Theoretical background of study. Etymology of translation. Theory of translation. The problems of equivalence in translation, страница 4

The translator should understand perfectly the content and intention of the author whom he is translating. The principal way to reach it is reading all the sentences or the text completely so that you can give the idea that you want to say in the target language because the most important characteristic of this technique is translating the message as clearly and natural as possible. If the translation is for different countries besides Mexico, the translator should use the cultural words of that country. For example if he/she has to translate ”She is unloyal with her husband” in this country it can be translated as “Ella le pone los cuernos” but in Peru it can be translated as “Ella le pone los cachos”. In this case it is really important the cultural words because if the translator does not use them correctly the translation will be misunderstood.

The translator should have a perfect knowledge of the language from which he is translating and an equally excellent knowledge of the language into which he is translating. At this point the translator must have a wide knowledge in both languages for getting the equivalence in the target language, because the deficiency of the knowledge of both languages will result in a translation without logic and sense. For example if you translate the following sentence “Are you interested in sports?” as “¿Estás interesado en deportes?” the translation is wrong since the idea of this question in English is “¿Practicas algún deporte?”

The translator should avoid the tendency to translate word by word, because doing so is to destroy the meaning of the original and to ruin the beauty of the expression. This point is very important and one of which if it is translated literally it can transmit another meaning or understanding in the translation.

1.3 The problem of equivalence in translation.

The specificity of translation, which distinguishes it from all other linguistic mediation, is that it is designed for full replacement of the original and the translation speakers find it completely identical to the original text. However, it is clear that absolute identity of the original translation is unattainable and that it does not impede the implementation of interlingual communication.

Because of the lack of identity between the content of the original text and the translated text it was introduced the term "equivalence", which stands for common content, i.e. semantic proximity original and translation. As the importance of maximum convergence between these texts seems apparent equivalence is generally regarded as the main feature and the condition of translation.

So, we can make three conclusions from this:

·  First, the condition of equivalence should be included in the definition of translation

·  Second, the concept of "equivalence" gets an estimated character: translation considered "good" or "right" only if equivalence occurs.

·  Thirdly, as the equivalence is a condition of translation, the task is to identify this condition, indicating what is the translation equivalence that must necessarily be preserved in translation.

Professional translator always achieve practical information equivalence translation of the original, but in theoretical terms this equivalence can vary greatly.

You can pre argued that any translation will never be completely identical to the original canon. Equivalence of the translation of the original is always a relative concept. And the level of relativity can be very different. The degree of approximation to the original depends on many factors: the skill of the translator, the characteristics of languages and cultures that are the objects of comparison, from the era of the creation of the original and the translation, the method of translation, the nature of translated texts and so on.