Translation Studies PDF

## EQUIVALENCE AND EQUIVALENT EFFECT ### 3.2.1 The nature of meaning: advances in semantics and pragmatics Nida (1964a: 33ff) describes various "scientific approaches to meaning" related to work that had been carried out by theorists in semantics and pragmatics. The move away from the old idea th...

## EQUIVALENCE AND EQUIVALENT EFFECT ### 3.2.1 The nature of meaning: advances in semantics and pragmatics Nida (1964a: 33ff) describes various "scientific approaches to meaning" related to work that had been carried out by theorists in semantics and pragmatics. The move away from the old idea that an orthographic word has a fixed meaning towards a functional definition of meaning in which a word acquires meaning through its context and can produce varying responses according to culture. Meaning is broken down into _linguistic meaning_ (borrowing elements of Chomsky's model), _referential meaning_ (the denotative "dictionary" meaning) and _emotive (or connotative) meaning_. A series of techniques, adapted from work in linguistics, is presented as an aid to the translator in determining the meaning of different linguistic structure. Techniques to determine referential and emotive meaning focus on analysing the structure of words and differentiating similar words in related lexical fields. These include hierarchical structuring, which differentiates series of words according to their level (for instance, the superordinate animal and its hyponyms goat, dog, cow, etc.) and techniques of _componential analysis_. The latter seek to identify and discriminate specific features of a range of related words. The results can be plotted visually to assist in making an overall comparison. One example (Nida 1964a: 84-5) is the plotting of relationship terms (grandmother, mother, cousin, etc.) according to the values of sex (male, female), generation (the same, one, two or more apart) and lineality (direct ancestor/descendant or not). Such results are useful for a translator working with languages that have very different kinship terms. Another technique is _semantic structure analysis_ in which Nida (p. 107) separates out visually the different meanings of spirit ("demons", "angels", "gods", "ghost", "ethos," "alcohol", etc.) according to their characteristics (human vs. non-human, good vs. bad, etc.). The central idea of this analysis is to encourage the trainee translator to realize that the sense of a complex semantic term such as spirit (or, to take another example, bachelor) varies and most particularly is "conditioned" by its context. Spirit thus does not always have a religious significance. Even (or perhaps especially) when it does, as in the term Holy Spirit, its emotive or connotative value varies according to the target culture (Nida 1964a: 36). The associations attached to the word are its connotative value, and these are considered to belong to the realm of pragmatics or "language in use". Above all, Nida (p. 51) stresses the importance of context for communication when dealing with metaphorical meaning and with complex cultural idioms, for example, where the sense of the phrase often diverges from the sum of the individual elements. Thus, the Hebrew idiom _bene Chuppah_ (lit. "children of the bridechamber") refers to the wedding guests, especially the friends of the bridegroom (p. 95). In general, techniques of semantic structure analysis are proposed as a means of clarifying ambiguities, elucidating obscure passages and identifying cultural differences. They may serve as a point of comparison between different languages and cultures. ### 3.2.2 The influence of Chomsky Chomsky's generative-transformational model analyses sentences into a series of related levels governed by rules. In very simplified form, the key features of this model can be summarized as follows: * Phrase-structure rules generate an underlying or _deep structure_ which is transformed by transformational rules relating one underlying structure to another (e.g. active to passive), to produce * a final _surface structure_, which itself is subject to phonological and morphological rules. The structure relations described in this model are held by Chomsky to be a universal feature of human language. The most basic of such structures are _kernel sentences_ which are declarative sentences that require the minimum of transformation. Nida incorporates key features of Chomsky's model into his "science" of translation and a procedure for encoding the TT (Nida 1964a: 60), although he reverses Chomsky's model when analysing the ST. Thus, the surface structure of the ST is analysed into the basic elements of the deep structure; these are transferred in the translation process and then restructured semantically and stylistically into the surface structure of the TT. This three-stage system of translation (analysis, transfer and restructuring) is presented in Figure 3.1: Nida's three-stage system of translation (from Nida and Taber 1969; 33) Nida and Taber's own description of the process (1969: 68) emphasizes the "scientific and practical advantages of this method compared to any attempt to draw up a fully comprehensive list of equivalences between specific pairs of SL and TL systems." "Kernel" is a key term in this model. Just as kernel sentences were the most basic structures of Chomsky's initial model, so, for Nida and Taber (1969: 39), _kernels_ are the basic structural elements out of which language builds its elaborate _surface structures_. Kernels are to be obtained from _surface structures_ by a reductive process of _back-transformation_ (Nida 1964a: 63-9). This entails analysis using generative-transformational grammar's four types of functional class: * events (often but not always performed by verbs); * objects (often but not always performed by nouns); * abstracts (quantities and qualities, including adjectives); * relationals (including gender, prepositions and conjunctions). Examples of analysis (Nida 1964a: 64), designed to illustrate the different constructions with the preposition _of_ are: * _surface structure_: will of God * _back transformation_: B (object, God) performs A (event, wills) * _surface structure_: creation of the world * _back transformation_: B (object, the world) is the goal of A (event, creates) Nida and Taber (1969: 39) claim that all languages have between six and a dozen basic _kernel structures_ and "agree far more on the level of kernels than on the level of more elaborate structures." Kernels are the level at which the message is transferred into the receptor language before being transformed into the surface structure in three stages: _literal transfer_, _minimal transfer_ and _literary transfer_. An example of this transfer process is the verse from John 1:6 in Box 3.1 (cited in Nida 1964a; 185-7). The two examples of literary transfer are different stylistically, notably in syntax, the first being more formal and archaic. The reason for this may be the kind of equivalence and effect that is intended, a crucial element of Nida's model, which is discussed in the next section. ### 3.2.3 Formal and dynamic equivalence and the principle of equivalent effect The old terms such as "literal," "free" and "faithful" translation, which were examined in Chapter 2, are discarded by Nida in favour of "two basic orientations" or "types of equivalence" (Nida 1964a: 159): (1) _formal equivalence_ and (2) _dynamic equivalence_. These are defined by Nida as follows: **(1) Formal equivalence**: 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. (Nida 1964a: 159) Formal equivalence, or "formal correspondence" (Nida and Taber 1969: 22-8) is thus keenly oriented towards the ST structure, which exerts strong influence in determining accuracy and correctness. Most typical of this kind of translation are "gloss translations," with a close approximation to ST structure, often with scholarly footnotes, allowing the student (since this type of translation will often be used in an academic environment) to gain close access to the language and customs of the source culture. **(2) Dynamic equivalence**: Dynamic, or functional, equivalence is based on what Nida 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" (Nida 1964a: 159). The message has to be tailored to the receptor's linguistic needs and cultural expectation and "aims at complete naturalness of expression." "Naturalness" is a key requirement for Nida. Indeed, he defines the goal of dynamic equivalence as seeking "the closest natural equivalent to the source-language message" (Nida 1964a: 166, Nida and Taber 1969: 12). This receptor-oriented approach considers adaptations of grammar, of lexicon and of cultural references to be essential in order to achieve naturalness; the TT language should not show interference from the SL, and the "foreignness" of the ST setting is minimized (Nida 1964a: 167-8) in a way that would now be criticized by later culturally oriented translation theorists (see Chapters 8 and 9). For Nida, the success of the translation depends above all on achieving equivalent response. It is one of the "four basic requirements of a translation," which are (p. 164): * making sense * conveying the spirit and manner of the original * having a natural and easy form of expression * producing a similar response. It is interesting to note the similarity with Tytler's principles of translation in one of the early attempts at systematizing translation theory at the end of the eighteenth century (see Chapter 2). and unalterable, the changes necessary to achieve dynamic equivalence thus verging on the sacrilegious. However, Nida - working in the field "in the 1960s, dealing daily with real and practical translation problems and attempting to train translators for work in very different cultures - achieved what few of his predecessors attempted: he went a long way to producing a systematic analytical procedure for translators working with all kinds of text and he factored into the translation equation the receivers of the TT and their cultural expectations. Despite the heated debate it has provoked, Nida's systematic linguistic approach to translation has exerted considerable influence on many subsequent and prominent translation scholars, among them Peter Newmark in the UK and Werner Koller in Germany. ### 3.3 NEWMARK: SEMANTIC AND COMMUNICATIVE TRANSLATION Newmark's _Approaches to Translation_ (1981) and _A Textbook of Translation_ (1988) have been widely used on translator training courses and combine a wealth of practical examples of linguistic theories of meaning with practical applications for translation. Yet Newmark departs from Nida's receptor-oriented line, feeling that the success of equivalent effect _is illusory_ and that the conflict of loyalties, the gap between emphasis on source and target language will always remain as the overriding problem in translation theory and practice (Newmark 1981: 38). Newmark suggests narrowing the gap by replacing the old terms with those of semantic and communicative translation: * **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 ) This description of _communicative translation_ resembles Nida's _dynamic equivalence_ in the effect it is trying to create on the TT reader, while _semantic translation_ has similarities to Nida's _formal equivalence_. However, Newmark distances himself from the full principle of equivalent effect since that effect "is inoperant if the text is out of TL space and time" (1981: 69). An example would be a modern British English translation of Homer. The translator (indeed any modern translator, no matter what the TL) cannot possibly hope or expect to produce the same effect on the TT reader as the ST had on listeners in ancient Greece. Newmark (p. 51) also raises further questions concerning the readers to whom Nida directs his dynamic equivalence, asking if they are "to be handed everything on a plate" with everything explained for them. Other differences are revealed by Newmark's definitions of his own terms (1981: 39-69), summarized in Table 3.1 below. Newmark (p. 63) indicates that _semantic translation_ differs from _literal translation_ in that it respects context (metaphors, for instance). Literal translation, on the other hand, as we saw in Chapter 2, means word-for-word in its extreme version and, even in its weaker form, sticks very closely to ST lexis and syntax. Importantly, literal translation is held to be the best approach in both semantic and communicative translation: > In communicative as in semantic translation, provided that equivalent effect is secured, the literal word-for-word translation is not only the best, it is the only valid method of translation. (Newmark 1981: 39) This assertion can be related to what other theorists (e.g. Levý 1967/2000, Toury 1995) have said about the translator's work, namely that the constraints of time and working conditions often mean that the translator has to maximize the efficiency of the cognitive processes by concentrating energy on especially difficult problems, devoting less effort to those parts of the text which produce a reasonable translation by the "literal" procedure. However, if there is a conflict between the two forms of translation (namely if semantic translation would result in an abnormal _bor_ would not secure equivalent effect in the TL) then communicative translation should win out. An example of this, provided by Newmark