Translation Equivalence: It is a Relative and not an Absolute Issue

الملخص

The main aim of this study is to manage one of the corpus tenets of
translation, that is, the issue of equivalence. The traditional view of
translation equivalence was fundamentally the linguistic and semantic
representation of thoughts while, the modern views assert that equivalence
is habitually the way the target text became a closest thread to the source
text i.e. the process of simulating the closest construction on target text.
Hence, this study tackles the prescriptive cognitive implication of the
translating process rather than the descriptive one in order to show that the
idea of equivalence is theoretically relative, not absolute and to elucidate the
role of the cognitive bias in the translating process. So, the translation
equivalence is a matter of approximation, because of the existence of
several cultural figurative tropes within the text; those which constitute a
meaning loss phenomenon. In the light of this view program, some Qur’anic
texts were exemplified to show the degree of meaning loss. The translator’s
ability to select the closest and suitable equivalent reduces the amount of
meaning loss and achieves the comprehension phase to the target receptors
through rendering some of the Glorious Qur’anic texts. In this respect, the
study concluded that the translator may face ubiquitous figurative tropes
within the source textual material. Thus, s/he tries to manipulate it
cognitively to warrant the comprehending phase to the target receptors. The
study sees that the issue of equivalence is a matter of approximation,
because of the differences in many cultural and conceptual considerations
among languages. Meaning network among languages of the world draws
upon the conceptualizing elaboration that are structurally, semantically and
schematically represented mentally, albeit the idea that the selection of
equivalence in translating relies not only on the semantic properties but on
also the conceptual mappings and pragmatic manipulation that would cause
meaning loss throughout translating.