Translation Equivalence in Scientific Text

By: Alireza Sadeghi Ghadi, MA Student of Translation, Fars Science and Research University, Iran

Supervisor:

Dr.Amir Marzban, PHD in TEFL, Faculty Member of Ghaemshar Azad University,Iran

Abstract

The comparison of texts in different languages inevitably involves a theory of equivalence (Leonardi 2000). Baker (1992) also believes that the choice of a suitable equivalent in a given context depends on a wide variety of factors such as linguistic and extra linguistic. She also mentioned that non - equivalence often poses difficulties for the translator in translation of terminologies of scientific texts. Due to the importance of finding equivalence in translation of scientific text, the present article is to analyze the finding equivalence at word level in the English technical (dental) text and their translations in Persian.

Introduction

Finding equivalences to convey the same meaning of a source language text in a target language is not always an easy task (Gimenez 2005). The difficulties associated with the process of translation have been widely commented on by scholars and professional translators, but they become highly remarkable when we deal with language students learning to translate into their native language.

The comparison of texts in different languages inevitably involves a theory of equivalence (Leonardi 2000). Finding equivalents in translation involves decoding the source language (SL) text and making an attempt to find an appropriate equivalent in the Target language (TL) text to encode whatever has been decoded in SL (Baker 1992).The domain of equivalents covers linguistic units such as morphemes, words, phrases, clauses, idioms and proverbs (Baker 1992). Through using finding equivalence strategies, the translators also attempt to improve the chance of persuading their readers by making better their qualities of translation (Neubert 1985).

The neglect of the study on finding equivalence at word level in scientific texts in the past years is reported by crystal (1995, p. 120) who attempted to shed light on the areas in English language studies which have not received attention. Despite its major role in translation of scientific texts, equivalence received most attention in the literary context (Nida and Taber 1982, Leech 1974, Zgusta 1971). There have not been many cross - linguistic and cross - disciplinary studies on finding equivalence in translation of scientific texts. The limited numbers of studies which are conducted in this area have shown that there are some variations in the use of equivalence strategies across languages (Baker, 1992, Fawcett, 1997, Dorothy, 1998, House, 1997) and across disciplines (Acarter and Mecarthy. 1988). According to Hatim and Mason (1990) even at word level, there is rarely any one - to - one correspondence between any two languages, as words in each language tend to have different meaning components.

Objectives of the study

Equivalence is one of the most transitional and critical concepts in translational and critical concepts in translation theory, being considered by some constitutive for translation (Koller 1997: 189)

Further as Nida (1967), one of the most outstanding advocates of equivalence, states that the concept of equivalence has been considered the unique inter textual relation that only translations are expected to show.

There fore, the present study is an attempt to fulfill the following objectives:

1. To study the specific equivalence strategies which are used in the Persian translations of English dental text.

2. To clarify which equivalence strategies are more commonly used in the Persian translations of English dental text.

3- To investigate how equivalence units at word level are transferred into Persian translation.

4. To explain how the results of this study can help the translators of technical (dental) text.

5. To show the using of equivalence strategies based on Baker's model in Persian translations of English dental text.

6. To show which (expert or non-expert) translator is used more strategy base on the Baker's model.

7.To find what are the other strategy which is used by both expert and non expert in addition to Baker's model of equivalence.

Significance of the study

To the best knowledge of the researcher, the previous works done in the field of translation equivalence are related to the teaching but not translation. There are some works done in translation that are in languages other than Persian. In addition, very limited works are done in Persian related to translation equivalence at word level. These are also conducted in text types other than dental texts.

More over, this study is of significance from both theoretical and practical perspective. Theoretically, it provides the translators with an awareness of the vital and important role of finding equivalence in translation of scientific text.

Practically, the result of this investigation can be used in language pedagogy and translation. Finding accurate and appropriate equivalence in translation requires the knowledge of equivalence strategies which are used by translators particularly in translation of technical and scientific texts.

Review of related literature

The study of equivalence in translation show how translators accurately render text in translation from source language (SL) into target language or vice versa. According to Halverson (1997), analogies between the equivalence concept and a concept of scientific knowledge as it is and has been studied with in the philosophy of science are highly informative in painting out the philosophical issues involved in equivalence, translation, and knowledge. He also believes that rather than dismissing the concept as ill defined or imprecise, it is in the interest of the field of translation studies to consider the origins and manifestations of this 'imprecision' in order that we may be better informed and less inclined towards theoretical antagonism.

Therefore the translators, by finding equivalence in translation can show the tentative nature of their assertions, invite the readers, as intelligent individuals, to join and decide which translation is accurately render the ideas, concepts and words of original text.

Due to the lack of studies on the use, frequency, and distribution of equivalence in different disciplines and across language (crystal, 1995; Baker 1992), this study investigated finding equivalence in translation of scientific text by comparing different Persian translation of the original English dental book which is based on the Baker's model.

According to Halverson (1997, p.207-210) equivalence is defined as a relationship existing between two entities, and the relationship is described as one of likeness/ sameness/ similarity/ equality in terms of any of a number of potential qualities. Proponents of equivalence based theories of translation usually define equivalence as the relationship between a source text (ST) and a target text (TT) that allows the TT to be considered as a translation of the ST in the first place. Equivalence relationships are also said to hold between parts of ST and parts of TL the above definition of equivalence is not unproblematic however. Pym (1992, p.37), for one, has pointed to its circularity: equivalence is supposed to define translation, and translation, in turn, defines equivalence. Unfortunately, a few attempts have been made to define equivalence in translation in a way that avoids this circularity Dorothy, 1998).

Numerous scholars, including Eugene Nida (1964), Roman Jakobson (1959), John C. Catford (1965), Juliane House (1977), peter Newmark (1988), Vinay and Darblenet (1995) (addressed the subject of translation equivalence (TE) using either the linguistic approach or the functional approach their common approach was to set the rules of TE and then to use samples drawn from texts to support the rules. In other words, the focus of their TE studies gave priority over practice and to fixed norms over dynamic principles.

J.House (1997) expresses his point of view about translation equivalence as follows: "The notion of equivalence is the conceptual basis of translation and, to quote Catford, 'the central problem of translation practice is that of finding TL (target language) equivalents. A central task of translation theory is therefore that of defining the nature and conditions of translation equivalence' (1965, p. 21)" (p.25).

Typologies of Equivalence

Nida (1969) argued that there are two different types of equivalence, namely formal equivalence which in the second edition by Nida and Taber (1982) is referred to as formal correspondence and dynamic equivalence.

Formal correspondence 'focuses attention on the message it self, in both from and content'. Nida and Taber make it clear that there is not always formal equivalence between language pairs. They therefore suggest that this formal equivalence should use wherever possible if the translation aims at achieving formal rather than dynamic equivalence.

An extremely interesting discussion of the notion of equivalence can be found in Baker (1992) who seems to offer a more detailed list of conditions upon which the concept of equivalence can be defined. She explores the notion of equivalence at different levels, in relation to translation process, including all different aspects of translation and hence putting together the linguistic and communicative approach. She distinguishes between:

1- Equivalence that can appear at word level which is used in this study and above word level, when translating from one language into another. After dealing with the difficulties implied in the lack of equivalence at word level, Baker (1992, p.26-42) proposes the following classification of strategies to solve non-equivalence at word level.

1. Translation by more general word (TGW)

2. Translation by more neutral/ less expressive word (TN/L)

3. Translation by cultural substitution (TCS)

4. Translation using a loan word (TLW)

5. Translation by paraphrase using a related word (TPRW)

6. Translation by paraphrase using unrelated word (TPUW)

7. Translation by omission (TO)

8. Translation by illustration (TI)

9. Translation by loan word plus explanation (TLWE)

2-Gramatical equivalence, when referring to diversity of grammatical categories across languages.

She notes that grammatical rules may vary across languages and this may pose some problems in terms of finding a direct correspondence in TL. In fact, she claims that different grammatical structures in the SL and TL may cause remarkable changes in the way the information or message is carried across. These changes may induce the translator either to add or to omit information in the TT because of the lack of particular grammatical devices in the TL itself.

3- Textual equivalence, when referring to the equivalence between a SL text and a TL text in terms of information and cohesion.

4- Pragmatic equivalence, when referring to implicatures and strategies of avoidance during translation process.

She believes that the role of the translator is to recreate the author's intention in another culture in such a way that enables the TT reader to understand it clearly.

Kade (1968) and other writers (Arntz 1993; Hann 1992) on lexical equivalence, in particular in the area of terminology, combine the above qualitative distinctions with a quantitative scheme that categories equivalence relationships according to following categories:

1- One - to - one equivalence; when a single expression in the TL for a single SL expression is used.

2- One - to - many equivalence; when more than one TL expression for a single SL expression is used.

3- One - to - part - of - one equivalence; when a TL expression covers part of a concept designated by a single SL expression.

4- Nil equivalence; when there is no TL expression for an SL expression.

Popovic (1976) in his definition of translation equivalence (TE) distinguishes four types of equivalence as presented follow:

1- Linguistic equivalence, where there is homogeneity on the linguistic level of both SL and TL texts, i.e. word for word translation.

2- Paradigmatic equivalence, where there is equivalence of 'the elements of paradigmatic expressive axis, i.e. elements of grammar, which Popovic sees as being a higher category than lexical equivalence.

3- Stylistic (translational) equivalence, where there is functional equivalence of elements in both original and translation aiming at an expressive identity with an invariant of identical meaning.

4- Textual (syntagmatic) equivalence, where there is equivalence of syntagmatic structuring of a text, i.e. equivalence of form and shape.

Kong (2009) gives tentative and descriptive exposition of equivalence that goes as follows:

1- Equivalence before translating

The first category is equivalence before translating, which means the kind of equivalence possible to be attained when the target text is not produced yet. It may be considered the aim or goal of the translator who leaves no stone unturned in his pursuit of a successful transmission of the truth of the source text from the SL to the TL.

2- Equivalence in translating

The second category occurs when the target is just produced. At this stage, the truth of the ST has reached the translator who has put it in the target language.

However, the truth, whether it has been fully encoded in the target language or not, may still be not fully understood by, or even unavailable to, reader.

3. Equivalence after translating

The third category of equivalence entails time since translation is, in essence, an activity of cultural exchange that can not be effectuated immediately in many cases due to the cultural differences and other factors. He believes that as more and more cultural exchanges take place and develop further, the message that was once held up finally find way to the reader when equivalence, we may say, is achieved at least. In other words, he says equivalence of this category might be more attributable to the cultural exchange activities outside the scope of translation to the very act of translating. In the next section we study the nature of equivalence which important in this study.

The Nature of Equivalence

Writers who have addressed the problem of the nature of translation equivalence (TE) include Catford (1965; 1994) and Pym (1992). Catford posits an extra linguistic domain of objects, persons, emotions, memories, history, etc. Features of which may or must achieve expression in a given language. Translational equivalence occurs, he suggest, when ST and TT are relatable to at least some of the same features of this extra linguistic Reality, which is when ST and TT have approximately the same referents (catford, 1994. p.4739).

Catford thus relies on an essentially referential theory of meaning, an approach which translation theorists such as Bassnet (1980/1991) have found too narrow. Likewise, from Frawley's (1984, p.164) semiotic perspective, the idea that meaning resides some where outside language is untenable: 'There is no meaning apart from the code', he maintains, adding that the worlds and possible world differ and the question of referent is not even the question to pose'. Catford also comes under criticism - from shell - Hornby (1988, p.20), among others - for using simplistic, invented sentences to exemplify his categories of translational equivalence, and for limiting his analysis to the level of the sentence. Catford's approach may have been criticized, but few alternative have been put forward. The problem of pining down the essential nature of equivalence seems to be related to the problem of pining down the nature of linguistic meaning itself. Pym (1992) avoids this difficulty by moving away from the strictly linguistic to view translation as a transaction, and equivalence as equality of exchange value. Equivalence becomes a negotiable entity, with translators doing the negotiation. In the next section we continue our discussion by presenting interlingual and intertextual process of equivalence.

Interlingual and Intertextual Equivalence

In earlier work on equivalence, theorists made a distinction between hypothetical mapping between elements of abstract language systems (at level of langue) on the other hand, and actual observable mappings between elements of real ST and TT (at the level of parole) on the other Catford (1965, p.27) used the term formal correspondence and textual equivalence respectively to refer to the two categories. Koller (1979, p.183-184) made a similar distinction when he differentiated between korrespondez, formal similarity between language systems, and Aquivalenz, equivalence relations between real texts and utterances.

Koller then went on to present Equivalent as the real object of enquiry in translation studies. Similarly, Toury (1980, p.24-6) charts the evolution of the notion of translatability from interlingual phenomenon to an intertextual one. While relationships established at the level of langue are now largely seen as the concern of comparative linguistics, formal correspondence continues to have pride of place in machine translation, where linguistic - knowledge based systems using direct or transfer architecture often rely on mapping between the formal structures of two language.

Indeed Catford's translation shifts bear real similarities to notions of complex transfer in machine translation (Hutchins and Somers 1992; Arnold et al. 1994).

Thus Koller (1979) and Pym (1995, p.157-8) believed that the general view in translation studies soon came to be that equivalence was a relation between texts in two different languages, rather than between the languages themselves.

They also mention that this step liberated translation studies from debates on interlingual translatability based on entire language systems with their entire all their unactualized meaning potential.

Equivalence in English and Persian

Karimi (2006) believes that translator should not always find one - to - one categorically or structurally equivalent units in two languages, that is, sometimes two different languages carry the same function. For example, the verb happened in English sentence he happens to be happy equals the adverb etefaghan (by chance) in the Persian sentence: u etefaghan khosh ha last. Safarzadeh (1995) stated that the translator for finding equivalence should finding out the meaning of an SL linguistic form, should ask himself / herself what the linguistic form is in another language TL for the same meaning to be encoded.

Ziahosseini (1994) believes that to render a satisfactory translation, the translator needs to be acquainted with phonological, pragmatic, religious and cultural systems of both SL and TL to find standard equivalence to the TL audience.

Some examples of equivalents in Persian and English

1- Coal in English may equal zire in Persian and Newcastle in English may equal kerman (a city in Iran), hence taking coal to Newcastle = zire be kerman bordan. (karimi 2006)

2- Sometimes a multiple meaning term in English may have several equal terms in Persian and vice versa. For example depression in English equals kesadi (in Engish may have several equal terms in Persian and vice versa. (karimi 2006)

For example depression in English equals kesadi (in economy), afsordegi (in psychology) and frooragtegi (in dissection). Or the term Tabaghah in persian equals: 1. Class 2. Layer 3.Floor 4. Category in English

3- The word khordan (to eat) in Persian collocates with many other words, in the examples: sarma (cold) khordan, chaie (tea) khordan, zamin (ground) khordan, ghaze (food) khordan. Its equivalents in English are: 1) to eat (for food), 2) to drink (for tea) 3) To fall (for ground) 4) To catch (for cold) respectively

4. The perfect future tense in English may be translated into present perfect or simple future tense in Persian (Modiri, 1942). I shall have written = Neveshteh am/ Khaham nevesht.

5. A simple Persian word maybe translated into a compound form in English and vice versa: hound (sag shekari), asa (walking stick), divan (complete works) and so on (Hozhabr Nejad, 1994, p.305).

According to above examples, we can conclude that due to religious, cultural and literary factors, it is difficult to find a standard equivalent in one language for another.

Methodology

In order to find better equivalence that affects the quality of translation, one should perform and conduct comparative and contrastive analysis in the case of English texts and their translations. The present article focuses on the finding equivalence at word level in translation from English to Persian. It more specifically concerns itself with technical translation and hence, the words chosen for this study are drawn from technical (dental) text.

From the original dental text book (in English) 120 significant words were drawn by systematic random sampling procedure. The original English dental book consists of 24 chapters and from each chapter 5 words were randomly drawn to come up with 120 words. After that, their translation were taken from books in Persian which are translated by two translator (expert and non expert) and then, two translation were analyzed and compared with a total of 360 word, 120 in English 240 in Persian.

In data analysis the frame work used is based on the insight and perspective taken from Baker's model of equivalence at word level (1992).

It means that each of 8 strategies of Baker's model, Such as: translation by a more general word, translation by paraphrase using related word, translation by paraphrase using unrelated words, translation by omission and so on. In each word which are drawn from 24 chapters These strategies of Baker's model of equivalence are counted, and then its percentage is calculated in both Persian translation of English original book; then the researcher is studied other strategies in addition of Baker's model which were used by two Persian translator to find the differences between expert and non - expert translator. Different kinds of equivalence strategies based on Baker's model and also other strategies which are used by two translators are taken into account for the process of decision making in the case of conclusions.

The two tables are provided in this section: one for presenting the frequency and percentage of occurrence of each equivalence strategies of Baker's model at word level in two Persian translations and another for other equivalence strategies at word level which are used by both translators in addition to Baker's model of equivalence.

In this study is also some instances of finding equivalence at word level which are translated by expert and non - expert translator along with the explanation are provided.

Table 1.

The frequency and percentages of equivalence strategies at word level based on Baker's model

The results of the above table shows that although there are differences detected on the use of Baker's model of equivalence at word level between expert and non - expert translator, there is a statistically significant difference concerning the use of two strategies translation using loan word (TLW) and translation using loan word plus explanation (TLWE) in Baker's model.

Despite the fact that the differences in using some of the strategies of finding equivalence at word level are not significant, it is worth having a closer look at the equivalence strategies used by expert and non - expert translator at word level.

As it is shown in the table, the Persian non- expert translator uses the total of 95.83% and the Persian expert translator uses 89.66% of Baker's model. It is shown that the non - expert translator uses more Baker's model than expert translator.

In this chart, the expert translator uses the translation by more general word with 9.16%, translation by omission with 4.16% and translation by using loan word with 37.5% more than non - expert translator. While the non - expert translator uses translation by paraphrase uses related word by 5%, translation using loan word plus explanation with 40.83%, translation by paraphrase using unrelated word with 2.5% and translation by illustration with 11.66% more than the expert translator. Both translators have not used translation by cultural substitution strategy.

As we have seen, it is shown in this table that which translator (expert, non - expert) uses each strategies of Baker's model of equivalence at word level more than the other.

In this study, in addition to Baker's model of equivalence at word, the expert and non - expert translator are also used other strategies which are presented in the following table:

Table 2

The frequency and percentage of equivalence strategies at word level in addition to Baker's model.

As it is shown in the charts, the expert translator uses two strategies (translation by transliteration, translation by glossary at the end of book) with total percent of 45.83% and non - expert translator uses translation by explicitation , translation by footnote and translation by transliteration with total number of 38.33% in addition of Baker's model of equivalence at word level. The analyzed word is also presented in the related appendices.

Conclusions

The accurate analysis of the words have shown that according to baker's model of equivalence at word level, the non-expert translator is used more equivalence strategies at word level than the expert translator in its Persian translation. In fact the non-expert with the total of 95.83% of using baker's model is pioneer than the expert translator with the total of 89.66% of using baker's model. As the results of analysis have showed that the Persian expert translator is used translation by loan word strategy (TLW) with 37.5% more than other strategies of baker's model of equivalence at word level and the Persian non-expert translator is used translation by loan word plus explanation (TLWE) with40.83% more than other strategies of baker's model.

The results of the table 1 have also shown that the Persian expert translator are used three strategies of baker's model (translation by more general word (TN/L) with9.16%, translation by omission strategy (TO) with 4.16% and translation by loan word strategy with (TLW) with 37.5%) more than the non-expert translator. The Persian non-expert translators are also used five strategies of baker's model (translation by paraphrase using related word with 5%, translation by paraphrase using unrelated word (TPUW) with 2.5 %, translation by illustration strategy (TI) with 11.66% and translation by loan word plus explanation (TLWE) with40.83%) more than the Persian expert translator.

In this study the result of table 2 have shown that both Persian expert with 45.83% and non -expert translator with 38.33% have used equivalence strategies at word level in addition to Baker's model. Both Persian translators have used two equivalence strategies at word level in addition of Baker's model (1992). The expert translator is used translation by transliteration strategy with 29.16%, translation by glossary at the end of book strategy with 12.5% and with the total of 41.66% of using equivalence strategies at word level in addition of baker's model. The non- expert is also used translation by explicitation strategy with 3.33%, translation by footnote strategy 5.83% , translation by transliteration 21.6% and with the total of 30.83% of using equivalence strategy in addition of Baker's model.

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Baker's Equivalence Strategies at Word Level and Other Strategies in addition of Baker's model

Baker's Equivalence Strategies at Word Level and Other Strategies in addition of Baker's model

Baker's Equivalence Strategies at Word Level and Other Strategies in addition to Baker's model