View - Scholarly Commons Home

television series, a „dynamic equivalence‟ translation approach to subtitle translation
will result in a more „effective translation‟, also from a pragmatic translation theory
point of view (cf. Baker, 1992).
In the researcher‟s view, Newmark‟s (1981) theories reflect the earlier theories
proposed by Nida. Newmark proposes two quite different approaches to translation,
labelling on Semantic Translation as opposed to Communicative translation. From the
researcher‟s perspective, Semantic Translation could be said to resemble what Nida
describes as Formal Correspondence, while Communicative Translation could be said to
be similar to what Nida describes as Dynamic Equivalence. If one takes a careful look at
Newmark‟s descriptions, one could say that Semantic Translation resembles more of a
gloss, or word-for-word translation while Communicative Translation, which places
more emphasis on the effect of the translation than the exact wording of the original text,
resembles more of a sense for sense translation. Newmark (1981) suggests that
strategies should be used according to the attributes of the text. For works of high
literature, Newmark favours word-for-word translation in order to reflect the exact
thought processes followed by the author of the original work. therefore, in translating
serious literature, translation should respect the semantic and syntactic structures of the
source language and should not allow omission and fundamental modification. In this
circumstance, Newmark (1981) is interested in the integrity of the original work. For
low level fiction (possibly including sitcoms such as Friends), Newmark would choose
the message conveyed to the audience, rather than the literal wording, similar to what
Nida called “the effect”. One could say that the type of textual discourse encountered in
Friends might be described as a text that might warrant communicative translation,
which could be said to warrant translation approaches that would enhance audience
understanding. Again, in the researcher‟s view, a communicative translation approach
would result in a more effective translation – hence one could say that Newmark‟s
theories are still relevant today.
In the late 1990s translation theorists started to place more emphasis on cultural
studies, following Snell-Hornby (1988/1995), Aixelá (1996) Brisset (2000), Davies
(2003). In the researcher‟s view, work by Aixelá (1996) and Davies (2003) in particular
contains some very interesting taxonomies of translation choices in relation to the
18