Importance of Equivalence in Translation - Essay Example

?Importance of Equivalence in Translation Equivalence is a fundamental element of human translation whose importance cannot be overemphasized. Specifically, one of the key considerations of all agents offering professional services of translation is equivalence irrespective of whether the service of translation offered is source oriented or target oriented. In either of the two kinds of approaches towards translation, there is always certain level of exchange of equivalence in the various echelons of language. There are numerous factors that influence the human translation that include but are not limited to linguistic and cultural factors. The more these parameters are accurate and effective, the more help they offer in streamlining the process of translation in a convincing way. “[T]ranslation is the ability to mediate between cultures, to explain one to another; mixed loyalties; the pushes and pulls of the source and target cultures” (Robinson, 1997, p. 222). In order to achieve equivalence in translation, it is imperative that the translation services strike a balance between the culture and language, though it is undoubtedly a difficult task to accomplish. Language and culture both are of extreme significance in the process of translation because of the strong link between the three of them. This is the very reason why different languages not only differ in the ways of expression of ideas, but also vary in the fundamental ideas expressed in them. So different societies speaking different languages tend to visualize and perceive things from different perspectives. According to the Whorfian Hypothesis, “The relationship between language and culture is that the structure of a language determines the way in which speakers of that language view the world. Different speakers will experience the world differently at the same level in which the languages they speak differ structurally” (Whorf cited in Wardhaugh, 1998, p. 216). Although certain scholars of translation studies tend to marginalize the issue of equivalence while practicing translation, yet the significance of this issue and its influence on the quality of translation cannot be overlooked. The Contexts of Translation Scholars generally visualize translation in different contexts. One category of scholars base the translation on the source oriented theory whereas the other category of scholars place emphasis on the target oriented ideals while translating texts. The second approach is more commonly applied in the contemporary online market in terms of localization and adaptation. There is also a third category of scholars who tend to balance out the faithfulness of text with the accommodation of the targeted audiences. “W]hen translating, it is important to consider not only the lexical impact on the target language reader, but also the manner in which cultural aspects may be perceived and make translating decisions accordingly” (Burgos and Jaimes, n.d., p. 426). Of the two approaches towards translation, the context oriented approach is more flexible with respect to equivalence as compared to the source oriented approach. Nevertheless, there is lack of convincing grounds for the denial of the significance of equivalence as a concept in the context oriented approach. “Instead of clarifying that their rather (text-free) context-bound approach by its very nature does not include the concept of equivalence, these theories attempt to deny the nature of translation itself by portraying it as non-equivalence related phenomenon/activity” (Cuellar, n.d.). This is one of the main loopholes in the context-based approach towards translation. Since the process is non-equivalence based, the result is just another kind of language that is plainly an imitation, and cultural adaptation rather than an exact translation of the original language. Theories of Equivalence in Translation Various theories of equivalence have been proposed in the past like the Jakobson’s Equivalence Theory, and Nida’s Equivalence Theory. According to the Jakobson’s Equivalence Theory, there are three types of equivalences namely intersemiotic equivalence, interlingual equivalence, and intralingual equivalence. Intersemiotic equivalence is the equivalence between the different systems of signs. Equivalence between languages is referred to as the interlingual equivalence, whereas equivalence within the same language is known as the intralingual equivalence. The equivalence of translation best classifies in the interlingual equivalence. According to Nida’s Equivalence Theory, equivalence is of two types namely formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence. Another name for formal equivalence is formal correspondence and it emphasizes upon the importance of text faithfulness and word-to-word translation. On the other hand, dynamic equivalence is centered on the sense-for-sense adaptation rather than word-to-word translation. The noteworthy point here is that all translation theories connect to equivalence somehow. Equivalence along with its multitude of practical applications is a philosophy of extraordinary importance in the theories of translation. Indeed, the target language as well as the source language consists of equivalence that varies from morphemes which is the least significant level to sentences that are the levels of extreme meaningfulness. It is the very levels of language that play a role in striking a balance between excessive adaptation to the sense of the target audience and excessive faithfulness to the original text. The process of translation fundamentally revolves around the achievement of a balance between the document containing original language and that consisting of the translated language. Mary Snell-Hornby is amongst the biggest critics of the concept of equivalence in the theory of translation. She explains this illusion in these words, It means that the lexemes equivalent or equivalence exist nowadays in English above all as strictly delimited specialized terms, but at they same time they oscillate in the fuzziness of common language, that is, quantitatively relative in the sense of ‘of similar significance’, ‘virtually the same thing’. And they entered the English specialized literature on translation with the latter, blurred, common meaning…Equivalence itself is not equivalent, although the similarity fakes: the borrowing from the exact sciences has turned out to be an illusion. (Snell-Hornby cited in Cuellar, n.d.). On the other hand, the Arabic language combines the dialectical Egyptian Arabic with the Modern Standard Arabic. The significance of this combination is derived from the diaglossic situation of the language. Either of the two varieties of the Arabic language consists of some spheres of social interaction at the social level, while the combined form happens to be the only acceptable variety in these assigned spheres. Example 1 If the balance between the language and culture of the source and target language is not maintained, it causes many explicit losses to occur. Explicit losses are the losses of cultural information on the base as well as the surface level, where the base level corresponds to the culture-specific hidden information, whereas the surface level corresponds to the verbal signs. The explicit losses happen as a result of literal translation in which the cultural equivalence is sacrificed to achieve linguistic equivalence, thus making the meaning of the source message more difficult to perceive. Although translation conforms to the principle of adequacy in these losses, yet it goes against the principle of equivalence effect. Explicit losses are explained with the help of an example below which shows the loss of idioms: The sentence in the form of source language (Arabic) is as follows (Al-Masri, 2009, p. 19): ?????? ??? ??????...? ?????? ???? ?????? Transliteration of this sentence in the target language (English) is as follows: “Fa al-yawm yawm al-khamees…wa al-layla laylal al-jumah” (Al-Masri, 2009, p. 19). The literal or word-to-word translation of this sentence from Arabic to English is as follows: “Thus the-today day the-Thursday…and the- eve eve the-Friday” (Al-Masri, 2009, p. 19). Context-based translation of this sentence from Arabic to English is as follows: “It was Thursday night” (Al-Masri, 2009, p. 19). In the Example 1, it can be seen how literal translation of a text causes explicit losses of the message from the source text on the surface as well as the base level. What makes Example 1 difficult to comprehend is the fact that it is a cultural idiom. These kinds of idioms are very sensitive to the situation’s context and in order to translate them, it is important for the translator to do a conscious decoding before they can be rendered into the target text. In the Example 1, the context is that a wife smiles at her husband in a mysterious way after she has had a shower while the husband is aware of the smile’s mystery. The idiom’s literal translation is difficult since it cannot reflect the intended meaning as explained in the context of the idiom, neither or the basic cultural level nor on the linguistic surface level. Considering the translation from the surface level, it totally overlooks the formal as well as the functional equivalence of the eve of Friday, thus making it appear as a non-idiomatic expression that is not conceivable for the target audiences. This kind of literal translation generates such messages that are not only complicated and unnatural, but also meaningless because the target audiences would have hardly felt any difference had the Friday eve in the Example 1 been replaced with Monday eve or Wednesday eve. On the other hand, if the Example 1 is considered from the basic cultural level, it becomes clear how translation of the Arabic text into English causes the Arabic cultural values to be explicitly lost. The verbal significance of the selection of Thursday and Friday in the Example 1 is not random. In fact, it signifies the weekend holiday that happens to be Friday in a vast majority of the Arab countries. The cultural implications of the source text cannot be understood by the target audiences until they have a fair understanding of this functional implication of the selection of Thursday and Friday. According to the cultural practice in place in the Arab countries, married couples are more likely to make love on Thursday and Friday since Friday is a holiday. In the Example 1, the husband interprets his wife’s mysterious smile as lust, that might be considered odd by the target audiences. Nevertheless, this speaks of the fact that idioms are valuable signs reflecting the source (Arabic) culture’s conservative values. Conclusion Concluding, people’s view of the world is controlled by language, which is why, people belonging to different societies speaking different world views have world views that are in stark contrast with each other. In the contemporary practice of translation, most of the translators tend to adopt the target oriented approach towards translation so that the meaning is conveyed to the target audience as fully as possible. To achieve best results, it is imperative that the translators maintain a balance between the language and culture of the source and target audiences so that equivalence is maintained between the two languages and cultures, which is fundamental to maintaining both faithfulness to the original text and conveying complete meaning to the target audiences. References: Al-Masri, H 2009, Translation and Cultural Equivalence: A Study of Translation Losses in Arabic Literary Texts, Journal of Language & Translation, Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 7-44, [Online]. Available at: . [Accessed: 11 Aug 2012]. Cuellar, SB n.d., Equivalence Revisited: A Key Concept in Modern Translation Theory, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, [Online]. Available at: . [Accessed: 11 Aug 2012]. Robinson, D 1997, Becoming a translator, London and New York: Routledge. Burgos, IV, and Jaimes, VLB n.d., The importance of dynamic equivalence when translating cultural texts, Universidad de Quintana Roo, [Online]. Available at: . [Accessed: 11 Aug 2012]. Wardhaugh, R 1998, An introduction to sociolinguistics, Massachusetts, USA: Black Well Publishing. Read More