Equivalence and equivalent effect LESSON 3

Jakobson and the issue of translatability (1/5) Three types of translation: 1. INTRALINGUAL or “rewording” interpretation of verbal signs by means or other signs of the same language 2. INTERLINGUAL or “translation proper” interpretation of verbal signs by means of some other language 3. INTERSEMIOTIC or “transmutation” interpretation of verbal signs by means of non-verbal sign systems linguistic meaning INTERLINGUAL TRANSLATION presents two main issues equivalence

the linguistic system specific utterances Jakobson and the issue of translatability (2/5) Jakobson followed the theory of language proposed by F. Saussure (1916): LANGUAGE LANGUE PAROLE the linguistic system specific utterances SIGNIFIER + SIGNIFIED = SIGN  ARBITRARY AND UNMOTIVATED (signal) (concept) Jakobson: it is possible to understand what is signified by a word even if we have never seen or experienced that concept

Jakobson and the issue of translatability (3/5) There can be equivalence in meaning between words in different languages? “there is ordinarily no full equivalence between code-units” (Jakobson, 1959/2004) EX: what is cheese in English is not equivalent to the Italian formaggio, because the Italian code-unit does not include the concept of, for example, cottage cheese INTERLINGUISTIC DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TERMS AND SEMANTIC FIELDS

Jakobson and the issue of translatability (4/5) LINGUISTIC UNIVERSALISM Even though languages differ in the way they convey meanings, there is a shared way of thinking and experiencing the world VS LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY Differences in languages shape different conceptualizations of the world (Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis) …but full linguistic relativity would mean that translation was impossible, but we know that it IS possible!

Jakobson and the issue of translatability (5/5) INTERLINGUAL TRANSLATION consists in… “substituting messages in one language NOT for separate code-units, but for entire messages in some other language” (Jakobson, 1959/2004) For the message to be “equivalent”, the code units will necessarily be different because they belong to two different verbal sign systems (languages) which partition reality differently According to Jakobson, the problem of equivalence focuses on differences in the structure and terminology of languages “All is conveyable in any existing language”

Towards a science of translating… The problems of MEANING, EQUIVALENCE and TRANSLATABILITY became central in Translation Studies in the ‘60s A new scientific approach was proposed by the American scholar Eugene Nida in his seminal work Towards a Science of Translating (1964) His approach draws theoretical concepts and terminology from semantics, pragmatics, and from Chomsky’s work on syntactic structure (Jakobson, 1959: 139, in Munday, 2001)

Chomsky’s model (1/2) Phrase-structure rules generate… …a deep structure, which is transformed and relates one underlying structure to another, to produce… …a final surface structure, which is subject to phonological-morphemic rules. The structural relations summarized here, according to Chomsky, are universal features of human language.  The most basic of such structures are called KERNEL sentences.

Chomsky’s model (2/2) The man opened the door (KERNEL) In transformational grammar, a kernel sentence is a declarative construction with only one verb, and is always active and affirmative. “basic content elements from which the usual, more complex sentences of real life are formed by transformational development“ (Chomsky, Syntactic Structures, 1957) The man opened the door (KERNEL) The man did not open the door (NON-KERNEL)

Nida and Chomsky’s model Nida saw Chomsky’s model as a technique for decoding the ST and a procedure for encoding the TT (Nida, 1964, in Munday, 2001) The surface structure of the ST is analysed into basic elements of the deep structure, which are then transferred in the translation process and reconstructed into the surface structure of the TT

Nida’s functional definition of meaning (1/2) Nida moves away from the old idea that words have a fixed meaning and towards a FUNCTIONAL definition of meaning A word acquires meaning through context and can produce different responses according to culture MEANING LINGUISTIC REFERENTIAL CONNOTATIVE

Nida’s functional definition of meaning (2/2) LINGUISTIC MEANING  the relationship between different linguistic structures (Chomsky) REFERENTIAL MEANING  the denotative “dictionary” meaning FUNCTIONAL MEANING  the associations a word produces He borrowed a series of techniques from linguistics as aids for translators to determine the meaning of different linguistic items: Hierarchical structuring (e.g. superordinate and hyponyms) Componential analysis … (Nida, 1964a: 33, in Munday, 2001)

Formal vs Dynamic Equivalence (1/4) Nida studied the various approaches adopted in Bible translation throughout the centuries The distinction between “literal” and “free” translation is address by NIDA from a different but complementary point of view Two types of EQUIVALENCE FORMAL DYNAMIC

Formal vs Dynamic Equivalence (2/4) 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” DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCE: based on what he 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. […] The message “aims at a complete naturalness of expression” (Nida, 1964a: 159, in Munday, 2001)

Formal vs Dynamic Equivalence (3/4) FORMAL EQUIVALENCE Focus on both content and form of the message Oriented towards the ST structure DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCE Focus on the function of the text Oriented towards the need of the receivers “Principle of equivalent effect” 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, in Munday, 2001)

Formal vs Dynamic Equivalence (4/4) According to Nida, a successful translation has to: Make sense Convey the spirit and manner of the original Have a natural form of expression Produce a similar response Dynamic equivalence aims at meeting all these requirements, but… …“correspondence in meaning must have priority over correspondence in style”. Nida’s contribution was pivotal in leading the way away from the word-to-word equivalence towards a receptor-based approach to translation theory.

P. Newmark: Semantic vs Communicative Translation (1/2) PETER NEWMARK Approaches to Translation (1981) and A Textbook of Translation (1988) Departing from Nida’s model, Newmark claimed that the success of equivalent effect is “illusory”, and that “the gap between emphasis on source or target language will always remain the overriding problem in translation theory and practice”. (Newmark, 1981: 39) TRANSLATION SEMANTIC COMMUNICATIVE

P. Newmark: Semantic vs Communicative Translation (2/2) 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) COMMUNICATIVE T.  Similar to Nida’s dynamic equivalence SEMANTIC T.  Similar to Nida’s formal equivalence …but he rejected the principle of equivalent effect, because it’s “inoperant if the text is out of the TL space and time” (Newmark, 1981: 69)

W. Koller: equivalence relations (1/2) WERNER KOLLER Einführung in die Übersetzungswissenschaft (1979) CORRESPONDENCE  compares two language systems and describes differences and similarities contrastively (its parameters are those of Saussure’s langue) EQUIVALENCE  relates to equivalent items in specific ST-TT pairs and contexts (its parameters are those of Saussure’s parole) He claims that knowledge in correspondence is indicative of competence in the foreign language, but only knowledge in equivalence indicates competence in translation …but what exactly has to be equivalent?

W. Koller: equivalence relations (2/2) Five types of equivalence relations: DENOTATIVE  equivalence of the content of a text CONNOTATIVE  equivalence of lexical choices (especially between near-synonyms) TEXT-NORMATIVE  equivalence related to text-types PRAGMATIC  or “communicative equivalence” (= Nida’s dynamic equivalence) FORMAL  related to the form and aesthetics of the text (DIFFERENT from Nida’s formal equivalence)

Mona Baker on equivalence In Other Words (1992), a seminal work by Mona Baker, structures its chapters around different kinds of equivalence (at a word, grammar, text level, etc…) …but Mona Baker also pointed out that equivalence “is influenced by a variety of linguistic and cultural factors and is therefore always relative” (Baker, 2011: 6)

Nida claimed that a translation should aim for “equivalent effect” Summary We examined important questions of translating raised by linguists in the ‘50 and ’60. Jakobson discussed the key issues of “meaning” and “equivalence”, which Nida further developed Nida claimed that a translation should aim for “equivalent effect” Nida suggested the dichotomy “formal” VS “dynamic” equivalence (moving away from the old concepts of literal VS free translation) and focused on the receiver Newmark proposed his model of semantic vs communicative translation, rejecting the principle of equivalent effect

References BAKER, M. 1992. In Other Words – A coursebook on Translation. London and New York: Routledge. JAKOBSON, R. 1959. “On linguistic aspects of translation”, in Lawrence Venuti (ed). 2004. The Translation Studies Reader. London and New York: Routledge. KOLLER, W. 1995. “The concept of equivalence and the object of translation studies”, in Target 7. 2: 191-222. MUNDAY, J. 2001. Introducing Translation Studies. Theories and Applications. London and New York: Routledge. NEWMARK, P. 1981. Approaches to Translation. Oxford and New York: Pergamon. NEWMARK, P. 1988. A Textbook of Translation. New York and London: Prentice Hall. NIDA, E. 1964a. Towards a Science of Translating. Leiden: E. J. Brill. NIDA, E. 1964a/2004. “Principles or Correspondence” in in Lawrence Venuti (ed). 2004. The Translation Studies Reader. London and New York: Routledge.

THANKS FOR YOUR ATTENTION! PROF.SSA LAURA LIUCCI laura.liucci@uniroma2.it