Université de Montréal - Thèse sous forme numérique

49Functional equivalenceZgusta (1987: 30) calls it functional, Gouws (2000: 102) calls it communicative, andSvensén (2009: 255) calls it pragmatic. Adamska-Sałaciak explains that functionalequivalence is sought ―in situations where it is impossible to provide a lexicalequivalent of the headword, one which would be both its semantic and grammatical(same part of speech) counterpart‖ (2010: 395). Functional equivalents are most oftenused when one wants to capture the stylistic and idiomatic overtones of the text.Compared to translational equivalents their explanatory power is smaller. It is upon thistype of equivalence that bilingual dictionaries have relied the most to offer equivalentsof idioms or proverbs. For instance, porter de l‟eau à la rivière is a functionalequivalent of to carry coals to Newcastle. As an intertextual kind of equivalence perexcellence, this kind of equivalence seems to be close to the concerns of translationtheorists, especially to the concerns of the functionalist approach or Skopos theory(Reiss and Vermeer 1984; Vermeer 1989), among others. Adamska-Sałaciak claims that‗functional‘ equivalence is our odd man out as, compared to the other kinds, it is themost marginal one. She accepts it as a type on its own right, although she says onecould think of treating it as a subtype of translational equivalence.We agree with the author that this type of equivalence is different from theothers for the reasons mentioned and that it is a type on its own. Functional equivalenceis close to the concerns of translation studies and of legal translation (Šarčević 2000:236), but it has also been applied in legal terminography to such an extent that itsimportance cannot be denied. Harvey (2002 : 42) defines functional equivalence asfollows :Ce procédé consiste à trouver dans la langue d‘arrivée un référent qui remplitune fonction similaire. Il s‘agit d‘une adaptation interculturelle. On peut citercomme exemples : « the Cour d‘Assises – roughly the equivalent of the EnglishCrown Court » (Chalmers, 1994 : 15) ; intime conviction = being satisfied