Theory of Translation 1 Introduction

2.11.2.3 Techniques of Adjustment 
Nida opines that the translation should evoke the response of the reader just in the 
same way as the readers of the source language text. The translation should read like 
an original of the target language. To achieve this effect, the translator has to adopt 
certain ‘techniques of adjustments’. Nida classifies them into three categories: 
additions, subtractions and alterations. They are explained briefly as follows: 
(1)
Additions:
If the target text contains more linguistic material than its source, 
addition becomes essential. However, Nida cautions to make additions 
‘legitimately’. The most common additions in the translated text are: (a) filling out 
elliptical expressions, (b) obligatory specifications, (c) additions required by 
grammatical restructuring, (d) amplification from implicit to explicit status, (e) 
answers to rhetorical questions, (f) classifiers, (g) connectives, (h) categories of 
the receptor language (which do not exist in the source language) and (i) doublets. 
Although they are ‘additions’, no actual adding to the ‘semantic content’ of the 
message should occur, states Nida (Science, 227-8). 
(2)
Subtractions:
Subtraction is sometimes useful to clarify the information in the act 
of translation. Nonetheless, the meaning of the source message should not be 
altered. Subtractions include structural loss but they are ‘advisable’ due to the 
divergence in grammatical patterns of the target language. They include primarily 

---

60 
the following types: a) repetitions, b) specification of reference, c) conjunctions, 
d) transitionals, e) categories, f) vocatives, and (g) formulae. Nida justifies these 
subtractions as “they result in a closer equivalence than would otherwise be the 
case” (Science, 228-233). 
(3)
Alterations:
The translation shifts which are neither additions nor subtraction fall 
under the category of alterations. Nida views any satisfactory translation to be a 
“new birth in the new tongue”. So, the new text would be ‘subjected to a series of 
changes’. While speaking about alterations, Nida explains that they may be of all 
types, “from the simplest problems of correspondence in sounds to the most 
complicated adjustments in idiomatic phrases”. The alterations may occur in: a) 
sounds; b) categories; c) word classes; d) order of elements; e) clause and 
sentence structure; f) semantic problems involving single words, and g) semantic 
problems involving exocentric expressions (Science, 233-37). 
Nida’s concept of formal and dynamic equivalence, the ‘techniques of adjustment’, 
their classification and explanation is an indication of his thorough and extensive 
contribution to the discipline. He discusses the ‘additions, subtractions and 
alterations’ exhaustively. These concepts are important for the present study as the 
theories of translation “must inevitably come to terms with the existence of ‘shifts’ 
between the SL and the TL texts” (Venuti, Reader, 122, emphasis in original).