Equivalence and Equivalent Effect prepared by : Tahreer Nafez Baroud

Outlines: Introduction Roman Jacobson: the nature of linguistic meaning and equivalence Nida and the science of translating the nature of meaning(semantic and pragmatic) Formal and dynamic equivalence Discussion of the importance of work Nidia's Criticism of Nidia's work

introduction Over the following twenty years many further attempts were made to define the nature of equivalence many major figures worked to define the nature of equivalence.

Eugene Nida Peter Newmark Werner Koller

Roman Jacobson: the nature of linguistic meaning and equivalence three categories of translation described by Roman Jacobson: 1. intralingual translation, 'an interpretation of verbal signs by means of other signs of the same language'; 2 interlingual translation, 'an interpretation of verbal signs by means of verbal signs of some other language'; 3. intersemiotic translation, : 'an interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of non-verbal sign systems').

Jacobson follows the theory of language proposed by the famous Swiss linguist Saussure. Saussure differentiated between the “signifier" the spoken and written signal. “Signified” the concept

signifier The spoken and written sign signified The concept

Jacobson also stresses that it is possible to understand what is signified by a word even if we have never seen or experienced the concept in the real life

The problem of meaning and equivalence In Jacobson's discussion the problem of meaning and equivalence focuses on differences in the structure and terminology of language rather than on any inability of language to render a message that has been written or uttered

Equivalence by Jacobson “Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey”

Examples of differences: Honey is masculineine French but feminine in Spanish. The level of gender In Russian,The verb morphology varies whether the action is completed or not The level of aspect The german term “geschwister”is normally explicated in English as sister and brother. The level of semantic field

These examples illustrate differences between languages but they are still concept that can be rendered interlingually

Nida and the science of translation . Receptor language Source language analysis restructuring transfer

comment Nida sees that science of translation provides the translator with atechnique for decoding the ST and aprocedure for encoding the TT. The surface structure of the ST is analysed into the basic elements of the deep structure, these are transferred in the translation process and then restructed semantically and stylistically into the surface structure of the TT.

The nature of meaning :advances in semantic and pragmatics Meaning is broken down into the following: Linguistic meaning: the relationship between different linguistic structure. e.g ‘his”his house,his journey equal,hiskidness…. Referential meaning: dictionary, denonative,e.g:son denotes amale child Emotive meaning :the associations aword producing E.g don’t worry about that ,son’…endearment

Eugene Nida discussed three terms toward a science of translating which are: Literal Free Faithful You can achieve faithful translation by translating verb to verb and noun to nouns

There are two basic types of equivalence dicussed by Eugene Nida: Formal equivalence Dynamic equivalence

Formal equivalence: it focuses attention on the message itself, in both form and content It concerned that the message in the receptor language should match as closely as possible the different elements in the source language:

Using words sense Form+content=formal equivalence This includes>> Grammatical units Using words sense

Dynamic Equivalence The closest natural equivalent to the source-language message Dynamic equivalence aims to complete naturalnessof expression Grammer Lexicon Cultural refrences

Example of formal and dynamic translation Add fuel to the fire Sorry I cant come with you, my hands are full

Four basic requirement of translation Making sense Conveying the spirit and manner of the original Easy form of expression Producing asimilar responce

Importance of of Nida's work He pointed the road way from strict word for word equivalence. Nadia put description of real translation phenomena.

criticism Lefever: equivalence is still overly concerned with the word level. Broeck and larose: consider equivalence effect to be impossible.