placing translation firmly in the context of sociolinguistic pragmatics. Texts, according to Vermeer, are produced for defined recipients and with a defined purpose (skopos). This general principle also obtains for translations, thus they are special-cases of text-bound pragmatic acts: One of the key notions to understanding his approach is Informationsangebot (information offered), which means that the source text should no longer be seen as the 'sacred original', and the purpose of the translation can no longer be deduced from the source text but depends on the expectations and needs of the target readers. In order to translate successfully, the translator has to get acquainted with the specific situation of the recipients of his/her translation in the target culture. (Hönig 1998: 9) Translation equivalence is now defined in terms of the function or purpose which the original text intended to achieve in a specific communicative situation. As the result, the notion of equivalence involves far more complex terms than before. Translators do not just apply linguistic rules, nor is translation a purely linguistic activity. Knowledge and methods from other disciplines, notably psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, communication studies, and even brain-physiology, are integrated into translation studies to describe the goals and activities (cf. Snell-Hornby 1988).
42. Transformations in Translation A different approach was used by E. Nida who suggested that the translating process may be described as a series of transformations. The transformational model postulates that in any two languages there is a number of nuclear structures which are fully equivalent to each other. Each language has an area of equivalence in respect to the other language. It is presumed that the translator does the translating in three transformational strokes. First- the stage of analysis – he transforms the original structures into nuclear structures, i/e/ he performs transformations within SL. Second- the stage of translation proper – he replaces the SL nuclear structures with the equivalent nuclear structures in the TL. And third- the stage of synthesis - he develops the latter into the terminal structures in the text of translation. In describing the process of translating we can explain the obtained variants as the result of the translator applying one or all of these models of acting. If, for instance, in the sentence “He is a poor sleeper ” the translator sees that the attributive group cannot be directly transferred into Ukrainian, he can find that the transformational model will do the trick for him here and transform the attributive group into a verb –adverb phrase: “Він погано спить ”. Another approach to the description of the process of translating consists in the identification of different types of operations (transformations) performed by the translator. The type of transformation is identified by comparing the initial and the final texts. The first group of transformations is characterized by imitation of the form of a word or of a collocation (transcoding and loan translation)
|
