Naida who made most of his observations while reviewing the translations of the bible discusses extensively the concept of equivalency. He postulates that semantic similarity between 2 texts is no longer sufficient. Naida stresses that the translator must strive for equivalence rather than identity; that equivalency depends rather on the reproduction of the message rather than the conservation of the form of the utterance. He suggested the notion of dynamic equivalence.
Dynamic equivalence is the degree to which the receptors of the message in the target language respond to it in the substantially the same manner as the receptors in the source language.
Nayda speaks of degree not, the identity of the response.
While seeking the closest equivalents to many biblical phrases Najda paid much attention to the verbal and structural resemblance of the scriptures in its multi-lingual incarnations.
In developing his concept of dynamic equivalence he proceeded from the notion of formal correspondence. When we speak of verbal consistency in translating we focus primary attention upon the way in which specific words are translated, length of sentences and classes of words. All these formal features combine to produce what is called formal correspondence.
Naida pointed out that communication isn’t merely informative, it must be also expressive and native-like. He stressed that the best translation doesn’t sound like a translation. Naida pays much attention to such notions as natural equivalent and the closest equivalent and makes the point of showing the difference between the two and the contradiction that objectively exists between them.
e.g. demon possessed – душевно хворий/несповна розуму(natural equivalent) while the closest would be – одержимий дияволом.
It’s clear that natural equivalent a culturally adapted target language substitute which renders the same reference but differs in terms of particular, denotative and temporal details:
Police academy – natural equivalent (училище поліції) closest equivalent (поліцейська академія)
Najda introduced the term “closest natural equivalent” which suggests that translation should avoid any trace of awkwardness and strangeness. It must follow the standards and the style of the target language and have all the features of original composition. He tries to strike a balance between the closeness and naturalness of correspondences and to indicate the dynamic nature of the interaction of the two notions depending on style, variety of translation, linguistic and cultural differences.
Najda’s concept of equivalence is hardly free from the contradictions. The response can never be identical since the cultural and historical settings are too different. But there should be a high degree of equivalence of response otherwise the translation would fail to reach its purpose.
The notion of dynamic equivalence also suggests that for different genres and receptors different criteria apply.
Speakers designing expression with an eye to what they believe their addresses know. Obviously the amount of knowledge of the target language addresses differs from that of the source language addresses both in terms of linguistic structuring and extra-lingual knowledge. So the design of target language text must take the difference into account.
Correctness must be determined by the extent which the average reader to which translation is intended will be likely to understand correctly.
It should be noted that both the translator and the scholarly judge of the translation are bilingual. They combine the target language and source language lingual and extra lingual factors. In order to assess the quality of translation it’s not enough to compare the formal and meaningful structures of the source language and target language texts but to focus upon the manner in which the two average receptors understand the corresponding message. One must not forget that the message was not designed for a bilingual or bicultural person but for the monolingual.
Najda introduces the term “communicative equivalence” implying that the texts are equivalent if they evolve the same communicative effect. He discusses the interaction of the explicit and implicit parts of the message. The latter including also the receptor’s background knowledge and knowledge of the communicative situation.
Pragmatic equivalence implies a close fit between the source language text communicative intent and receptor’s response. The importance of it stands out in the cases of differences of the source language and target language unit’s background information.
The terms of pragmatic equivalence and adequacy are largely overlapping. Their overall meaning suggesting the importance of the communicative response rather than ordinary semiotic parallelism.
In terms of degree of equivalence some scholars suggest the notion of full and partial equivalence. But we can rather speak of the degree of equivalence. 3 types of equivalence:
· Formal (maximum similarity of words and grammatical forms in addition of similarity of meaning)
e.g. the sun disappeared behind the clouds – сонце зникло за хмарами.
· Semantic (exists when the same meanings are expressed in source language and target language in different ways – segment lacks formal equivalence)
e.g. a drunken man was crossing the street – вулицею йшов якийсь п’яниця
· Situational (is established between the utterances that differ not only in the linguistic devices but also in the semantic components and describe the same extralingual situation)
e.g. the snow drifts were 3-feet deep – замети сягали метрової висоти.
While equivalence is an answer to the correspondence between the individual stretches of the text, adequacy, on the other hand, is an answer to the communicative correspondence between the source language and target language messages. While equivalence is rather a semiotic value, adequacy has more to do with communication. Both terms are very important instruments of translation sentence analysis.
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