Equivalence at word level

If language were a list of tags for universal concepts, it would be easy to translate
from one language to another.One would simply replace the French name for a concept with
the English one.

But in fact, each language organizes the world in a different way.Languages do not
simply name existing categories,they articulate their own.

Meaning can be carried by units smaller or more complex than single words and by
various linguistic and non-linguistic devices (tone, stress, facial expressions).

What is a word?

As translators,we are primarily concerned with communicating the overall meaning of

a stretch of language. To achieve this, we need to start by decoding the units and structures
which carry that meaning

The smallest unit which we would expect to posses individual meaning is the word.
Defined loosely, the word is “the smallest unit of the language that can be used by itself”

In order to isolate elements of meaning more effeciently, some linguists introduced

the concept of morpheme as the smallest unit of language that carries a semantic
interpretation. A morpheme cannot be further analyzed as oposed to a lexeme.

The lexical meaning of a word can be defined as the specific value it has in a
particular system.

In Lexical Semantics (1986), Alan Cruse distinguishes four main types of meaning in
words and utterances:

1)propositional meaning

2)expressive meaning

3)presupposed meaning

4)evoked meaning

The propositional meaning of a word arises from the relationship between that word
and what it refers to / describes in a real or imaginary world. We can say that a propositional
meaning is true or false.

Ex: shirt: “ a piece of clothing worn on the upper part of the body”

If we say a “shirt” is a piece of clothing worn on the head, we attribute to it an

inaccurate meaning
 Expressive meaning, instead, cannot be judged as true or false because it relates to

the speaker’s feelings / attitudes and we cannot say a feeling is true or false

Presupposed meaning arises from co-occurrence restrictions, that is to say, it

depends on what other words we expect to see before or after a certain lexical unit.

Because they are arbritary, collocational restrictions tend to show more variation
across languages than selectional restrictions do.

Evoked meaning derives from dialect and register variation a dialect is a variety of
language used by a specific community of speakers and can be:

 Geographical (restricted to a certain area)

 Temporal (restricted to a certain period of time)
 Social (used by different social classes. Ex. Scent/ perfume)

Register is a variety of language used in specific situations, according to:

- Field of discourse :
linguistic choices can be different if we are discussing politics with our friends or making
an official speech.

-Tenor of discourse:

That is to say, the kind of relationship between the people taking part in a
conversation(mother/child, superior/inferior). Getting the tenor of discourse in a translation
can be difficult (Ex. American first names)

The language people use varies depending on such intepersonal relationships as mother/child
doctor/patient or superior inferior status.

Getting the tenor discourse in translation can be quite difficult.

It depends on wheter one sees a certain level of formality as “right” from the perspective of
the source culture or the target culture.

For example an American teengar may adopt a highly informal tenor with his/her parents .

The translator has to choose betwen changing the tenor to suit the expectations of the target
reader and transferring the informal tenor to give a flavour of the type of relantionships
teenagers have with their parents in American society.

-Mode of discourse: for example its role and medium of transmission (spoken/written).
 Non-equivalence at word level means that the target language has no direct equivalent for
a word which occurs in the source text .

The type of and level of difficulty posed can vary tremendously depending on the nature
of the non-equivalence.

Common problems on non-equivalence

a)Culture specific concepts

The source language word may express a concept which is totally unknown in the target
culture.The concept in question may be abstract or concrete; it may relate to a religious
belief, a social costum, or even a type of food.Such concepts are often refered as “culture-
specific”

b)The source-language concept is not lexicalized in the target language

The source-language may express a concept which is known in the target culture but simply
not lexicalized, that is not “allocated” a target-language word to express it.The word savoury
has no equivalent in many languages, although it express a concept which is easy to
understand.

c)The source-language word is semantically complex

The source language word may be semantically complex.This is a fairly common problem in
translation.Words do not have to be morphologically complex to be semantically complex.In
other words, a single word which consists of a single morpheme can sometimes express a
more complex set of meanings than a whole sentence.

d)The source and target language make different distinctions in meaning

The target language may make more of fewer distinctions in meaning than the source
language.What one language regards as an important distinction in meaning another language
may not perceive as relevant.For example , Indonesian make a distinction between going out
in the rain without the knowledge that it is raining (kekujahan) and going out in the rain with
the knowledge it is raining (hujan-hujanan)

e)The target language lacks a superordinate

The target language may have specific words(hyponyms) but no general word(superordinate)
to head the semantic field.Russian has no equivalent for facilities