ABSTRACT
This chapter starts from the idea that what we say in one language can have the same value (the same worth or function) when it is translated into another language. The relation between the source text and the translation is then one of equivalence (“equal value”), no matter whether the relation is at the level of form, function, or anything in between. Equivalence does not say that languages are the same; it just says that values can be the same. The many theories that share this assumption can be fitted into a broad “equivalence paradigm,” which can be broken down into two sub-paradigms. Here we focus on the sub-paradigm where the things of equal value are presumed to exist prior to the act of translation. This means that it makes no difference whether you translate from language A into language B or vice versa. This kind of equivalence is considered “natural,” and it will be opposed to what we call “directional” equivalence in Chapter 3. Natural equivalence stands at the base of a strong and robust sub-paradigm closely allied with Applied Linguistics. It is also close to what many translators, clients, and translation users believe about translation. It should thus be appreciated in all its complexity. On the one hand, theories of natural equivalence were an intellectual response to the structuralist vision of languages as worldviews. On the other, they have produced lists of equivalence-maintaining procedures that try to describe what translators do. In this chapter we cover in some detail the list of translation procedures proposed by Vinay and Darbelnet (1958/1972). One should not forget, however, that the sub-paradigm has produced several such categorizations, and that all the lists were, in their day, a response to an important problem within structuralist linguistics.
