A Socio-Semiotic Approach to the Study of Translation Equivalence in Rendering Ideological Concepts

Abstract

The aim of the present paper is to offer a new approach to the study of ‘equivalence’ in translation. It assumes that different contemporary theories of translation equivalence can be substantially divided into three major groups. In the first there are those translation scholars who adopt an idealistic abstract notion of equivalence and use it in their own definitions, criticism and the teaching of translation. The members of the second group do not believe in the concept of ‘equivalence’ and avoid using it in their writing. Finally, There are other translation scholars who seem to stand in the middle and borrow the concept of ‘equivalence’ from the first group and claim to study it from an objective perspective. Having reviewed the theory of equivalence as interpreted by some of the most innovative theorists of the above mentioned groups, the paper applies the principles and concepts of the theory of language as a social semiotics (Halliday, 1978) to the study of the problem of equivalence in translation and draws the conclusion that the term ‘equivalence’ seems to be a misleading concept and should therefore be replaced by the concept ‘translation loss’ unless, according to Hatim and Mason (1990), the gap between the discourse of SL (English) and TL (Persian) cultures is bridged.