On the Notion of Equivalence in Translation.docVIP

On the Notion of Equivalence in Translation 　　【Abstract】Thanks to translations， varies cultures are allowed to exchange with one another. One the one hand， this has been promoting the studies of translation. On the other hand， this poses huge challenges on translators， because it is hard to define what is a good target translation when a source text is translated. There is a variety of standards to evaluate the quality of a translation， among which equivalence seems to be the most controversial one. On the analysis of studies on equivalence， this essay discusses the role of equivalence in the practice of translating with illustrations of Chinese-English and English-Chinese translation. Indeed， to translate a source text into a target one is based on the equivalence among languages. However， in the process of translating， it can be adjusted to some extent for the sake of the acceptability in the target culture. 　　【Key words】equivalence； culture； language； acceptability 　　Much attention is devoted to the notion of equivalence which bridges a source language and a target language in the process of translation， and serves as a crucial issue in the studies of translation. According to Catford （1965： 20）， the term “equivalent” plays a central role in the definition of translation and what is to be achieved in the process of translation is to find translation equivalents in the target language. In this essay， I intend to discuss the role of equivalence in the practice of translation. 　　The understanding of equivalence vary from scholar to scholar. Catford （1965： 27） defines equivalence as “empirical phenomenon” and （ibid.： 49） argues that the realisation of equivalence relies on certain conditions， while Bassnett （1980/2002： 37-38） holds that equivalence cannot be a means to achieve sameness between a source language and its target version. Similarly， Jakobson （2000： 114） states that no matter what kinds of translation， namely “intranlingual translation， interlingu