Studia Islandica - 01.06.1994, Page 46
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For most contemporary scholars some sort of equiva-
lence between source text and target text, or at least the
striving to achieve this, is the criterion distinguishing what
is generally referred to as translation proper from para-
phrase, although they admit that the boundary between the
two is not always clear.
4. Defining equivalence
One of the central issues in modern translation theory, the
concept of equivalence, has been defined and redefined by
scholars for at least several decades, without any consensus
being reached. At times it even appears that the centuries-
old debate on the merits of literal vs. free translation has
simply been replaced by a new controversy involving new
terms such as correspondence, adequacy, formal/dynamic
equivalence, etc.
Equivalence in itself is merely an outline assumption:
while it postulates a definite relationship between SL text
and TL text it fails to say anything regarding the nature of
this relationship. This is still to be defined. Simply saying
that a translation should be equivalent to the original is an
empty statement unless we spell out which aspects of the
text should be compared and under what conditions. When
they make this attempt, different scholars land in differing
predicaments.
Nida, who pioneered several of these concepts, defined
formal equivalence as being primarily source-oriented:
that is, it is designed to reveal as much as possible of the form and
content of the original message. In doing so, an F-E translation
attempts to reproduce several formal elements, including: (1) gram-
matical units, (2) consistency in word usage, and (3) meanings in
terms of the source context. (Nida 1964:165)
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