Translation equivalence and equivalents

Translation equivalence is the key idea of translation. According to A.S.Hornby equivalent means equal in value, amount, volume, etc. The principle of equivalence is based on the mathematical law of transitivity. As applied to translation, equivalence means that if a word or word combination of one language (A) corresponds to certain concept (C) and a word or word combination of another language (B) corresponds to the same concept (C) these words or word combinations are considered equivalent (connected by the equivalence relation).

In other words, in translation equivalent means indirectly equal, that is equal by the similarity of meanings. For example, words table and стіл are equivalent through the similarity of the meanings of the Ukrainian word стіл and one! Of the meanings of the English word table. In general sense and in general case words table and стіл are not equal or equivalent – they are equivalent only under specific translation conditions.

This simple idea is very important for the understanding of translation: the words that you find in a dictionary as translations of the given foreign language words are not the universal substitutes of this word in your language. These translations (equivalents) are worth for specific cases which are yet to be determined by the translator.

As we know, the relation between a language sign (word or word combination) and the fragment of the real world it denotes is indirect and intermediated by the mental concept. We also remember that the mental concept of a given language sign is usually rather broad and complex, consisting of a lexical meaning or meanings, a grammatical meaning or meanings, connotations and associations. It is also worth reminding that the mental concept of a word (and word combination) is almost never precisely outlined and may be defined even in the minds of different speakers of the same language, not to mention the speakers of different languages.

All this naturally speaks for the complexity of finding the proper and only translation equivalent of the given word. Translation equivalence never means the sameness of the meaning for the signs of different languages.

Translation equivalents in a dictionary are just the prompts for the translator. One may find a proper equivalent only in speech due to the context, situation and background knowledge.

The idea of translation equivalence is strongly related to that of the unit of translation, i.e. the text length required to obtain proper equivalent.

It is generally known that one word is hardly a common unit of translation, especially in analytical languages with usually polysemantic words. Their meaning strongly depends on the environment. One is more likely to find a universal equivalent for a word combination, in particular for a clichéd one (e.g. hands up, ready made), because a word combination is already a small context and the clichéd expressions are commonly used in similar situations. The general rule of translation reads: the longer is the source text, the bigger is a chance to find proper and correct translation equivalent.

Traditionally and from practical viewpoint the optimal length of text for translation is a sentence. Being a self-sustained syntactic entity a sentence usually contains enough syntactic and semantic information for translation. However, there are cases when a broader stretch of the source text is required. It supplies additional information necessary for translation.

Thus, put with certain degree of simplification, equivalence is a similarity of meaning observed in the units of different languages and used for translation. The units of the target language with meanings similar to the relevant units of the source language are called translation equivalents. Modern translation theory suggests two basic grades of translation equivalents.