1. Introduction Equivalence and equivalent effect

3.4 Exploration: Different terms

Look again at the above descriptions of Nida and Newmark’s theories; refer also to the original writings. What are the main features of dynamic/formal equivalence and semantic/communicative translation?

5. V.N. Komissarov 's theory

V.N. Komissarov distinguishes between 5 types or levels of equivalence.

The first three deal with rendering of the functional and situational content of the source language text. The 4^th and the 5^th are attained when rendering the semantics of the language units. Here are the characteristic features of them:

At the 1^st level only the communicative intent is rendered in translation, there may be found no traces of parallel syntactic patterns, nor word equivalents, e.g. Maybe there’s some chemistry between us that doesn’t mix – Бывает, люди не сходятся характерами (the communicative intent here is to render the figurative meaning); That’s a pretty thing to say! – Постыдился бы! (the communicative intent is to express the speaker’s emotions).

At the 2^nd level of equivalence besides the communicative intent, the situation of communication remains the same but it is described by different lexical means, e.g. Pull – Push – К себе – от себя; We locked the door to keep the thieves out – мы заперли дверь, чтобы воры не проникли в дом; Stop, I have a gun! – Стой, стрелять буду!

At the 3d level of equivalence the translator is able not only to preserve the communicative intent and the situation of communication, but he uses the same way of description, e.g. Scrubbing makes me bad-tempered – От мытья полов у меня настроение портится, That will not be good for you – Это может для вас плохо кончиться.

What is important here is that sentences of the 3d type of equivalence are characterized by syntactic variations due to the fact that the Russian language tends to describe the situations more explicitly than English, the degree of detalization may differ, the distribution of separate characteristics may be different in the two languages, e.g. The tired speaker was silent – Оратор устало замолчал, They lay watching – Они лежали и следили за Фредом, He was thin and tentative as he slid his birth certificate from Puerto Rico across the desk – Худой мужчина неуверенно протянул свое свидетельство о рождении пуэрто-риканца через стол.

It is typical of the 4^th level of equivalence in addition to what has been said about the first three, to render in translation most of meaningful units of the language as well as syntactic patterns of the sentences. Nevertheless we may observe some lexical or grammatical variations, e.g. He was never tired of old songs – Старые песни ему никогда не надоедали, Mine is a long and sad tale - Повесть моя длинна и печальна. Besides it may be typical of this type of equivalence to change the number and types of sentences, especially when translating newspaper texts.

The 5^th type of equivalence is characterized by a maximum similarity of the content of the original and the translation, e.g. The house was sold for $10,000 – Дом был продан за 10 тысяч долларов. It is typical of this level to preserve the aim and situation of communication, describe it from the same point of view, preserve the syntactic patterns and find adequate lexical units in the target language, sometimes even having the same semes and if not, the losses of information are usually compensated for in different parts of the sentence or by different means, e.g. Do you know anything about books? – Yes, I am a bookkeeper. – Holy Moses! Our job is getting rid of them. My firm are publishers. – Вы что-нибудь смыслите в книгах? – Умею вести конторские книги. – У нас надо не вести книги, а избавляться от них. Ведь у нас издательство.