EQUIVALENCE AND EQUIVALENT EFFECT

In order to avoid the age-old opposition between literal and free translation, theoreticians in the 1950s and
1960s began to attempt more systematic analyses of the problem of equivalence.

The new debate revolved around certain key linguistic issues.

The most prominent were those of ‘meaning’ and ‘equivalence,’ discussed in Roman Jakobson’s 1959
paper.

Over the following 20 years many further attempts were made to define the nature of equivalence.

Three of these attempts are:

 Eugene Nida’s concepts of formal and dynamic equivalence and the principle of equivalent
effect,
 Peter Newmark’s semantic and communicative translation, and
 Werner Koller’s Correspondence and Equivalence.

Roman Jakobson: The Nature of Linguistic Meaning and Equivalence

In his paper ‘On linguistic aspects of translation,’ Roman Jakobson describes three kinds of translation:
intralingual, interlingual and intersemiotic.

Interlingual refers to translation between two different written sign systems.

Jakobson goes on to examine key issues of this type of translation, notably linguistic meaning and
equivalence.

Jakobson follows the theory of language proposed by the famous Swiss linguist Saussure (1857–1913).

 Saussure distinguished between the linguistic system (langue) and specific individual utterances
(parole).

 Central to his theory of langue, he differentiated between the signifier (the spoken and written
signal) and the signified (the concept), which together create the linguistic sign.

Jakobson then moves on to consider the thorny problem of equivalence in meaning between words in
different languages (part of Saussure’s parole).

He points out that “there is no full equivalence between code-units.”

Examples of cross-linguistic differences that are difficult to translate:

kinship terms: e.g., the German Geschwister is normally explicated in English as brothers and sisters,
since siblings is rather formal.

Similarly, in Chinese it would be xiōng dì jiě mèi, literally meaning “elder brothers, younger brothers, elder
sisters, younger sisters”).
However, Jakobson says, they are still concepts that can be rendered interlingually.

Jakobson writes, “All is conveyable in any existing language.”

For him, only poetry, with its unity of form and sense is considered “untranslatable” and requires
“creative transposition.”

This general principle of interlinguistic difference is also related to a basic issue of language and
translation:

Linguistic universalism X Linguistic relativity

On the one hand, linguistic universalism considers that although languages may differ in the way they
convey meaning, there is a (more or less) shared way of thinking and experiencing the world.

On the other hand, linguistic relativity or determinism claims that differences in languages shape
different conceptualizations of the world.

This is the famous Sapir-Whorf hypothesis that had its roots in the anthropological study of the native
American Hopi language.

According to Whorf (1956), the native American Hopi language had no words or grammatical categories
to indicate time.
Another claim that is often made is that Eskimos have more words for snow because they perceive or
conceive of it differently.

This claim, and indeed linguistic determinism itself, is firmly rejected by, among others, Pinker, who points
out that the vocabulary of a language simply reflects what speakers need for everyday life.

“The absence of a word in a language does not mean that a concept cannot be perceived — someone
from a hot climate can be shown snow and can notice the difference.”

Full linguistic relativity would mean that translation was impossible,

but of course translation does occur in all sorts of different contexts and language pairs.

In Jakobson’s description, “interlingual translation involves substituting messages in one language, not
for separate code-units but for entire messages in some other language.”

For the message to be “equivalent” in ST and TT, the code-units will necessarily be different since they
belong to two different sign systems (languages) which partition reality differently.

The question of translatability then becomes one of degree and adequacy.

The questions of meaning, equivalence and translatability became a constant theme of translation studies
in the 1960s.

These subjects were tackled by a new “scientific” approach followed by one of the most important figures
in translation studies, the American Eugene Nida (1914–2011).

EUGENE NIDA AND “THE SCIENCE OF TRANSLATING”

Eugene Nida’s theory of translation developed from his own practical work from the 1940s onwards when
he was translating and organizing the translation of the Bible.

Nida’s theory took concrete form in two major works in the 1960s: Toward a Science of Translating and
the co-authored The Theory and Practice of Translation (1969).

The title of the first book is significant; Nida attempts to move Bible translation into a more scientific era
by incorporating recent work in linguistics.

His more systematic approach borrows theoretical concepts and terminology both from semantics and
pragmatics and from Noam Chomsky’s work.

Chomsky’s Generative-Transformational model

Chomsky understands language as divided into two structures: deep structure and surface structure.

In the “surface structure,” the two sentences below are different:

“John read the book.”
“The book was read by John.”

However, in the “deep structure” they are the same.

The notion of deep structure can be especially helpful in explaining ambiguous utterances.
e.g., “Flying airplanes can be dangerous” may have two possible deep structures, or meanings,
“Airplanes can be dangerous when they fly”
or
“To fly airplanes can be dangerous.”

Deep Structure is transformed by “transformational rules” and produces a final Surface Structure.

Chomsky also proposed the “Universal Grammar” notion.

He argues that the fundamental structures of language are the same in every language.

For example, every language has a way of asking a question, or making a negative statement.

Chomsky claims that the Universal Structure is comprised of “Kernel Sentences.”

These are simple, declarative sentences that need minimum transformation.

e.g. The wolf attacked the deer.

Many scholars, including Nida, use the concepts of deep structure and surface structure to provide
theoretical basis for translation studies.

Nida’s three-stage system of translation

Nida incorporates key features of Chomsky’s model into his science of translation.

In particular, Nida sees that it provides the translator with a technique for decoding the ST and a
procedure for encoding the TT.

Thus, first, the surface structure of the ST is analyzed into the basic elements of the deep structure.

Then, these are “transferred” in the translation process.

Finally, they are “restructured” semantically and stylistically into the surface structure of the TT.
Nida’s three-stage system of translation (analysis, transfer and restructuring):

“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, kernels
“are the basic structural elements out of which language builds its elaborate surface structures.”

Also central to Nida’s work is the move away from the old idea that a word has a fixed meaning and
towards a functional definition of meaning.

According to a functional definition of meaning, a word “acquires” meaning through its context and can
produce varying responses according to culture.

Another technique is semantic structure analysis.

To give an example, Nida separates out the different meanings of spirit >> “demons,” “angels,” “gods,”
“ghost,” “ethos,” “alcohol” 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 varies and is “conditioned” by its context.

Spirit thus does not always have a religious significance.

Even when it does, as in the term Holy Spirit, its emotive or connotative value (the associations a word
produces) varies according to the target culture.

In general, semantic structure analysis clarifies ambiguities, elucidating obscure passages and identifying
cultural differences.

Formal and dynamic equivalence and the principle of equivalent effect

Nida discards the old terms such as ‘literal’, ‘free’ and ‘faithful’ translation.

Instead, he uses “two basic orientations” or “types of equivalence”:

(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.

Formal equivalence (later called “formal correspondence”) 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.”

Gloss translations have a close approximation to ST structure, often with scholarly footnotes.

This type of translation will often be used in an academic or legal environment and allows the reader closer
access to the language and customs of the source culture.

(2) Dynamic equivalence: Dynamic (later called “functional”) equivalence is based on what Nida calls
“the principle of equivalent effect.”

Equivalent effect means “the relationship between receptor and message should be substantially the
same as that which existed between the original receptors and the message.”

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.

He defines the goal of dynamic equivalence as seeking “the closest natural equivalent to the source-
language message.”

This receptor-oriented approach considers adjustments 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 is minimized
(Nida 1964a: 167–8) in a way that

This aspect would be criticized by later culturally-oriented translation theorists.

For Nida, the success of the translation depends above all on achieving equivalent effect or producing a
similar response.

“Correspondence in meaning must have priority over correspondence in style if equivalent effect is
to be achieved.”

Nida was heavily criticized for a number of reasons.

Lefevere felt that equivalence was still overly concerned with the word level, while van den Broeck (1978:
40) and Larose (1989: 78) considered equivalent effect or response to be impossible.
(How is the ‘effect’ to be measured and on whom? How can a text possibly have the same effect and elicit
the same response in two different cultures and times?)

Qian Hu pointed out the impossibility of achieving equivalent effect when meaning is bound up in form,
especially in literary works.

Qian Hu also aimed to demonstrate the “implausibility” of equivalent response in cultural adaptations:

In a notorious example, Nida considers that give one another a hearty handshake all round “quite naturally
translates” the early Christian greet one another with a holy kiss.

Some scholars compared this to Arabic translations of Harry Potter that translate she kissed him on the
cheek by she waved at him and said “Good-bye, Harry”.

Edwin Gentzler criticized the term “the science of translation.”

Working from within a deconstructionist perspective, Gentzler denigrates Nida’s work for its theological
and proselytizing standpoint.

In Gentzler’s view, dynamic equivalence is designed to convert the receptors, no matter what their culture,
to the dominant discourse.

Despite the heated debate it has provoked, Nida’s systematic linguistic approach to translation exerted
considerable influence on many subsequent and prominent translation scholars, among them Peter
Newmark in the UK and Werner Koller in Germany.