Lecture 4. The notion of equivalent and adequate translation

Translation equivalence is the key idea of translation. According to A.S. Hornbey equivalent means equal in value, amount, volume, etc. What does it means if applied to translation. This lecture is an attempt to answer this question which - you will see it yourself – is not so simple.

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 combinations 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. For example, words table and стіл are equivalent through the similarity of the meanings of the Ukrainian word стіл and one (!) of the meaning of the English word table. In general sense and in general case words table – стіл are not equal equivalent – they are equivalent only under specific translation conditions).

The simple idea is very important for the understanding of translation: the words that you find in dictionary as translation of the given foreign language word are not the universal substitutes of this word in your language. These translations (equivalents) are worth for specific cases, which are yet to be determined by the translator.

Let us recall now the relationship between signs of the language, mental concept and denotata. The relation between a language sign (word or word combination) and the fragment of the real world it denotes is indirect and intermediated by the mental concept. The mental concept of a given language sign is usually rather broad and complex, consisting of a lexical meaning or meanings, a grammatical meaning or meanings, connotation and association. It is also worth reminding that the mental concept of a word (and word combinations) is almost never precisely outlined and may be different speakers of the same language, not to mention the speakers of different languages.

All this naturally speaks for the complexity of finding the proper and only translation equivalent of the given word. Moreover considering all just said, one might conclude that translation equivalence never means the sameness of the meaning for the signs of different languages.

Translation equivalents in a dictionary are just the prompts for the translator. One may find a proper equivalent only in speech due to the context, situation and background knowledge.

Even in case of terms and geographical names one cannot say for sure that their meanings in different languages are universally equivalent. Again one can say this only in relation to a specific context, situation and piece of background information. For example, such seemingly unambiguous chemical term as “zinc diethyl dithiophosphate” is translated in special texts as “протизадирна присадка” but not always as “диетилдитіофосфат цинку”. To take another example, “Africa” is not always translated as “Африка”, one may also find “чорний континент” as its equivalent and this again means that translation equivalence depends on the context, situation and background knowledge. The idea of translation equivalence is strongly related to that of the unit of translation, i.e. the text length required to obtain proper equivalent.

Traditionally and from practical viewpoint the optimal length of text for translation is a sentence.

Thus put with certain degree of simplification, equivalence is a similarity of meaning observed in the units of different languages and used for translation. The units of target language are called translation equivalents. Modern translation theory suggests two basic grades of translation equivalents:

a) Full Translation Equivalence

For practical purpose full equivalence is presumed when there is complete coincidence of pragmatic meanings of the source and target language units. This rule applies both to individual words and their regular combinations one finds in a good dictionary are full because the translation practice reflected in dictionaries shows them as complete substitutes universally accepted by the speakers’ community of the target language (i.e. as pragmatically equivalent).

The stylistically neutral words with reference meanings (terms, geographical and proper names, words denoting physical objects and process) are more likely to have full translation equivalence because semantic and pragmatic parts of their meaning are less ambiguous.

b) Partial Translation Equivalents

The partiality of equivalence is as a matter of fact, the absence of one of more of these aspects.

Let us starts from examples. Книга as an equivalent of the English word book is full in all equivalence aspects because it has similar syntactic functions(those of a Noun), its lexical meaning is also generally similar and the pragmatic aspect of this equivalent (the message intent and target audience reaction) coincides with that of the English word. Thus, книга is conventionally regarded as a full equivalent of the word ‘book’.

To take another example of partial equivalence considers the English saying ‘Carry coal to Newcastle’. If one translates it as “Возити вугілля до Ньюкасла” it would lack the pragmatic aspect of equivalence. (The intent of this message Bring something that is readily available locally would be lost, because the Ukrainian audience could be unaware of the fact that Newcastle is the centre of a coal-mining area). If, however, one translates it “Їхаті до Тули з власним самлваром” it would be lost the semantic similarity, but preserve the pragmatic intent of the message, which, in our opinion, is the first priority of translation. Anyway both suggested translation equivalents of this saying are considered partial.

Partial equivalence is, as a matter of fact, the absence of one or more of equivalence aspects, e.g. of semantic, syntactic or pragmatic aspect.

It should be born in mind, however, that syntactic equivalence of translation units longer than several words is a rare case, indeed, if one deals with two languages having different systems and structures (English and Ukrainian are a good example). Moreover, it is hardly a translator’s target to preserve the structure of the source texts and in many instance this means violation of syntactic and stylistic rules of the target language.

Semantic similarity between the source and target texts is desirable but again it is not ultimate goal of translator (of course if we speak not about technical translation).

What is really important for translation adequacy is the pragmatic equivalence.

Let us take several examples of semantic and/or pragmatic equivalents to illustrate the idea:

Зелений – green; (недосвідчений) verdant; зелений горошок – green peas; зелений театр – open-air stage; зелений хлопчисько – greenhorn; зелена вулиця – green go; давати зелену вулицю – to give open passage, to give the go-ahead; туга зелена – utter boredom; зелене будівництво – laying out of parks; зелений борщ – sorrel soup; потопати в зелені – to be buried in verdure.

Thus, one may suggest that translation equivalence partiality is more a translation toll than a flaw in translator’s ability to render the content of the source message in its full. This evidently does not apply to the pragmatic equivalence, which is a universal prerequisite of good translation.

The problem of translation equivalence is closely connected with the stylistic aspect of translation – one cannot reach the required level of equivalence if the stylistic peculiarities of the source text are neglected.