Lecture 8

DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCE AND THE RECEPTOR OF THE MESSAGE

The previous lecture focused on the scientific analysis of linguistic meaning, particularly in relation to translation equivalence at the level of individual words and phrases. In this lecture, we continue the discussion of equivalence but widen the focus on meaning and define it in terms of broader contextual categories such as culture and audience in both ST and TT. Specifically, we will deal with the process of translation, the problems of establishing equivalent effect in translation and how this factor, which draws heavily on context, affects meaning and determines the choice of translation method.

We argued that to insist on full translatability across languages and cultures is to risk being incomprehensible (i.e. producing TTs that are confusing at best). Similarly, to insist on full comprehensibility in translation is to perpetuate the myth that there is no real difference between translation and other forms of communication. A more reasonable position to take is perhaps to see translatability and comprehensibility in relative terms. These two principles are not always in conflict, constantly pulling in opposite directions. In practice, an important assumption which translators entertain seems to be one epitomized by something E. Nida said many years ago, echoing R. Jakobson: ‘Anything which can be said in one language can be said in another, unless the form is an essential element of the message’.

The focus in this ‘universalist’ orientation to language use in translation is on the need to respond to the communicative requirements of the text receiver and, by implication, to the purpose of the translation, without necessarily losing sight of the communicative preferences of the original message producer or the function of the original text.

FORMAL EQUIVALENCE

This attitude to translatability and comprehensibility has given rise to dynamic equivalence, a translation method that may helpfully be seen in terms of its counterpart – formal equivalence. The latter (also referred to as ‘structural corre­spondence’), is a relationship which involves the purely ‘formal’ replacement of one word or phrase in the SL by another in the TL. According to E. Nida, this is not the same as literal translation, and the two terms must therefore be kept distinct. For our purposes, one way of clarifying the distinction between formal and literal in this context is to suggest that: While literal translations tend to preserve formal features almost by default (i.e. with little or no regard for context, meaning or what is implied by a given utterance), a formal translation is almost always contextually motivated: formal features are preserved only if they carry contextual values that become part of overall text meaning (e.g. deliberate ambiguity in the ST).

To illustrate this special use of formal equivalence defined here in terms of contextual motivatedness, consider the following example, drawn from the Newsweek obituary of Sir Alee Guinness (the famous British actor who died on 5 August 2000). The text happens to be particularly opaque regarding one character trait of the great actor, Guinness’s reticence, and whether it is to be regarded as ‘condonable diffidence’ or ‘unforgivable arrogance’.

Read through this excerpt and note features likely to be noteworthy regarding this issue. Reflect on how you would deal with this situation in translation.

[...] a face so ordinary as to approach anonymity, a mastery of disguise so accom­plished he could vanish without a trace inside a role and a wary intelligence that allowed him to reveal the deepest secrets of his characters while slyly protecting his own.

(Newsweek 21 August 2000 [italics added])

The general ambiguity, which is no doubt intended (i.e. it is contextually motivated) in a context such as that of an obituary, and which threads its way subtly through­out the text, must somehow be preserved in translation, and one way of doing this is perhaps through opting for formal equivalence. Any explication of while slyly protecting his own, for example, could seriously compromise intended meaning.

Preserving ST ambiguity is thus one legitimate use of formal equivalence. But there are other contexts. An extreme form of this kind of equivalence may be illustrated by St Jerome’s oft-cited injunction in the context of Bible translation: ‘even the order of the words is a mystery’. More generally, however, E. Nida deals with such contexts in terms of focusing ‘attention on the message itself, in both form and content’ for whatever purpose. This is strictly the sense, which he most probably intended for his formal equivalence.

DYNAMIC EQUIVALENCE

Formal equivalence is a contextually motivated method of translation (i.e. a procedure purposefully selected in order to preserve a certain linguistic / rhetorical effect). We can sometimes preserve these effects in translation simply by doing nothing, which happens quite often when we do not need to interfere with the formal arrangement of words, structure. But, even in such cases, the decision to opt for formal equivalence must always be a conscious decision (i.e. taken for a good reason and not gratuitously). The aim in this kind of adherence to form would be to bring the target reader nearer to the linguistic or cultural preferences of the ST.

Yet, for a wide variety of texts, and given a diverse range of readers and purposes of translation, there is often a need for some ST explication and adjustment. That is, if in the translator’s judgement, a form of words that is not sufficiently transparent in the TT is likely to pose a threat to comprehensibility and therefore result in unintended and unmotivated opaqueness, intervention on the part of the translator becomes inevitable. In such cases, the translator would need to resort to more ‘dynamic’ forms of equivalence.

Through dynamic equivalence, we can thus cater for a rich variety of contextual values and effects which utterances carry within texts and which a literal translation would simply compromise. These effects would not be so much form-bound, as content-bound. That is, we opt for varying degrees of dynamic equivalence when form is not significantly involved in conveying a particular meaning, and when a formal rendering is therefore unnecessary (e.g. in cases where there is no contextual justification for preserving ST opaqueness, ambiguity, etc.).

An important point to underline here is that opting for this or that form of equiva­lence is not an either/or choice. The distinction dynamic vs formal equivalence (or dynamic vs structural correspondence) is best seen in relative terms, as points on a cline. The two methods are not absolute techniques but rather general orien­tations. In fact, what experienced translators seem to do most of the time is to resort to a literal kind of equivalence initially, reconsider the decision in the light of a range of factors, and ultimately make a choice from literal, formal or dynamic equivalence in this order and as appropriate.

ADJUSTMENT

Adjustment or the gradual move away from form-by-form renderings and towards more dynamic kinds of equivalence is thus an important translation technique. In the search for dynamic equivalence, it is proposed by Nida as an overall translation technique which may take several forms. In dealing with texts that are likely to produce a dense translation, for instance, we may opt for building in redundancy, explicating or even repeating information when appropriate. Alternatively, we may opt for gisting, a technique most useful in dealing with lan­guages characterized by a noticeably high degree of repetition of meaning. Also as part of adjustment, we may at times have to re-order an entire sequence of sentences if the ST order of events, for example, does not match normal chronology, or proves too cumbersome to visualize.

Adjustment is also needed to cope with the wide range of purposes, which translations might serve.

THE TRANSLATION PROCESS: ANALYSIS, TRANSFER, RE-STRUCTURING

The dynamically equivalent version of the above editorial exhibits some of the following adjustment strategies:

• Jettisoning less accessible ST items

We can strike a deal with someone, or we can deal them a blow preserves the word play in the source.

• Regulating redundancy

There are those, however, who enjoy deliberately confusing the two ideas. So where there should be honor and trust we find lies and deceit establishes a contrast which enhances the relevance of the distinction introduced earlier.

These changes are introduced in the so-called ‘restructuring’ stage, the last of three phases through which the process of translation is said to pass.

The translator:

(1) analyses the SL message into its simplest and structurally clearest forms (or ‘kernels');

(2) transfers the message at this kernel level;

(3) restructures the message in the TL to the level which is most appropriate for the audience addressed.

The ‘analysis’ phase begins with discovering the so-called ‘kernels’ (a term which E. Nida borrows from Chomsky’s transformational generative grammar). Kernels are basic structural elements to which syntactically more elaborate surface structures of a language can be reduced. To return to an example a phrase such as children of wrath yields ‘God directs wrath at the transgressors’ or ‘the transgressors suffers God’s wrath’ as possible kernels representing the clearest understanding of ST meaning.

Kernel analysis is thus a crucial step in the process of moving from ST to TT. This is in keeping with the essentially universalist hypothesis to which E. Nida subscribes: languages ‘agree far more on the level of the kernels than on the level of the more elaborate structures’.

Kernels consist of combinations of items from four basic semantic categories:

• object words (nouns referring to physical objects including human beings);

• event words (actions often represented by verbs);

• abstracts (qualities and quantities, including adjectives);

• relationals (including linking devices, gender markers).

Kernel sentences are derived from the actual source sentence by means of a variety of techniques including, most importantly, back-transformation. In explicating grammatical relationships, ST surface structures are ‘paraphrased’ into ‘formulae’ capturing the way in which elements from the various categories listed above are combined. Thus, the surface structure will of God may be back-transformed into a formula such as: В (object, God) performs A (event, wills).

We move from ST to TT via a phase called transfer. This is the stage ‘in which the analysed material is transferred in the mind of the translator from language A to language B’. What does this essentially ‘mental’ activity involve? It is important to remember that, during ‘transfer’, kernels are not treated in isolation since they would already be marked temporally, spatially and logically. But they would still be raw material which the translator, in the light of his or her knowledge of TL structure, must now modify in preparation for restructuring (the stage of putting pen to paper, as it were). A SL word may have to be expanded into several TL words, or alternatively, a SL phrase re-moulded into a single TL word. Along similar lines, structural differences between SL and TL are reconciled at the sound, word, sentence or even discourse level. It is probably here that ‘strategy’ (or the translator’s ‘game plan’) is worked out, and decisions regarding such matters as register and genre are initially taken. Thus, rather than a simple replacement exercise of actual SL elements with their most literal TL counterparts, 'transfer' is a dynamic process of ‘reconfiguration’ in the TL of sets of SL semantic and structural components.

The translator should now be ready for restructuring the transferred material, which hitherto has existed only in the form of kernel sentences. What is needed is a set of procedures by which the input accrued so far may be transformed into a ‘stylistic form appropriate to the receptor language and to the intended receptors. In particular, restructuring ensures that the impact which the translation is to have on its intended receptors is what the ST producer has intended: any message which does not communicate is simply useless. It is only when a translation produces in the audience a response, which is essentially the same as that of the original audience that the translation can be said to be dynamically equivalent to its ST.

ЗАЧЕТ

Вопросы

1. Translation as a professional activity.

2. The role of training professionals in translation.

3. Academic and vocational training in translation.

4. Definitions of translation.

5. Language, culture and thought.

6. Interligual translation.

7. Intralingual translation.

8. Intersemiotic translation.

9. Translation strategies: format and content.

10. Translation strategies: literal and free.

11. Comprehensibility and translatability.

12. Systematic approaches to the translation unit.