Approaches to the notion of equivalence
Equivalence has been a central issue in translation even though it has been discussed in a number of dichotomous ways and many different theories of the concept of equivalence have been introduced within the field of translation theory in the past fifty years. The aim of this paper is to review the theory of equivalence as interpreted by some of the most prominent theorists of this field, namely Vinay and Darbelnet, Nida and Taber and Baker. Their approach to equivalence is in relation to the translation process. ... Other theorists consider equivalence as a transfer from the Source Culture to the Target Culture; this is a pragmatic/semantic approach to translation. Vinay and Darbelnet consider equivalence-oriented translation as a process that “replicates the same situation as in the original, whilst using completely different wording” (taken from Kenny, 1998, p. ... According to them, the method of equivalence is ideal in cases of proverbs, idioms, clichés, nominal or adjectival phrases and the onomatopoeia of animal sounds. ... They maintain that even if an equivalence of a source language expression exists in a dictionary it is not a guarantee for a successful translation. On the other hand Nida approached the notion of equivalence by using theory and terminology from semantics and pragmatics.