ABSTRACT
In Chapter 2 we raised objections to using the concept of ‘equivalence’ in assessing the relationship between a ST and a corresponding TT. This is because it does not seem helpful to say that good translation produces a TT that has ‘the same meaning’ as the corresponding ST, when such a claim rests on the comparison of two virtually imponderable and indeterminable qualities. The term ‘meaning’ is especially elastic and indeterminate when applied to an entire text. At one end of the scale, the ‘meaning’ of a text might designate its putative sociocultural significance, importance and impact — a historian might define the meaning of Mein Kampf in such terms. At the other end of the scale, the ‘meaning’ might designate the personal, private and emotional impact the text has on a unique individual at a unique point in time — say, the impact of Mein Kampf on a German bride presented with a copy of it at her wedding in 1938. Between these two extremes lie many shades of shared conventional meaning intrinsic to the text because of its internal structure and explicit contents, and the relation these bear to the semantic conventions and tendencies of the SL in its ordinary, everyday usage.
