Dynamic Equivalence and Its Daughters: Placing Bible Translation Theories in Their Historical Context

The Bible translation theory called “dynamic equivalence” from the middle of the twentieth century was more than what may be called the first definable theory of Bible translation. Indirectly or directly, it spawned or related to seven other specific theories: meaning-based translation, cultural equivalence or transculturation, complete equivalence, optimal equivalence, closest natural equivalence, functional equivalence, and skopostheorie. Even the term formal equivalence originated during this time. Later in the same period, the code model of communication on which dynamic equivalence was based was challenged by the inference model of relevance theory. All this theoretical writing and postulating has been paralleled by or related to developments in the world of general translation theory and science. Oftentimes these theories have been studied in isolation; this paper, in contrast, examines those theories in their historical context, analyzing their core ideas and how they relate to each other. Concurrently we focus on who the originators of the theories are, and what Bible translation organizations have used them. The study concludes with a practical discussion of what knowing and using these theories might mean in the real world context of Bible translating. 1. A New Concept of Translating In 1969 Eugene A. Nida and Charles R. Taber published a book on Bible translation entitled The Theory and Practice of Translation. Chapter one was entitled “A New Concept of Translating.” This book was the successor to a book published five years earlier by Eugene Nida with the title Toward a Science of Translating. By means of these two books Nida announced to the world his new translation theory. The first book was theoretical, with thorough and complex discussions and arguments, directed toward discussion of translation in general with occasional reference to Bible translation; the second was a textbook with exercises, primarily directed toward training the Bible translator. Nida called his theoretical approach to translating “dynamic equivalence.” His initial definitions of the term were as follows: In such a translation one is not so concerned with matching the receptor-language message with the source-language message, but with the dynamic relationship..., that the relationship between receptor and message should be substantially the same as that which existed between the original receptors and the message. A translation of dynamic equivalence aims at complete naturalness of expression, and tries to relate the receptor to modes of behavior relevant within the context of his own culture; it does not insist that he understand the cultural patterns of the source-language context in order to comprehend the message. (Nida 1964:159) Stated as a kind of formula, we may say that for the type of message contained in the New Testament, we are concerned with a relationship such as can be expressed in the following equation: 2 Journal of Translation, Volume 7, Number 1 (2011) That is to say, the receptor in the circle culture should be able, within his own culture, to respond to the message as given in his language, in substantially the same manner as the receptor in the triangle culture responded, within the context of his own culture, to the message as communicated to him in his own language. (Nida 1964:149) In addition to proposing the term “dynamic equivalence” and defining it, Toward a Science of Translating more importantly establishes the elements that make up the mechanics of dynamic equivalence, namely, receptor response, functional classes of lexical symbols, “kernel” structures as a means of comparing languages, and the structure of translation as a process of decoding, transferring, and encoding. 1.1. Receptor Response In the subsequent book entitled The Theory and Practice of Translation, co-authored with Charles Taber, the following explanation of dynamic equivalence was offered on the first page of the book: The older focus in translating was the form of the message, and translators took particular delight in being able to reproduce stylistic specialties, e.g., rhythms, rhymes, plays on words, chiasmus, parallelism and unusual grammatical structures. The new focus, however, has shifted from the form of the message to the response of the receptor. Therefore what one must determine is the response of the receptor to the translated message. This response must then be compared with the way in which the original receptors presumably reacted to the message when it was given in its original setting. (Nida and Taber 1969:1) The concept of receptor response became an identifying mark of dynamic equivalence, many times to the neglect of the other elements to be described below. One is tempted at times to believe that people who read about or heard about dynamic equivalence after its introduction either ignored or did not understand the other elements of Nida’s theory, and that this apparent fact has influenced the way in which dynamic equivalence was understood and applied. 1.2. Classes of Lexical Symbols Latin and Greek have cast a grammatical form over most western languages, such that it is usually true that a noun in one language will be a noun in another, and the same with verbs and other parts of speech. However, as the work of Bible translation has ventured outside the reach of these ancient languages and their grammatical molds, a more universal system of classification was needed, though in fact the concept of such a system can be found in writings as early as 1776. John Beekman and John Callow give an elaborate footnote in Translating the Word of God about the historical use and varying terminology for these classes of lexical symbols: Probably the earliest analysis in terms of such classes is found in George Campbell’s The Philosophy of Rhetoric, first published in 1776. A recent edition (1963) has been edited by Lloyd Bitzer and published by the Southern Illinois University Press. On page 385, Campbell labels the four semantic classes as (1) things, (2) operations, (3) attributes, and (4) connectives. Gustaf Stern, in his Meaning and Change of Meaning (1931, p. 19), says, “Words are signs which name that for which they are signs: table is the name of an object, red of a quality, run of an activity, over of a relation.” Wilbur Urban, Susanne K. Langer, and Edward Sapir in 1939, 1942, and 1944 respectively, each proposed a set of labels to represent these basic classes of semantic elements. More recently, E. A. Nida, in Toward a Science of Translating (1964, p. 62) speaks of four principal functional classes of lexical symbols, which he labels as object words, event words, abstracts and relationals. (Beekman and Callow 1974:68) We will refer to this type of analysis consistently as the TEAR analysis, an acronym based on usage found in Mildred Larson’s Meaning-Based Translation (1984:26ff) for “things, events, attributes, and relations.” Nida states the reason for adoption of the TEAR analysis as follows: There are three practical advantages to be derived from treating transformations in terms of four basic semantic elements: (1) we can often more readily see the equivalence of different formal structures Dynamic Equivalence and Its Daughters 3 possessing the same meaningful relationships, (2) we can more easily plot complex structures, without having to employ long series of related transformations from terminals back to kernels, and (3) we can more significantly highlight some of the contrasts between languages which tend to be otherwise obscured. (Nida 1964:65) 1.3. Kernel Structures Another of the foundational concepts of dynamic equivalence as Nida defined it was the concept of kernel structures. Kernel analysis of language has more to do with clauses and sentences than words. Nida said this about such constructions, The kernel constructions in any language are the minimal number of structures from which the rest can be most efficiently and relatively derived. They are quite naturally not identical in all languages, but what seems to be very significant is that in so far as basic structures of different languages have been studied there appear to be many more parallelisms between kernel structures than between the more elaborate transforms. In fact, the remarkable similarities between the basic structures of different languages are increasingly becoming an object of study by linguists. (Nida 1964:66) The relationship of surface structure to more simple and basic kernel structures, an underlying tenet for transformational grammar, was important for the linguist, but even more important for the translator, since it paved the way for the next element: analysis, transfer, and restructuring. 1.4. Analysis, Transfer, and Restructuring The steps of analysis, transfer, and restructuring are not new with Nida. He recognized that and built on the work of others, consolidating and adapting concepts already proven and accepted among linguists, and working them into a system to aid translators in their work. What can be recognized as his work is the composite of the whole, connected with a remarkable flair for semantic insights. We can describe the composite as a system of analysis, transfer, and restructuring, or in the wording of Toward a Science of Translating, decoding, transfer, and encoding (Nida 1964:146). Instead of attempting to set up transfers from one language to another by working out long series of equivalent formal structures which are presumably adequate to “translate” from one language into another, it is both scientifically and practically more efficient (1) to reduce the source text to its structurally simplest and most semantically evident kernels, (2) to transfer the meaning from source language to receptor language on a structurally simple level, and (3) to generate the stylistically and semantically equivalent expression in the receptor language. (Nida 1964:68) The Theory and Practice of Translation continued to employ the same basic elements of Toward a Science of Translating, i.e., classes of lexical symbols and kernel structures; and analysis, transfer, and restructuring. The authors diagram the latter as follows in figure 1: A (Source) B (Receptor) (Analysis) (Restructuring)