Dynamic Equivalence

Saja Al Ahmari and Jawaher Al Enzi, two MA students, delivered a presentation titled Translation and Culture at the seminar organized by the Language Research Center of King Khalid University held on November 28, 2018. The seminar was held on the King Abdullah Road campus. In their presentation, they focused on the cultural awareness required for proper translation. They introduced some such specialized terms relevant to the translation theory as ‘dynamic equivalence’, etc. They showed some strategies for the knotty problem of finding equivalence for culture-specific terms. Such strategies included, but were not limited to, naturalization, neutralization, and compensation. Naturalization, they said, is a method of translating target cultural concepts by encoding them in their original target language forms. Compensation, on the other hand, they added, is a standard lexical transfer in which the meaning of the source language text is somehow lost in the process of translation. Compensation often results in ‘over-translation’ as opposed to ‘under translation’. They tried to focus on the close relation between successful translation and understanding the culture of both the source language and the target language. They introduced some interesting examples from different cultures, and how ‘literalism’ does not work out the culture-related problems. One example was taken from German which uses a phrase meaning literally ‘to have tomatoes on one’s eyes’. This is rendered into Arabic as على عينيه غشاوة, obliterating any sense related to literal ‘tomatoes’. More interestingly, they drew the audience’s attention to the fact that some target texts excelled their source counterparts in quality. One example is Fitzgerald’s translation of Omar Al Khayyam’s Persian quadruplets into English in 1859. Despite the desperate attempt by other successors like Robert Graves and Omar Ali Shah in 1967, they failed to produce a translation that would replace Fitzgerald’s. The seminar was an overall success. Date: 11-29-18 Source: Mohammad Adil Siddique

Saja Al Ahmari and Jawaher Al Enzi, two MA students, delivered a presentation titled Translation and Culture at the seminar organized by the Language Research Center of King Khalid University held on November 28, 2018. The seminar was held on the King Abdullah Road campus. In their presentation, they focused on the cultural awareness required for proper translation. They introduced some such specialized terms relevant to the translation theory as ‘dynamic equivalence’, etc. They showed some strategies for the knotty problem of finding equivalence for culture-specific terms. Such strategies included, but were not limited to, naturalization, neutralization, and compensation. Naturalization, they said, is a method of translating target cultural concepts by encoding them in their original target language forms. Compensation, on the other hand, they added, is a standard lexical transfer in which the meaning of the source language text is somehow lost in the process of translation. Compensation often results in ‘over-translation’ as opposed to ‘under translation’. They tried to focus on the close relation between successful translation and understanding the culture of both the source language and the target language. They introduced some interesting examples from different cultures, and how ‘literalism’ does not work out the culture-related problems. One example was taken from German which uses a phrase meaning literally ‘to have tomatoes on one’s eyes’. This is rendered into Arabic as على عينيه غشاوة, obliterating any sense related to literal ‘tomatoes’. More interestingly, they drew the audience’s attention to the fact that some target texts excelled their source counterparts in quality. One example is Fitzgerald’s translation of Omar Al Khayyam’s Persian quadruplets into English in 1859. Despite the desperate attempt by other successors like Robert Graves and Omar Ali Shah in 1967, they failed to produce a translation that would replace Fitzgerald’s. The seminar was an overall success. Date: 11-29-18 Source: Mohammad Adil Siddique

The Language Research Center organized a seminar on November 29, 2017, which included a presentation by two MA students Shaymaa’ Hasan Abdullah and Fayzah Nasser Mohaya titled Translation of Metaphor. Their presentation was based on their research supervised by Dr. Eyhab A. Bader Eddin. The presentation focused on an analysis of how different metaphors can be approached differently whether they should use a literal approach to translation or a free approach to translation. They supported the presentation by providing a tabulation, which compares and contrasts different types of metaphors along with examples provided and the best approach to translation of each type of metaphor. The Language Research Center organized a seminar on November 29, 2017, which included a presentation by two MA students Shaymaa’ Hasan Abdullah and Fayzah Nasser Mohaya, titled 'Translation of Metaphor.' Their presentation was based on their research supervised by Dr. Eyhab A. Bader Eddin. The presentation focused on an analysis of how different metaphors can be approached differently whether they should use a literal approach to translation or a free approach to translation. They tacitly based their analysis on Eugene Nida's concepts of Formal Equivalence versus Dynamic Equivalence and Peter Newmark's Semantic Translation versus Communicative Translation. They supported the presentation by providing a tabulation, which compared and contrasted different types of metaphors along with examples provided and the best approach to translation of each type of metaphor. First, they explained metaphor and how to analyze it. There are, they added, two components of metaphor: tenor and vehicle. They also revealed with examples the types of metaphors such as dead metaphor, adapted metaphor, cliché and so on. When it comes to problems with translating metaphors, they said, lack of knowledge of the target language’s culture is an obstacle with a literal approach to translation coupled with an inability to find an equivalent in the target language. They highlighted how to translate metaphorical language accurately to avoid misunderstanding. They exemplified literal translation that resulted in semantic issues with metaphorical texts. Shaymaa and Fayzah concluded that dead, adapted and original metaphors can be translated with both literal and free approaches. The Graigor campus also participated in this seminar online. A few comments and questions from the female and male sides ensued. The presentation was very interactive and overall a great success. Date: 11/30/2017 Source: MD Adil

The Language Research Center organized a seminar on November 29, 2017, which included a presentation by two MA students Shaymaa’ Hasan Abdullah and Fayzah Nasser Mohaya titled Translation of Metaphor. Their presentation was based on their research supervised by Dr. Eyhab A. Bader Eddin. The presentation focused on an analysis of how different metaphors can be approached differently whether they should use a literal approach to translation or a free approach to translation. They supported the presentation by providing a tabulation, which compares and contrasts different types of metaphors along with examples provided and the best approach to translation of each type of metaphor. The Language Research Center organized a seminar on November 29, 2017, which included a presentation by two MA students Shaymaa’ Hasan Abdullah and Fayzah Nasser Mohaya, titled 'Translation of Metaphor.' Their presentation was based on their research supervised by Dr. Eyhab A. Bader Eddin. The presentation focused on an analysis of how different metaphors can be approached differently whether they should use a literal approach to translation or a free approach to translation. They tacitly based their analysis on Eugene Nida's concepts of Formal Equivalence versus Dynamic Equivalence and Peter Newmark's Semantic Translation versus Communicative Translation. They supported the presentation by providing a tabulation, which compared and contrasted different types of metaphors along with examples provided and the best approach to translation of each type of metaphor. First, they explained metaphor and how to analyze it. There are, they added, two components of metaphor: tenor and vehicle. They also revealed with examples the types of metaphors such as dead metaphor, adapted metaphor, cliché and so on. When it comes to problems with translating metaphors, they said, lack of knowledge of the target language’s culture is an obstacle with a literal approach to translation coupled with an inability to find an equivalent in the target language. They highlighted how to translate metaphorical language accurately to avoid misunderstanding. They exemplified literal translation that resulted in semantic issues with metaphorical texts. Shaymaa and Fayzah concluded that dead, adapted and original metaphors can be translated with both literal and free approaches. The Graigor campus also participated in this seminar online. A few comments and questions from the female and male sides ensued. The presentation was very interactive and overall a great success. Date: 11/30/2017 Source: MD Adil