Chapter III Theoretical Analysis

3.1 “Equivalence in Meaning”

As Eugene A. Nida once wrote: “Translation is translating meaning” (Zhangzheng, 2018: 27), “Equivalence in meaning ” has been a classic, basic and heated-discussed topic in translation studies and to develop the standard of “equivalence in meaning” has always been the key subject for translation quality assessment. Before the exploration of the standard, there are at least two terms that need to be clearly defined: “equivalence” and “meaning”.

The term “equivalence in meaning” was first put forward by the Russo-American structuralist Roman Jakobson (1896–1982). In his seminal paper On Linguistic Aspects of Translation, he described 3 translation categories: intralingual translation, or “rewording”; interlingual translation, or “translation proper”; intersemiotic translation, or “transmutation” (Munday, 2012:8-9). In his traditional structuralist perspective, Jakobson viewed language as a certain kind of code that carries meaning and regarded translation as transcoding. On the basis of his three categories, however, he immediately found out that proper transcoding doesn’t mean code-for-code substitution. He pointed out: “there is ordinarily no full equivalence between code-units” and “substituting messages in one language not for separate code-units but for entire messages in some other language” (Munday, 2012:59 - 60). Here, Jakobson clarified the target or ontology during translation process: the message carried by code units instead of units themselves.

According to Jakobson’s study, traditional structuralist approach is destined to be in vain as it misunderstands the minimum unit during translation process. Roger. T Bell is a typical scholar who studies translation process with traditional linguistic research methods. In his book Translation and Translating: Theory and Practice, he pointed out: “The smallest segment of an SL [source language] text which can be translated, as a whole, in isolation from other segments.” (Bell, 1991:29) On the basis of this, he categorized translation units into different levels: phoneme level, morpheme level, word level, phrase level, sentence level and text level. Obviously, this categorization mimics the hierarchical structure in linguistic studies. However, it neglects that translation contains dynamic cognitive activities and process, which means such study method in translation studies has little meaning and can not well explain the “unpacking” phenomenon that widely eXists in various translation activities. (Xu, 2018:48)

Here, we have clarified that linguistic form and structure is not the key subject during translation while the message behind the form and structure is. Therefore, translation means to use form and structure?—?the code to replicate and transmit the meaning?—?the message behind the code. Then how can we further grasp the term: “meaning”?

The categorization of “meaning” in translation has always been the key issue in translation studies as it describes what perspectives translators should hold to view the world and the text. There are various versions of meaning categories. Ye Zinan categorizes meaning into three types: referential meaning -- the objective realities that the language refers to; associated meaning -- meaning triggered by culture and society; structural meaning -- meaning carried by the linguistic structure itself like the poem’s rhyme (Ye, 2020: 34). Nida puts forward three kinds of meaning: referential, connotative and grammatical meaning. In terms of connotative meaning, Nida views translation as a sort of communicative activity and that the meaning of word is deeply associated with the user and situation. Then according to some famous symbologists like Charles Morris and Geoffrey Leech, meaning is further defined into more categories. In Leech’s structure, there are seven types of meanings (Zhang, 2018:27-46).

Then it is nearly impossible that we build a practical and persuasive assessment model with so many functions if we select them all as parameters for evaluation. Here we need to adopt a reductionist approach. We should reduce the various subjective definitions of meaning into a rather objective, stable and dynamic structure. It is stable but not static, so that it can explain why we can translate “盡管受到新冠病毒肺炎肺炎全球大流行影響，雙邊貿易不降反增” as “bilateral trade grew despite the pandemic”. It’s dynamic but does not allow subjective manipulation of the text. In this sense, Halliday’s SFG theory is the best choice to set the parameters for the evaluation of “equivalence in meaning”. Before using it, we need to figure out some key issues in the understanding of translation.

3.3 The Nature of Translation: Retelling What You See on the Mountaintop.

??? As professor Zhao Yanchun comments:?“In comparison with the structuralist approach, the functionalist approach which adopts register analysis mode has more powerful explanatory but it can not cover all of the issues in translation as it can not explain the paradox properties and dialectical mechanism of translation.”?(Zhao,2005:10-11) I totally agree with this view and here I am going to illustrate the nature of translation with a very simple metaphor.

???? From the title above, I compare translation practice as retelling what you see on the mountaintop. Let us imagine that one day you finish hiking and return home, then one of your family members say:?“Hey! Just tell me what you see from the mountain top.”Here, when you are trying to express what you see on the mountaintop, you are actually translating the visual sinal(what you see) into linguistic codes. However hard you try and however good your linguistic performance is, you can never replicate the 100% same effect that the scenery can offer to your information receptor and that’s why it’s always said one look is worth a thousand words. This metaphor is very simple and clear and the rule that it reveals is that once we try to transform information from one information medium to another, information loss is inevitable. Translation is actually such an activity, when doing translation, we are transforming information from one information medium—the SL to another—the TL. Therefore, we have to be very careful with the so-called?“universality”?of one system, as 100% equivalence in translation activity can never be achieved.

??? Then is there any way that to totally replicate the senery to your receptor? The best way is to have the receptor to see it for him/herself. It equals transforming your readers to proficient TL users. Another way is to take a photo or record a video with your phone or camera. It is similar to the use of machine translation but not the same as photo transforms information with the same medium (both visual) and machine translation carries out cross-media transformation. The above comparison tells a simple story: the best translation can not be achived by translation. It seems desperate but also shows hope that if there is a picture or video of the senery, then there can be ways to evaluate how close our linguistic retelling is to the true senery. The only thing we need to do is to design parameters that can reflect the features of the picture or video and build an assessment system in which we can examine to what extent that our linguistic retelling fufills those features.

3.4 The Construction of Concept: An Inter-subjective Activity.

Although many linguistists wish to solve all language-related issues within a set of linguistic theories, it is merely a sort of illusion as the construction of concept is an inter-subjective activity which involves both linguistic and non-linguistic matters. Also, I will illustrate this point with a simple story. Let us talk about how the concept?“China”?is constructed. The eXistence of?“China”does not rely on any single entity but co-shaped by multiple entities.?“China”?would not disappear if there is someone believing there’s no?“China”?in the world. The eXistence of?“China”relies on multiple entities and the relationship among those entities like time(history), space(geographical features), population, economy, world political landscape etc. It is also like what Marx said that man is the sum of social relations. Therefore, as the concept itself is constructed by multiple entities, we can not neglect the influence of non-linguistic elements during translation process like the purpose, situation and field. To take story retelling as an example, if you see a lion is eating a horse and you tell this to a child afterwards, then will you clearly depict how lion is torturing the horse before killing it and how lion tears the muscle and skin of the horse and things like that? Definitely not, you probably need to change your way of expression and even delete some sensitive information if necessary and this is what we do when translating children’s literature. The problem is how we can manage the relationships of so many entities. One effective way is Marx’s grasping the principal contradiction. Professor Zhao Yanchun provides very useful ideas in his book which said:?“During translation, the purpose of text takes the largest proportion of weight value then the information that the text carries and then the form with which the text is written.”(Zhao, 2005:8-10) It’s like a kind of A>B>C relation. Also, the parameter setting should not be rigid but fleXible. Relavant application is shown in case analysis chapter.

3.5 Text Type and Text Elements: Building and Buiding Materials.

??? As my paper mainly analyzes non-literary text, here I need to explain how I define non-literary and literary text. Professor Li Changshuan distinguishes non-literary and literary text by analyzing different features of the two kinds of text and the different translation techniques applied on each type of text. Also, he notices that there can be some expressions with literary features in a non-literary text. (Li, 2012:16-30) Professor Li does reveal that there are a lot of differences between the language that the two types of texts use but the fundamental reason that makes the difference lies not in the different linguistic materials that the text uses but the different situation or context in which the text is used. This is like building and building materials. The Great Hall of the People can be built with similar bricks and motar used in a museum but that does not mean Great Hall of the People equals a museum. The type of building is actually determined by the purpose and function of the building. Also, there can be art decorations in the Great Hall but once those museum-style items appear in the Great Hall, they can never be interpreted in a museum-style. During translation activities, text type is determined by the text purpose which is constituted by context, situation, speaker and other factors. In terms of non-literary text, it is usually under a commercial or academic context. In such occasions, the understanding of symbol is usually fixed by strong consensus. Like semi-conductor can only be understood as a kind of electronic meterial. In terms of literary text, nearly every linguistic image is open for discussion, which means one single linguistic symbol can have multiple explanations once the explanation makes sense. However, once a literay element appears in a non-literary context, its explanation is greatly narrowed, like the poems and folk adages used in President Xi’s speech. To put it more simply: there has to be right and wrong in non-literary context but there is only good and bad in literary context. You would say that someone is saying something wrong in an academic debate but you would not say that the poem someone writes is wrong but only say it is a good or bad poem. In a word, text type is determined by the context in which the text is written and linguistic elements within the text can not influence the overall judgement of text type.

3.6 The Functional Linguistics Approach

?? Halliday’s Systemic-Functional Grammar is built on the basis of two facts:(1) Language is the key tool for man’s social activities.(2) language users are actually making choices in a system of systems and trying to realise different semantic functions in social interaction.(Hu, 2017:286) Therefore, he puts forward that there are three meta-functions of language: the ideational function, the interpersonal function and the textual function.(Hu, 2017:289) Each function is achieved by certain process of choosing grammatical systems.

The ideational function contains transitivity and voice. Transitivity contains six processes: material processes which express things that are done; mental processes which express mental activities like perception, reaction and cognition; relational processes which express certain relation between things; verbal processes which show the exchange of information; behavioural processes which refer to physiological and psychological behaviour; and eXistential processes which tell that something eXists or happens (Hu, 2017: 288-291).

The interpersonal function contains various speech roles and is realised by mood and modality. Among all speech roles, giving and taking are the most basic two. The commodities exchanged can also be divided into two kinds: goods-&-services and information. Then the two kinds of speech roles combine with the two kinds of commodities, which then generate four principal speech roles (Hu, 2017:292-294).

?

?

?

Goods-&-services

information

giving

offer

statement

demanding

command

question

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Textual function refers to the fact that language has the mechanism to organically combine various clauses into a coherent and unified text.

3.7 Constructing Assessment Model

According to Si Xianzhu’s approach. The assessment contains following steps:

1.?Identify the text type on the basis of text typology and the situation in which the text is used.

2.?Use clause as the fundamental unit of a text. Count the number of clauses of the original text. Here, we assume the number is A.

3.?Identify the process that each clause in the original text reflects. Then calculate the proportion that each process takes. For example, if B clauses reflect material process, the proportion of material process in this text is B/A*100%.

4.?Identify the purpose of the original text on the basis of text type, situation and its interpersonal function.

5.?Carry out step 2-4 in the target text.

6.?Compare the calculation results and judge the fidelity of the target text.

7.?The above six steps aim at examining the equivalence of ideational meaning by the transitivity system. Next, we will consider the equivalence in interpersonal meaning. The examination of interpersonal meaning is rather fleXible and it basically contains seven perspectives: intentionality(the purpose of the author); acceptability(efforts that receptors need to understand the translation); informativity(collocation of the old and new message); situationality(linguistic, social, cultural setting); intertexuality(to identify the feature and type of the text); coherence(inherent logical method in which the information is arranged) and cohesion(to show the linking of information with cohesive devices). All the above elements aim to provide probable perspective for further analysis. For certain text, we should manage to grasp the prominent aspects of the text and give top priority to achieve the equivalence in these aspects. And overall we should try to seek optimal relevance (relevance = contextual effect/efforts).

?? ?Here, Professor Si does not consider the textual function because he thinks that once the target text achieve fidelity in both the ideational function and interpersonal function, it naturally reaches the textual function (Si, 2007:136).??