Historical Overview of Equivalence in Translation Studies

2024-07-04T15:31:40+02:00

The concept of equivalence has been of specific concern to many Western translation scholars. It was an essential feature of translation theories in the 1960s and 1970s, which sited it within the framework of structural linguistics. This paper will primarily discuss the notion of equivalence in a comprehensive way according to translation scholars since the 1950s. The first part of this paper will review the earlier debate on meaning and equivalence as one of the key linguistics issues in the 1950s. The general view of equivalence at that time attempted to explain how the source text (henceforth ST) and target text (henceforth TT) share some kind of similarity. This is followed by further efforts to explain this term according to the perspectives and approaches of several theorists. The second part focuses on contemporary translation scholars investigating equivalence in broader terms. Contemporary theorists have shifted from looking at differences in each type of equivalence and the effect of meaning to another perspective where equivalence is seen as a relationship between two texts.

Exploring De-Pragmatization as a Language Enrichment Strategy with Reference to Iraqi Arabic

2024-03-21T16:51:38+01:00

This study deals with having the pragmatic force of a given expression be lost under certain processes of de-contextualization, conventionalization and abstraction. This phenomenon is introduced under the term ‘de- pragmatization’. It is addressed as a broad strategy that enriches language with new contexts of use for expressions that already exist in different contexts. The phenomenon in question is tested via selected expressions from Iraqi Arabic, as an objective to explore the strategies of de-pragmatization to borrow new contexts through certain strategies such as semantic erosion, formalization, institutionalization, disambiguation, simplification, elimination of the cultural aspects, loss of context, literalization, avoiding pragmatic markers, and abstractions. The de-pragmatized expressions can be identified with such features as recontextualization, minimizing illocutionary load, conventional meaning, frequent use, and used by people of influence. This process plays a key role in shaping language and future communication modes as it can be viewed as a significant indicator of a language’s adaptability and responsiveness to societal paradigm shifts.

European Journal of Language and Culture Studies

Historical Overview of Equivalence in Translation Studies

Exploring De-Pragmatization as a Language Enrichment Strategy with Reference to Iraqi Arabic