ABSTRACT
It is by no means surprising that the concept of equivalence has loomed so large in the discussion of translation for such a long time. Equivalence goes back to the first use of translation in an educational context: as a proficiency check on language learning. Students would be asked - as far back as Roman times - to translate a text written in the language they were learning to demonstrate their understanding of that text. As a result, students had to bend their own language in their translations to make it fit the mold of the language of the original as much as possible.
