Equivalence Jakobson & Nida & Newmark & Koller

Equivalence

(Jakobson/Nida/Newmark/Koller)

No two languages are ever sufficiently similar to be considered as representing the same social reality: Edward Sapir

Equivalence: complicated, contentious concept. Some initial considerations: equivalence needn’t be sameness, isomorphism, but can also be equality of values (‘equi-valence’); Languages aren’t the same, but ‘values can be the same’.

Nida: ‘Translating consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the SL message’.

Natural equivalence: Malone, Vinay & Darbelnet: all concerned basically with natural, linguistic equivalence, shifts dictated by the SL-TL pair (cane=dog; cream= (diffuses into) panna/ crema, etc.) and recommend various strategies to obtain it, from very literal, one-on-one moves to reordering and modification. Is ‘lentement’ the natural equivalent of ‘slow’? Or should it be ‘ralentir’?

Directional equivalence: Malone (‘Substitution’), Vinay & Darbelnet (‘Adaptation’) also look at directional equivalence, chosen by the translator and not dictated by the ST; equi-valent translations: e.g. cyclisme not ‘cycling’ but 1) cricket (G.B.) and 2) baseball (US).

These are dichotemised poles: we chose which aspects to render into TL. Directional equivalence in particular can hide an ideological, domesticating agenda (we linguistically colonise the French by making them play cricket, etc.). All presumption of symmetry means we are forgetting Sapir-Whorf, and presuming the world is like ourselves: or, worse, deliberately making it like ourselves. Solution? Venuti would answer: resistancy and foreignisation.

Sometimes translation is ‘horizontal’, from SL > TL, and sometimes ‘vertical’ (cf. Nida’s 3-part transfer diagram), when ST meaning is broken ‘down’ into non-verbal kernels, when we ‘listen to the sense’ (Danica Seleskovitch), ‘deverbalise’, and translate this basic, kernel meaning, the tertium comparationis, ‘up’ into the new TT.

Roman Jakobson (USSR/US), Eugene Nida (US), Peter Newmark (UK), Werner Koller (Germany) begin to look less at linguistic equivalents and consider different types of equivalence in context, e.g. :

-          What is the ‘natural’ equivalent of the Spanish bad luck day, Martes 13: -- the literal linguistic equivalent, Tuesday 13, or the functional, pragmatic equivalent, Friday 13 in G.B. and venerdi 17 in Italy?

-          The natural equivalent of dressing in black, as a sign of mourning, in a culture where that colour is traditionally white?

-          The natural equivalent of (Nida’s famous e.g.) the lamb of God in a culture which has never seen a lamb? Etc.. Is meaning in the word or in the sense?

‘Meaning’ & ‘Equivalence’ a seminal concept in Translation Studies in ‘50s and ‘60s - the ‘Linguistic Turn’. Attempts were made too be more systematic than simply the ‘free/literal’ binary opposition.  Some pairings:

Literal/faithful                   Free

Reader-to-writer               Writer-to-reader

Alienation                          Naturalization

Foreignization                               Domestication

Formal                                          Dynamic

Semantic                           Communicative

Äquivalenz                         Korrespondenz

What text unit do we translate? word? phrase ? sentence? paragraph?

Unit of translation (‘the linguistic level at which ST is recodified in TL’: word? Phrase?  Sentence? Paragraph ? Nida talks of units as ‘Meaningful mouthfuls of language’;  

Vinay & Darbelnet: ‘Lexicological unit’ (e.g. ‘tout de suite = immediately) or ‘units of  thought’ (‘all those involved in the disaster’).

What has to be equivalent? Word? Message? Invariant core?

How to decode/recode?  How to get equivalence given non-isomorphism of most languages and cultures: ‘Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?’: but if summer is bad? (Albert Neubert); equivalence of idioms: ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’ – troppi cuochi rovinano il brodo ? ‘Say when’ > Dimmi quando? Dimmi quando basta? Not formal, linguistic equivalence, but functional, situational.

I. Jakobson, ‘On linguistic aspects of translation’ (1959) distinguishes:

Intralingual translation, rewording (‘interpretation of verbal signs through other signs in the same language’), paraphrase;

Interlingual: interpretation of verbal signs through some other language. ‘The translator recodes and transmits messages received from another source. Thus translation involves 2 equivalent messages in 2 different codes’.

Intersemiotic: transmutation, interpretation of verbal signs through non-verbal sign system: novel >film, poem >music, etc.

Follows Saussure: signifier / signified arbitrary. Equivalence, then?  Adequate transference, but no true equivalence, even with synonyms: e.g. Russian syr, butter/burro, etc. ‘Equivalence in difference is the central problem of language’ (& translation). Differences dictated mostly by grammar & lexis (cf. Vinay & D.): ‘Languages differ essentially in what they must convey, not what they may convey’: language differences in obligatory grammatical/lexical forms – e.g. gender (‘house’ feminine in most Romance lang.s, neutral in German and English; aspect of verb – Russian distinguishes between completed action or not, etc.; level of semantic field: fratelli, Geschwister, siblings, brothers and sisters, hijas (Spanish) if both female, etc. . But if grammar won’t translate something, lexis will. ↓

II. Jakobson: Everything is translatable (‘universalist’). We understand ‘ambrosia’ though we’ve never drunk it. Loans, neologisms, semantic shifts, paraphrase can all be used to express the ‘untranslatable’. In new literary language of  Northern Siberian Chukchees,

 ‘screw’ = rotating nail;

‘chalk’ = writing soap;

‘watch’ = hammering heart, etc.. First Russian word for  ‘plane’ = flying steamship. All have been adapted to known elements.

III. Jakobson mainly functions on level of word. We move towards larger unit of meaning in the US Bible translator Eugene Nida:

Towards a Science of Translation  (’64); Nida & Charles Taber, The Theory and Practice of Translation (Leiden, 1969). ‘Translation theory underwent a quantum leap with Eugene Nida’ (Munday) Moves away from idea that a word has a fixed meaning, towards the functional meaning in context/situation. ‘Say when’/ ‘Hello’

SL ‘Hello’:

French: ça va? Hallo

German: wie geht’s? hallo

Italian: olà, pronto, ciao

English: hi, hello, how are you

Phone? Face to face? Arrival or departure?  Nida: ‘It is both scientifically and practically more efficient to reduce the ST to its structurally simplest and most semantically evident kernels, to retransfer the meaning from SL to receptor L on a structurally simple level, and to generate the stylistically and semantically equivalent expression in the Receptor Language’ (Nida, ’64).

IV. RECEPTOR LANGUAGE            see Munday: 40)

A (SL)                                                                                                         B (TL ‘receptor’)

    I                                                                                                                                   ↑

    I                                                                                                                                     I

    I                                                                                                                                     I

(analysis)                                                                                                   (restructuring)

    I                                                                                                                                     I

    I                                                                                                                                     I

   ↓                                                                                                                                   I

    X ---------------------------------------(transfer) ------------------------------------Y

Nida’s 3-stage Transfer model (Nida & Taber 1969). Applied to ‘Ciao’:

             A (SL) Hello                                                                     B Ciao!

             ↓                                                                                                         ↑         

 (Friendly greeting on arrival  etc)           (decision to distinguish: phone?tu/lei?)        etc.

↓                                                                                                          ↑

X                 →              (transfer)           →                      Y

This borrows from Chomsky’s generative-transformative model (‘kernels’) (Aspects of the Theory of Syntax). All lang.s have 6-8 deep-structure ‘kernels’ common to all languages, vehicle of meaning. Basic structural elements out of which language builds its elaborate surface structures.

Translator: analyses SL into simplest, structurally clear forms (kernels),

transfers message mentally at kernel level; reconfigures SL ready for TL;

restructures message in TL, making sure it has same impact (cf. A sentence like ‘so he stood there ... with pigs falling out of his face’, Rushdie, Satanic Verses, describing a Muslim apostate. The FULL IMPACT must be preserved: no normalizing or under-translating).

‘Scientific & practical’ (Nida) & done in 3 stages:

literal transfer

minimal transfer

‘literary’ transfer, finally creating:

e.g.1

                  1           2                 3                      4       5        6          7       8

Greek ST: egeneto anthropos, apestalmenos  para theou, onoma auto Ioannes

Literal:

             1                   2         3      4      5        6       7           8

Became/happened man, sent from God,  name to-him  John

Minimal transfer:

       1                    2           3        4         5          6           7              8

There came/was  a man    sent    from    God, whose name  was  John

Literary transfer:

        1            2            3        4         5          6           7                  8

There came   a man,   sent    from    God,   whose    name   was John

(Or: A man 2, named 6 John  7/8,  was sent 3 by 4 God 5

BUT: Ambiguity: linguistic, cultural?

Nida’s linguistic techniques for disambiguation :

I Semantic structure analysis: to decide what’s core meaning, what’s not.

e.g. of non-correspondence of semantic field.

Spanish email, invitation to conference: ‘we expect you will attend’

Esperar: covers wider semantic field. 1.Hope/2.want/3.expect/4.look forward to.

         Esperar

      

∕                                               /                                                    \                               \

1. To wish but with little expectation    2. to wish   3. to wish/require,+ strong expectation  4.to await eagerly →

1. = to hope                         2. =to want           3.=to expect             4. =        to look forward to

(cf Italian: aspettare. ‘aspettiamo una vostra risposta’ , ‘aspettiamo un bambino’, etc.)

Disambiguate through context or co-text.

Cf. Bassnett ‘spirit’ diagram e.g.

2. to disambiguate 2 homonyms (same form, different meaning).

Historical fact: Monte Cassino: the Allies received a message, ‘Der Abt ist im Kloster’. Abt (abbot) was read as abbreviation for Abteilung (battalion), hence  ‘battalion in monastery’, and bombed).                            

II Hierarchical structuring & componential analysis:

Where the problem is to find word on same level; to examine basic meaning of word and contrast with other terms in same field.

e.g. family: grandmother, cousin, in-law, according to number, gender, generation, linearity (direct ancestor or not/male-female): mostly irrelevant in European languages (but NB nipote/nipotino) but vital in many others.

e.g. generic verb:  move → hyponyms : walk run skip hop crawl?

         walk  →                      : march, stroll?

Analyse into component parts, then decide on the definitions below:

Kidnap/abduct/hijack

Table/desk/worktop/bench

Fond/attached/devoted

Detached house/semi-(detached house)/flat/maisonette/studio/bedsit

a) To steal a person, often for ransom b) remove a person by force or fraud, to kidnap c) to stop and steal a vehicle; to steal in transit; to force a driver to take a vehicle to the hijacker’s chosen destination

a) an article of furniture consisting of a flat top on legs, pillars or trestles for use at meals, work, play, etc. b) a sloping or flat table for reading or writing, often fitted with drawers; a pulpit or lectern c a surface designed to be to be used for working on, or fitted e.g. on top of kitchen units d)  long seat or form with or without a back, a work-table

a)  foolishly loving (arch.), very affectionate; kindly disposed b) feeling affection or fidelity towards c) attached as by a vow; strongly attached to; zealous

a) a house standing alone, unconnected to other buildings b) a house which is partly separated; joined by a party wall to one other house only c) a set of rooms for living which are part of a larger building, usually on one floor d) small apartment on two levels which is part of a larger building but has its own entrance e) small apartment designed to be lived in by one or two people, comprising usually one large room for living and sleeping, a bathroom and possibly separate kitchen f) rented, furnished room with galley-kitchen or incorporated cooking-area.

Bachelor: +human +male –married OR +human +male/female +university degree

Bank? Heart?

III How to assess connotative meaning. St. John’s gospel: Gk. gunai trans. ‘woman’ (King James), which Nida translates ‘mother’: positive connotation. He posits a cline:

           5               4                          3               2               1         

Good ← ……………………………………..........….....................→ bad    

Strong                                                                                weak

(where to place ‘adolescent/teenager, daughter/girl, animal/pet?)

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OR:  Paradise Lost, VII, 319-321): literal, minimal,or literary?

Forth flourished thick the clustering vine, forth crept
The swelling gourd: up stood the corny reed,
Embattled in the field.

Literal: rigogliosa fiori la vite a grappoli, striscio fuori
La zucca crescente; si raddrizzo lo stelo di grano
Schierato in campo.

Literary (Lazzaro Papi, 1829):

Di fior s'adoma

La racemosa vite, e lenta striscia
La tumida cucurbita: schierate
Rizzansi in campo Ie granose ariste.

(Baldi, reason for preferring Papi: 'ci è sembrata la piu originale, poeticamente quindi la piu vicina
a Milton, nonostante tutte Ie sue infedeltà letterali')

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‘Since there are, in translating, no such things as identical equivalents, one must seek to find the closest possible. However, there are fundamentally 2 different types: one which may be called formal, and another, which is primarily dynamic’. Nida. (‘literal / free’)

Dynamic: based on what he calls 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 '64) T-Text and T-Culture oriented; the foreignness of ST is minimized.   

'Dynamic equivalence in translation is far more than mere correct communication of information' (Nida) It is ‘a pragmatic focus on the communicative requirements of the text receiver and purpose of translation without losing sight of the communicative preferences of original message producer or function of original text’. 

‘A translation of dynamic equivalence aims at complete naturalness of expression, and tries to relate the receptor to modes of behaviour relevant within the cultural patterns of his own culture; it does not insist that he understand the cultural patterns of the SL context. ..One of the modern English translations which perhaps more than any other seeks for equivalent effects is J.B. Phillips’ rendering of the NT. In Romans 16:16 he quite naturally translates ‘greet one another with an holy kiss’ as ‘give one another a hearty handshake all round’. During the past 50 yrs there has been a marked shift … from the formal to the dynamic dimension. (1964)

WHEREAS ‘Formal equivalence focuses all the 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. … ‘

The type of translation which most completely typifies this structural equivalence might be called a ‘gloss translation’ in which the translator attempts to reproduce as literally and meaningfully as possible the form and content of the original. E.g. a rendering of some Medieval French text into English, intended for students of early French literature not requiring a knowledge of the original language. Their needs call for a relatively close approximation to the structure of the early French text, both as to form (e.g. syntax and idioms) and content (e.g. themes and concepts). Such as translation would require numerous footnotes to make the text fully comprehensible… Typically, formal correspondence distorts the grammatical and stylistic patterns of the receptor language, and hence distorts the message, so as to cause the receptor to misunderstand or to labor unduly hard'.

NB Fawcett’s comment: The use of formal equivalents might at times have serious implications in the TT since the translation will not be easily understood by the target audience.  (Fawcett,

Nida: the success of a translation depends on achieving equivalent response. For this there are 4 basic requirements:

making sense

conveying spirit and manner of original

natural, easy form of expression

producing similar response

If a conflict arises between content and form: 'correspondence in meaning must have priority over correspondence in style’.

DISCUSSION of Nida: Virtues: moved from word-for-word, purely linguistic approach to a receptor-based theory. Vices: Still too focused on word level still (Andre Lefevere, 1993: Translating Literature.Practice and Theory); ‘equivalent effect’ considered 'impossible to measure’ (van den Broeck) and 'Inoperant if text is out of TL space and time' (Newmark); How can it elicit equivalent response in different cultures / times? Qian Hu ('93): difficulty with cultural references: cf famous ‘hearty handshake’;'Inoperant if text is out ofTL space and time' (Newmark); Edwin Gentzler (deconstructionist): Nida’s aim to convert all readers / cultures to dominant discourse of Protestant Christianity.

Try to think of a) formal b) dynamic TT:

1. ‘Have a break, have a kitkat’
2. ‘For very Ypsilon people’
3. ‘Every cloud has a silver lining’

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PETER NEWMARK: Approaches to Translation (’81) A Textbook of Translation (’88):  ‘semantic and communicative’.

Much practical good sense and many good examples, but less influential than Nida; prescriptive.  Departs from Nida's receptor-orientation; considers a full equivalent effect 'illusory'; ‘the  conflict of loyalties, the gap between emphasis on source and target language will always remain as the overriding problem in translating theory into practice’. Instead of Nida’s ‘formal and dynamic’ he posits semantic and communicative.

Communicative translation: ( Nida’s dynamic ). To produce on the T reader an effect as close as possible to that obtained on the readers of the original.

Semantic translation : (Nida’s formal). Attempts to render, as closely as semantic and syntactic structures of the second language allow, the exact meaning of the original. NOT literal: it ‘respects context’, interprets, explains (e.g. metaphors)

BUT: ‘The literal is the best approach’:

‘In communicative as in semantic translation … the literal word-for-word translation is not only the best, it is the only valid method of translation’. (’81).

His objection: there can be no real ‘equivalent effect’: equivalent effect is ‘inoperant if  the text is out of TL space and time’ – e.g. modern translation of Homer? ‘The Scarlet Letter’?. And readers shouldn’t ‘be handed everything on plate’.

Parameter	semantic translation	communicative translation
Transmitter/addressée Focus	Focus on thought processes of the transmitter; should only help TT reader with connotations if seminal to message	Subjective, TT reader focused, oriented to specific language & culture
Culture	Stays within SL culture (cf foreignisation)	Transfers foreign elements into the TL culture
Time & origin	Not fixed in any time/local space: translation needs to be successively redone	Ephemeral: rooted in own contemporary context
Relation to ST	Always ‘inferior’; ‘loss’ of meaning	May be ‘better’ than ST; ‘gain’ of force v.’loss’ of semantic fidelity
Use of SL norms	If SL norms deviate, this must be reproduced in TT; loyalty to ST author	Respect for SL form, but ultimate loyalty to TL norms
TL form	More complex, awkward, non-normative. ‘other’; detailed, tendency to overtranslation.	Smoother, simpler, more conventional/referential: tendency to undertranslate.
Appropriateness: field of application	Serious literature, autobiography, personal ‘effusion’, all authoritative statement	Vast majority of texts: non-literary, technical, informative texts, publicity, popular fiction
Evaluation criteria	Accuracy of reproduction of ST meaning & significance	Accuracy of communication of whole ST message in TT

Discussion of Newmark: his terms received less discussion than Nida’s, prob because very similar, and both stress TT reader . Aware that text-type and function of the translation can decide the type of equivalence. Prescriptive and pre-linguistic, but provides lots of good e.gs.

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Equivalence (Contd.; see also Munday & Hatim, Translation: An Advanced Resource Book)

“Translation as a practice shapes, and takes shape within, the asymmetrical relations of power that operate under colonialism”(Naranjana, 1992).

After Nida. Nida  was very influential on German theorists ’70s/80s: Wolfram Wilss, Leipzig School (Otto Kade, Albert Neuber), & Werner Koller. Nida’s ‘scientific’ approach congenial to them. Publications in ’79 emphasize ‘science’ of translation: cf.:

Koller: Einführung in die Űbersetzungswissenschaft ’79; ‘Research into the Science of Translation’ ‘89

Concept of ‘Equivalence’ (Aquivalenz)  &  ‘Correspondence’ (Korrespondenz).

Correspondence: equivalence in language systems: contrastive linguistics, (Saussure’s Langue): identifying false friends, syntax interference, etc.

Equivalence: Parole: specific ST-TT pairs, actual language of those particular texts. Correspondence is the mark of a good linguist; Equivalence, a good translator.

Koller basically concerned with Equivalence (Parole). But what /which/where/what level?

Sees equivalence as process constrained by text’s DOUBLE LINKAGE: to ST & TT: a) potentially conflicting SL/TL linguistic factors, textual & extra-textual, b) communicative conditions on receiver’s side: historical-cultural conditions in which texts & their translations are produced / received.

What has to be equivalent? How?  ‘Linguistic/textual units of TT are equivalent if correspond to ST  elements in some or all of following:

Koller’s different types of equivalence:

Formal equivalence: In purest form, the rare case in which SL/TL signifiers happen to have same orthography or phonology: caffé French /Italian. More generally, equivalence of form/aesthetics, word-play. S.t. called ‘expressive equivalence’ (expressive form of lang.). Nida’s formal, Newmark’s semantic.

Denotative, referential equivalence: when SL /TL words refer to exactly same thing in real world: (Sapir-Whorf!) Koller: some call this ‘content invariance’/tertium comparationis.

Connotative equivalence: SL/TL triggering same associations: Koran, coffee, summer’s day, ‘river’ (Hoffman, Lost in Translation).

Text-normative equivalence: different texts behaving in similar or different ways (Reiss, Ch. 5)

Pragmatic equivalence: when translation aimed to have same effect on respective readers: (Newmark’s communicative, Nida’s dynamic). ‘Say when’ – ‘dimmi quando basta’. ‘Chien méchant’, ‘beware of the dog’).

Not all these variables are relevant to every situation: translators have to decide, & prioritise: ‘with every text, and every segment of text, the translator who consciously makes such a choice (1-5 above) must set up a hierarchy of values to be preserved in translation: from this he (sic)= can derive a hierarchy of equivalence requirements. This in turn must be preceded by a translationally relevant text-analysis’.

e.g. from Munday & Hatim, 50-51: ‘I had wanted for years to get Mrs Thatcher in front of my camera. As she got more powerful she got sort of sexier’. (Newsweek) TL= Arabic.

formal  ‘sexier’. No language calques it, as Arabic, e.g., does with ‘strategy’: stratiijiiya), tho’ many European langs do ‘più sexy’ etc.. No ‘aesthetic-formal’ features to maintain, so move up equivalence hierarchy:

when 1) impossible, or insufficient → 

2) denotative. SL form replaced by TL form referring basically to same ‘thing’: something like ‘physically inviting’.

for many rhetorical, cultural, linguistic reasons, denotative may not do justice to ‘sexy’. Might give ‘pornographic’ idea (cf. Arabic). If so, → 

3) connotative equivalence, next level, ‘similarity of association’ . Perhaps ‘attractive’.

‘attractive’ in Arabic partly satisfactory, but semantically conveys physical ‘gravity’. So →

4) text-normative. Text norms go beyond connotations, to sort of language right in that sort of text., attitude, etc..  Perhaps, then, we should jettison ‘sexy’ completely, and modify sexual attractiveness to ‘attractive femininity’, perhaps glossing with ‘so to speak’, ‘for want of a better word’. 

Now have similar effect on ST/TT reader, --  ‘equivalent effect’, so: →

5) pragmatic equivalence.

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