Equivalence at word level
Mona Baker, Mona Baker · In other words · 2011
This chapter discusses translation problems arising from lack of equivalence at word level; what does a translator do when there is no word in the target language which expresses the same meaning as the source language word? But before we look at specifi c types of non-equivalence and the various strategies which can be used for dealing with them, it is important to establish what a word is, whether or not it is the main unit of meaning in language, what kinds of meaning it can convey, and how languages differ in the way they choose to express certain meanings but not others. As translators, we are primarily concerned with communicating the overall meaning of a stretch of language. To achieve this, we need to start by decoding the units and structures which carry that meaning. The smallest unit which we would expect to possess individual meaning is the word. Defi ned loosely, the word is ‘the smallest unit of language that can be used by itself’ (Bolinger and Sears 1968:43).1 For our present purposes, we can defi ne the written word with more precision as any sequence of letters with an orthographic space on either side.