1. Introduction Equivalence and equivalent effect

Equivalency in Translation - reading materail

Next: 1.1. Introductory video ►

1. Introduction

Equivalence and equivalent effect

Key concepts

  The problem of translatability and equivalence in meaning, discussed by Jakobson (1959) and central to translation studies for the following decades.

  Nida’s ‘scientific’ methods to analyse meaning in his work on Bible translating.

  Nida’s concepts of formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence and the principle of equivalent effect: focus on the receptor.

  Newmark’s semantic translation and communicative translation.

  Development of ‘science of translating’ in the Germanies of the 1970s and 1980s.

  Pym’s ‘natural’ and ‘directional’ equivalence.

Introduction

In order to avoid the age-old opposition between literal and free translation (see Chapter 2), theoreticians in the 1950s and 1960s began to attempt more systematic analyses. The new debate revolved around certain key linguistic issues. The most prominent were those of ‘meaning’ and ‘equivalence’, discussed in Roman Jakobson’s 1959 paper (see section 3.1). Over the following twenty years many further attempts were made to define the nature of equivalence. In this chapter we shall look at several major works of the time: Eugene Nida’s seminal concepts of formal and dynamic equivalence and the principle of equivalent effect (section 3.2), Peter Newmark’s semantic and communicative translation (section 3.3), and Werner Koller’s Korrespondenz and Äquivalenz(section 3.4).