Translation Equivalence and Non-equivalence.doc

translation equivalence and non-equivalence1.0 introduction the concept of te (translation equivalence) has been an essential issue in translation theory not only over the last 2000 years, but also in modern studies. until now various views on this concept have been put forward by many eminent translation theorists and practitioners. thus it can be seen that the concept of te occupies a very important place in the history of translation studies.in this paper, the author is going to clarify the concept of te and analyze the reasons for non-equivalence at word level so as to find strategies for handling it. there are altogether three parts in the body of this paper. in the first part, the author will start with the development of the concept of te, in which she will highlight the concept of functional equivalencethe most important concept of te studies by a prominent translator eugene a. nida. in the next part, there will be an analysis of the reasons for the relative indeterminacy of the concept of te. the translator, text and receptor together constitute the main factors influencing the indeterminacy. in the last part, at first the author gives an analysis of potential equivalence relations. among the four categories of relations, the thorny problem of non-equivalence will be given special attention. the presentation of the reasons for the problem of non-equivalence is no doubt conducive to finding solutions to this tough problem. in view of the complexity of non-equivalence and the limited space of this paper, the author will have to confine the discussion only to non-equivalence at word level instead of the full treatment of non-equivalence at various levels, such as at syntactic or even textual level. finally, there will be a conclusion of the paper.2.0 the development of the concept of te2.1 various views on the concept of tethe concept of te has a long history and is still a hot topic in translation studies at present, but the time when the term te was put forward in translation studies cannot be determined. it was presumably jackson who introduced the term “equivalence” in his article “on linguistic aspects of translation”. this article has become a classic of translation studies because of jacksons coinage of the concept of “equivalence in difference” which has turned out to be vital for the further development of translation studies. from then on, different terms on the concept of te have been constantly put forward, such as “closest natural equivalence” (nida, 1965), “formal correspondence vs. dynamic equivalence” (nida, 1964), “communicative equivalence” (reiss, 1976), “text-pragmatic equivalence” (wilss, 1980) and so on. in spite that all of these terms are different from each other, they still share something in common, i.e. they all have absorbed to varying degrees some concepts from linguistic theories, such as the theory of applied linguistics and the theory of transformational grammar. thus they may be viewed as the linguistically oriented schools, whose aims are to make the study of translation rigorously scientific and watertight just as linguistics aims at making the study of language strictly scientific. during the boom of the strictly scientific linguistic theories, many linguists developed theoretical approaches to translation. in the united states the most influential scholar was undoubtedly eugene a. nida, who, on the basis of his own rich experience in bible translating, developed a theory of translation and put forward his concept of functional equivalence, which will be introduced in detail in the following part.2.2 the concept of functional equivalence2. 2. 1 a brief introduction of functional equivalence eugene a. nida, one of the most distinguished theorist in the world, ever suggested: it is best for us to speak of “functional equivalence” instead of a mere “equivalence” in terms of a range of adequacy, since no translation is ever completely equivalent. a number of different translations can in fact represent varying degrees of equivalence. this means that “equivalence” should be understood on the basis of degrees of closeness to functional identity rather than in its mathematical meaning of identity.the concept of functional equivalence is not just a theoretical term but one summed up through a lot of translation practice. a deep and thorough understanding of this concept is undoubtedly conducive to the translation practice. 2. 2. 2 principles for producing functional equivalencein order to produce a satisfactory functional equivalent of a source text it is necessary to make appropriate adjustments, which are governed by a host of relevant principles. if a literal translation is more or less functionally equivalent in both designative and associative meaning with the source text, then obviously there is no necessity to make adjustments in form. but if this is not the case, then the following principles may be helpful so as to produce the closest natural equivalence.a. when a close, formal translation may cause misunderstanding of the designative meaning, then: (a) certain changes must be introduced into the translation or (b) the literal translation may be retained and at the same time a footnote must be added to explain the potential misunderstanding.in almost all circumstances the first method can be adopted to avoid the likely misunderstanding of the designative meaning, but under certain conditions and in some types of documents, e.g. legal contracts, wills, political statements, and purposely secret and mysterious religious texts, the second method should be applied.b. when a close, formal translation makes no sense, i.e. is totally obscure in designative meaning, then certain changes should be introduced into the translated text unless the source text is intentionally obscure. in this case, the obscurity may be reserved and a footnote should be added to explain the causes for the obscurity of meaning. translators are justified in trying to provide a possible meaning for the text to the receptor, but at the same time they should shoulder the responsibility to avoid any possible ambiguity or obscurity of meaning in the source text by giving some necessary explanatory notes to the translated text. in this way, the possibility for the receptor to misunderstand the text can be reduced to the level as low as possible.c. when a close, formal translation is so semantically and syntactically difficult that the average person may not have the ability to understand it, then certain changes should be made. usually it is useful to give some footnotes to the receptor to indicate the reasons for such changes.the translation of a highly technical article for those who may not have some relevant knowledge requires the translators to simplify the complex vocabulary or to add necessary explanations for the technical terms. long and involved sentences may also be broken up into more easily understood units.in some circumstances, it is the complicated structure of the source text that causes troubles for the receptor, or the level of the source text is much higher than can be expected of the receptor, thus posing difficulties on translators. under this condition, the source text should be “rewritten” so as to make the translated text acceptable to the receptor. this “rewriting” technique is very common, especially in the third-world countries that are trying to catch up with the rapid pace of it developments.d. when a close, formal translation may cause serious misunderstanding of the associative meanings of the source text or a big loss in a proper appreciation for the stylistic values of the source text, it is imperative to make some adjustments so as to reflect the associative values of the source text. the extent of adjustments in order to retain the stylistic or rhetorical values of the source text depends largely upon the forms of literature. for example, as for the translation of lyric poems, translators are usually required to produce a “totally new poem” on the same theme, especially when the source and target cultures are distinct. many translators take it for granted that a proper translation of the designative meaning is the most important. in fact, however, the associative meaning is generally far more important in informing the receptor of the content of the source text, and convincing the receptor of the feelings expressed by the original author.e. it is well known that under different conditions corresponding manners are required. in the process of translation, adjustments should be made according to different circumstances. for example, the translation of a drama to be printed in a book is quite different from the one that to be acted on the stage. the former type of translation may have relatively close and formal correspondences, since in the book there can be footnotes to eliminate the difficulties of understanding in the receptor. but there is no time or place for footnotes in a stage performance. similarly, a document should be translated into two different types, one is suitable to be read while the other to be broadcast on radio.f. in some special circumstances, a source text must be translated with accompanying codes. this requires a lot at all levels: phonology, lexicon, syntax and discourse. a simple example is the translation of songs, which requires considerable adjustments both in the form and sound. also, the translation of operas involves even more serious difficulties, since the words must fit both the music and the action. the above-mentioned six principles for producing functional equivalence are only some among the innumerable and more complicated principles. some translation theorists attempt to set up formulas to make more specific what should be done in each type of situation. however, just as nida has ever said:“ there are too many different types of situations, too many different genres, too many different kinds of audiences, and too many purposes for translating. so what is most needed are not specific formulas or theories, but translators with unusual sensitivity to the resources of languages, the importance of culture, and the art of translating.”3.0 the analysis of the reasons for the relative indeterminacyalthough the concept of te has a long history, it cannot even be regarded as a “theory” so far, because the rules and principles governing the translation are not so stable that it cannot deserve the title as a “theory”. principles for producing functional equivalence by nida have presented some very basic methods for dealing with various problems popping up in the process of translating, but they are by no means all-powerful. nidas concept of functional equivalence seems mature and more reasonable than that of other translation theorists and practitioners, but it is still far from being perfect and has not formed a system on a theoretical level. because there are always many complex factors involved in the process of translation, for many years the concept of te has been left as unstable and inconsistent. the relative indeterminacy of the concept of te has a host of reasons, which are primarily translator-specific, text-specific and receptor-specific.3.1 translator-specific aspects of tetranslation, as any other kind of linguistic performance, involves human activity. some translators believe that the translator can be immune or neutral toward the text to be translated, while others hold that translators cannot avoid adding their own specific colors to the target text. in my opinion, the latter one sounds more reasonable, since every translator is a human being with his own and individual psychological features. the quality of his translational activity depends on his own tendency toward the text to be translated and his own problem-solving capacity. during the process of translating, the translator should try every possible means to retain both the semantic and syntactic features of the original text. but more often than not, translators are compelled to make a choice, giving priority either to the syntactic or the semantic perspective of the source text. in this way, some subjective elements cannot avoid being added into the target text.even in cases where the translator could largely avoid translational decision-making, because he has to do with a straightforward text, allowing him to maintain the syntactic and semantic features of the source language text, his influence on the text to be translated may also be noticeable.3. 2 text-specific aspects of te semantic ambiguity, syntactic complexity and the encoding phase constitute the three main factors influencing the text to be translated. during the process of translating, due to the intentional or unintentional semantic ambiguity of the text to be translated, the translator will encounter many semantic interpretation difficulties or semantic evaluation problems, thus placing the translator “between the devil and the deep blue sea”. the translator must therefore make a semantic decision that is acceptable for the receptor. hence, the translations of the same text by different translators may give semantically different translations, with some having heavy semantic distortions of the slt (source language text), which is a serious offence against semantic te requirements. text-specific te problems can occur not only in cases of semantic ambiguity, but also in cases of syntactic complexity. it is a well-known fact that a translator often has to cope with highly involved syntactic text elements, which he cannot possibly find the exact correspondences. the problem is very irritating since in many cases the translator fails to explain clearly why the sl (source language) author has chosen such a complicated syntactic structure, which will be damaged if not handled with great care.text-specific te problems can also occur in tl (target language) encoding phase. here te problems are primarily of stylistic nature. apart from phraseological fixed means of expression or stereotypes occurring in phatic communication, as a rule, a language offers several tl equivalents of more or less equal rank. within the framework of te, this phenomenon, i.e. the possibility of selecting between a number of equally acceptable te variants is a disadvantage rather than an advantage.from the above analysis we may conclude that the task of translation is by no means an easy one. semantic ambiguity, syntactic complexity and the tl encoding phase will all inevitably pose great difficulties on the translator, thus making it hard to reach complete te.3.3 receptor-specific aspects of tethe third and final aspect of te is receptor-specific. like the author and translator of the slt, the receptor of the translation product is an important element in any translation procedure. it is evident that the role of the tl recipient is crucial if one realizes that a translator may have a specific target group in mind.here this point can be well illustrated by an interesting example: it is a recipient-specific translation for one of shakespeares plays by a translation team of students from a university, who try to provide a textual orientation to the receptor whose knowledge of english is insufficient for reading and digesting shakespeares plays. this project is motivated by the aim to reveal as closely as possible shakespeares “literary free style” and the semantic bipolarization of his means of expression and thus to prepare the way for a semantically adequate translation of shakespeares plays.from the perspective of receptor-specific te, nida has made a communicative approach to the resolution of te issues. for nida, language is above all a multi-functional tool of communication. in order to be communicatively efficient, linguistic utterances must be receptor-oriented. this principle is imperative not only for intralingual but interlingual communication to a larger extent.4.0 non-equivalence at word level and the solutionsalthough there are a lot of factorsthe translator, text and receptorcausing the relative indeterminacy of the concept of te, the most fundamental and direct reason for the indeterminacy is due to the distinct features of the source and target languages themselves. it is almost impossible to establish one-to-one correspondence on the textual, syntactical or even lexical level between the source and target language, since there are still many other types of correspondence in addition to the one-to-one correspondence.4.1 the four categories of potential equivalence relationsgenerally speaking, all potential te relations can be subsumed under the four categories: total, optimal, approximative and zero te (also non-equivalence).a. total te means a formal and semantic one-to-one correspondence between the source and target text.b. optimal te means a one-to-many correspondence that can be reduced to a one-to-one correspondence according to the context. c. approximative te means a one-to-part-of-one correspondence. there may exist a semantically similar item in the target language corresponding to the source language. both items are, however, in terms of meaning range not identical.d. non-equivalence results from tl lexical gaps relative to sl lexical item, which require adaptational transfer procedure in going from sl to tl. among the above four classifications, the most difficult to cope with should be the last onenon-equivalence. whether the choice is easy or troublesome, under the first three conditions, at least a relative equivalent term can be found in the target language for the source language. as for non-equivalence, however, it is completely impossible to find a correspondence from the target language because there are no items at all to choose from. non-equivalence may appear at such hierarchical levels as