5.3 Adjustment

Adjustment or the gradual move away from form-by-form renderings and towards more dynamic kinds of equivalence is thus an important translation technique. In the search for dynamic equivalence, it is proposed by Nida as an overall translation technique which may take several forms (Nida, 1964: 139). In dealing with texts that are likely to produce a dense translation, for instance, we may opt for building in redundancy, explicating or even repeating information when appropriate. Alternatively, we may opt for gisting, a technique most useful in dealing with languages characterized by a noticeably high degree of repetition of meaning. Also as part of adjustment, we may at times have to re-order an entire sequence of sentences if the ST order of events, for example, does not match normal chronology, or proves too cumbersome to visualize.

Adjustment is also needed to cope with the wide range of purposes which translations might serve. There is thus a need for adjustment of various kinds (including a range of compensation procedures). These modification techniques will ensure that translation equivalence is upheld and access to the TT unimpeded. In this respect, it may be safe to assume that: The more form-bound a meaning is (e.g. a case of ambiguity through word play), the more formal the equivalence relation will have to be. Alternatively, the more context-bound a meaning is (e.g. an obscure reference to source culture), the more dynamic the equivalence will have to be.

5.4 The Translation Process: Analysis, Transfer, Re-Structuring

Let’s consider the following example:

Preface

To strike a deal is not meant to be a “strike”. Some people, in striking commercial deals, like to transform the whole process into dishonest transactions, claiming to be “smart traders”. Their work is very far from that of smart people, because they transform right into wrong, finding in manoeuvring and deception an art that has to be mastered to win a deal, and feeling proud that they have “stricken” their clients (Al-Jumriki, 1999)

Opinion

DEALERS AND DODGERS

We can strike a deal with someone, or we can deal them a blow. Yet there are those who enjoy deliberately confusing the two ideas. So where there should be honour and trust we find lies and deceit. It is these people who boast of being ‘shrewd businessmen' and who seek to dress up the truth as falsehood - or rather, perhaps, the other way round. These artful dodgers of the business world see their underhand methods, and sometimes indeed their blatant lies, simply as a skill that they must hone and perfect.

The dynamically equivalent version of the above editorial exhibits some of the following adjustment strategies:

1) Jettisoning less accessible ST items – We can strike a deal with someone, or we can deal them a blow preserves the word play in the source;

2) Regulating redundancy – There are those, however, who enjoy deliberately confusing the two ideas. So where there should be honour and trust we find lies and deceit establishes a contrast which enhances the relevance of the distinction introduced earlier.

These changes are introduced in the so-called “restructuring” stage, the last of three phases through which the process of translation is said to pass (Nida 1969:484):

The translator → analyses the SL message into its simplest and structurally clearest forms (or ‘kernels') → transfers the message at this kernel level → restructures the message in the TL to the level which is most appropriate for the audience addressed.

The “analysis” phase begins with discovering the so-called “kernels” (a term which Nida borrows from Chomsky’s transformational generative grammar). Kernels are basic structural elements to which syntactically more elaborate surface structures of a language can be reduced. A phrase such as children of wrath yields “God directs wrath at the transgressors” or ‘the transgressors suffers God’s wrath” as possible kernels representing the clearest understanding of ST meaning. Kernel analysis is thus a crucial step in the process of moving from ST to TT. This is in keeping with the essentially universalist hypothesis to which Nida subscribes: languages “agree far more on the level of the kernels than on the level of the more elaborate structures” (Nida and Taber, 1969:39).

Kernels consist of combinations of items from four basic semantic categories:

1) object words – nouns referring to physical objects including human beings;

2) event words – actions often represented by verbs;

3) abstracts – qualities and quantities, including adjectives;

4) relationals – including linking devices, gender markers.

Kernel sentences are derived from the actual source sentence by means of a variety of techniques including, most importantly, back-transformation. In explicating grammatical relationships, ST surface structures are “paraphrased” into “formulae” capturing the way in which elements from the various categories listed above are combined (Nida 1969:485). Thus, the surface structure will of God may be back- transformed into a formula such as: B (object, God) performs A (event, wills)

We move from ST to TT via a phase called transfer. This is the stage “in which the analysed material is transferred in the mind of the translator from language A to language B” (Nida and Taber, 1969:33). During “transfer”, kernels are not treated in isolation since they would already be marked temporally, spatially and logically. But they would still be raw material which the translator, in the light of his or her knowledge of TL structure, must now modify in preparation for restructuring. A SL word may have to be expanded into several TL words, or alternatively, a SL phrase remoulded into a single TL word. Along similar lines, structural differences between SL and TL are reconciled at the sound, word, sentence or even discourse level. It is probably here that “strategy” (or the translator’s “game plan”) is worked out, and decisions regarding such matters as register and genre are initially taken. Thus, rather than a simple replacement exercise of actual SL elements with their most literal TL counterparts, “transfer” is a dynamic process of “reconfiguration” in the TL of sets of SL semantic and structural components. The translator should now be ready for restructuring the transferred material, which hitherto has existed only in the form of kernel sentences. What is needed is a set of procedures by which the input accrued so far may be transformed into a “stylistic form appropriate to the receptor language and to the intended receptors” (Nida and Taber, 1969:206). In particular, restructuring ensures that the impact which the translation is to have on its intended receptors is what the ST producer has intended (Nida, 1969:494-5): any message which does not communicate is simply useless. It is only when a translation produces in the audience a response which is essentially the same as that of the original audience that the translation can be said to be dynamically equivalent to its ST.

Thus, formal equivalence is distinguished from “literal” translation strictly in terms of “contextual motivatedness”. This contextual criterion is a precondition for the success of formal equivalence. In the absence of the need for such forms of adherence to the ST, the translator either does nothing and ends up with a meaningless literalism, or actively seeks equivalence through adjustment. This subsumes a set of techniques for restructuring the ST message in the TL. In the translation process model the ST message is first broken down into its immediate constituents (or kernels), then mentally transferred, ultimately to undergo a process of adjustment that restores to the TT linguistic and stylistic appropriateness.