1
Introducing Translation Studies
Equivalence and Equivalent Effect
Munday, J. (2016). Introducing Translation Studies
(Pp. 58-85). London: London & New York: Routledge
Presented by: Mostafa Amiri
3 Professor Jeremy Munday
Professor of Translation Studies
[email protected] Summary: Translation studies; translation
theory; discourse analysis; ideology and
translation; translator archives and
manuscripts
Overview
I teach and research in the Spanish subject
area and in Translation Studies. My
specialisms are: linguistic translation
theories, discourse analysis (including
systemic functional linguistics), ideology
and translation, translator manuscripts and
Latin American literature in translation. I
am author of Introducing Translation
Studies (Routledge, 4th edition 2016).
I am a member of
Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American St
udies
(SPLAS), as well as the
Centre for Translation Studies (CTS). I
collabor-ate with Language at Leeds and
with the
Centre for Hispanic and Lusophone Cultural
Key Concepts
4
The problem of translatability and equivalence in meaning,
discussed by Jakobson (1959) and central to translation studies
1 for the following decades.
Nida’s ‘scientific’ methods to analyze meaning in his work on
2 Bible translating.
Nida’s concepts of formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence
3 and the principle of equivalent effect: focus on the receptor.
Newmark’s semantic translation and communicative translation.
4
Development of ‘science of translating’ in the Germanies [East
5 and West Germany] of the 1970s and 1980s.
Pym’s ‘natural’ and ‘directional’ equivalence.
6
5 Meaning, Equivalence and Untranslatibility
In order to avoid the age-old opposition between literal
and free translation, theoreticians in the 1950s and 1960s
began to attempt more systematic analyses. The new
debate revolved around certain key linguistic issues. The
most prominent were those of ‘meaning’ and ‘equivalence’
In this chapter we shall look at several major works of
the time:
- Eugene Nida’s seminal concepts of formal and dynamic
equivalence and the principle of equivalent
effect,
- Peter Newmark’s semantic and communicative
translation, and
- Werner Koller’s Korrespondenz and Aquivalenz.
6
Ferdinand de Saussure Roman Jakobson
1857-1913 1896-1982
7 Roman Jakobson: The nature of linguistic meaning
Intralingual
Translation Linguistic Meaning
Interlingual
Key Issues
Translation
Intersemiotic Equivalence
Translation
8 Linguistic meaning: Jakobson & Saussure
Jakobson follows the theory of language proposed by the famous Swiss linguist
Saussure (1857–1913).
Langue The linguistic system
Saussure’s
Distinction
Parole Specific Individual utterances
The spoken and
Signifier written signal
Saussure’s
Differentiation
Signified
Sign
The concept
Crucially, the sign is arbitrary or unmotivated (Saussure
1916/1983: 67–9)
Jakobson stresses that it is possible to understand what is signified by a word even
if we have never seen or experienced the concept or thing in real life.
9 Saussure’s two-part model of the sing
10 Jakobson and equivalence in meaning
Jakobson believes (1959/2012: 127) that ‘there is ordinarily no full equivalence
between code-units’. Bread in Farsi and bread in French.
This general It considers that, although languages
principle of may differ in the way they convey
interlinguistic
Linguistic meaning and in the surface realizations
difference Universalism of that meaning, there is a (more or less)
between terms shared way of thinking and experiencing
and semantic the world.
fields
importantly also
Linguistic In its strongest form, it claims that
has to do with a
differences in languages shape different
basic issue of Relativity or conceptualizations of the world.
language and Determinism (Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: 1956)
translation.
Full linguistic relativity would mean that
translation was impossible
11 What is involved in Interlingual translation
In Jakobson’s description (ibid.), interlingual translation involves ‘substitut[ing]
messages in one language not for separate code-units but for entire
messages in some other language’.
For the message to be ‘equivalent’ in ST and TT, the code-units will necessarily
be different since they belong to two different sign systems (languages)
which partition reality differently.
In Jakobson’s discussion, the problem of meaning and equivalence focuses on
differences in the structure and terminology of languages rather than on any
inability of one language to render a message that has been written or uttered in
another verbal language.
The question of translatability then becomes one of degree and adequacy (see
Hermans 1999: 301).
12 Linguistic differences between languages
For Jakobson (ibid.: 129), cross-linguistic differences, which underlie the concept of
quivalence, center around obligatory grammatical and lexical forms:
‘Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may
convey’. [Here he sees the language system and not use.]
Some examples of differences between languages:
1. the level of gender: e.g. house is feminine in Romance languages, neuter
in
German and English.
2. the level of aspect: in Russian, the verb morphology varies according to
whether the action has been completed or not.
3. the level of semantic fields, such as kinship terms: e.g. the German
Geschwister
is normally explicated in English as brothers and sisters, since siblings is
rather formal.
13 Jakobson’s view of untranslatability
These examples illustrate differences between languages, but
they are still concepts that can be rendered interlingually.
As Jakobson (ibid.) puts it, ‘[a]ll is conveyable in any existing
language’. For him, only poetry, with its unity of form and
sense and where ‘phonemic similarity is sensed as
semantic relationship’, is considered ‘untranslatable’ and
requires ‘creative transposition’ (ibid.: 131).
14
Eugene A. Nida (November 11, 1914 –
August 25, 2011) was a linguist who
developed the dynamic-equivalence
Bible-translation theory and one of the
founders of the modern discipline of
Translation Studies
1914-2011
15 Nida and the Science of translating
Eugene Nida’s theory of translation developed from his own practical work from the
1940s onwards when he was translating and organizing the translation of the Bible,
training often inexperienced translators who worked in the field.
Nida’s theory took concrete form in two major works in the 1960s:
● Toward a Science of Translating (Nida 1964a) and
● The Theory and Practice of Translation (Nida and Taber 1969).
The title of the first book is significant; Nida attempts to move Bible translation into
a more scientific era by incorporating recent work in linguistics.
His more systematic approach borrows theoretical concepts and terminology both
from semantics and pragmatics and from Noam Chomsky’s work on syntactic
structure which formed the theory of a universal generative–transformational
grammar (Chomsky 1957, 1965).
16 The influence of Chomsky
Chomsky’s generative–transformational model analyses sentences into a series of
related levels governed by rules. In very simplified form, the key features of this
model can be summarized as follows:
The structural relations
described in this model are
a final surface structure, which held by Chomsky to be a
itself is subject to phonological and universal feature of
morphemic rules. human language. The most
basic of such structures are
kernel sentences, which
transformed by transformational are simple, active,
rules relating one underlying declarative sentences that
structure to require the minimum of
another (e.g. active to passive), to transformation (e.g. the
produce wolf attacked the deer).
Phrase-structure rules generate an
underlying or deep structure
which is
17 Science of translation
Nida incorporates key features of Chomsky’s model into his ‘science’ of
translation.
In particular, Nida sees that it provides the translator with a technique for
decoding the ST and a procedure for encoding the TT (Nida 1964a: 60).
Thus, the surface structure of the ST is analysed (Analysis) into the basic
elements of the deep structure; these are ‘transferred’ (Transfer) in the
translation process and then ‘restructured’ (Restructuring) semantically
and stylistically into the surface structure of the TT.
18 Nida’s model of translation process
This three-stage system of translation (analysis, transfer and restructuring)
is presented in Figure 3.1:
Source
language Receptor
Language
Restructurin
Analysis
g
X Transfer Y
19 Kernel Sentences
‘Kernel’ is a key term in this model.
Just as kernel sentences were the most basic structures of Chomsky’s initial model,
so, for Nida and Taber (ibid.: 39), kernels ‘are the basic structural elements out of
which language builds its
elaborate surface structures’.
Kernels are to be obtained from the ST surface structure by a reductive process of
back transformation.
This entails analysis using generative–transformational grammar’s four types of
functional class:
(1) EVENTS: often but not always performed by verbs (e.g. run, fall, grow,
think);
(2) OBJECTS: often but not always performed by nouns (e.g. man, horse,
mountain, table);
(3) ABSTRACTS: quantities and qualities, including adjectives and adverbs
(e.g. red, length, slowly);
surface (4)
structure: will of God
RELATIONALS: including affixes, prepositions, conjunctions and copulas
back transformation:
(e.g. pre-, into, B (object,
of, and, God) performs
because, be). A (event, wills)
Kernel: God wills.
20 Kernel Sentences in English
Nida and Taber (ibid.: 39) claim that all languages have between six and a dozen
basic kernel structures and ‘agree far more on the level of kernels than on the level
of more elaborate structures’ such as word order.
Nida believes there are 7 types of kernel sentences in English
1. John ran quickly.
2. John hit Bill.
3. John gave Bill a ball.
4. John is in the House.
5. John is sick.
6. John is a boy.
7. John is my father.
21 Kernel Sentences in English
Kernels are the level at which the message is transferred into the receptor
language before being transformed into the surface structure in a process of:
(1)Stage 1: ‘literal transfer’; Lexical
(2)Stage 2: ‘minimal transfer’; Syntactic
(3)Stage 3: ‘literary transfer’. Stylistic
The nature of meaning: Advances in Semantics and Pragmatics
22
Central to Nida’s work is the move away from the old idea that a word has a fixed
meaning and towards a functional definition of meaning in which a word ‘acquires’
meaning through its context and can produce varying responses according to
culture.
Meaning is broken down into the following:
1. Linguistic meaning: the relationship between different linguistic structures,
borrowing elements of Chomsky’s model. (ex. his house, his journey, his
kindness)
2. Referential meaning: the denotative ‘dictionary’ meaning. Thus, son
denotes a male child.
3. Emotive or connotative meaning: the associations a word produces. So, in
the phrase ‘Don’t worry about that, son’, the word son is a term of
endearment or may in some contexts be patronizing.
Nida’s techniques to determine the meaning of different linguistic
23
items
Techniques to determine referential and emotive meaning focus on analyzing the
structure of
words and differentiating similar words in related lexical fields.
1. hierarchical structuring, which differentiates series of words according to their
level (for instance, the superordinate animal and its hyponyms goat, dog,
cow, etc.) [sheep= ram, ewe, lamb]
2. componential analysis. The latter seek to identify and discriminate specific
features of a range of related words. [Man= +human, +Male, +adult]
3. semantic structure analysis in which Nida (ibid.: 107) separates out visually
the different meanings of spirit (‘demons’, ‘angels’, ‘gods’, ‘ghost’, ‘ethos’,
‘alcohol’, etc.) according to their characteristics (human vs. non-human, good
vs. bad, etc.).
The central idea of this analysis is to encourage the trainee translator to realize
that the sense of a complex semantic term such as spirit varies and most
particularly is ‘conditioned’ by its context.
Pragmatics
24
The associations attached to the word are its connotative value, and these are
considered to belong to the realm of pragmatics or ‘language in use’.
Above all, Nida (ibid.: 51) stresses the importance of context for communication
when dealing
with metaphorical meaning and with complex cultural idioms, for example, where
the sense of the phrase often diverges from the sum of the individual elements.
Thus, the Hebrew idiom bene Chuppah (lit. ‘children of the bridechamber’) refers to
the wedding guests, especially the friends of the bridegroom (ibid.: 95).
In general, techniques of semantic structure analysis are proposed as a means
of
1. clarifying ambiguities,
2. elucidating obscure passages and
3. Identifying cultural differences.
They may serve as a point of comparison between different languages and cultures
and are proposed by Nida especially for those working with widely differing
languages.
Formal and Dynamic equivalence: the principle of equivalent effect
25
The old terms such as ‘literal’, ‘free’ and ‘faithful’ translation are discarded by Nida in
favour of ‘two basic orientations’ or ‘types of equivalence’ (Nida 1964a: 159): (1)
formal equivalence; and (2) dynamic equivalence. These are defined by Nida as
follows:
(1) Formal equivalence: Formal equivalence, later correspondence, focuses
attention on the message itself, in both form and content . . . One is
concerned that the message in the receptor language should match as
closely as possible the different elements in the source language.
(Nida 1964a: 159)
(2) Dynamic equivalence: Dynamic, later ‘functional’, equivalence is based
on what Nida calls ‘the principle of equivalent effect’, where ‘the
relationship
between receptor and message should be substantially the same
as that which existed between the original receptors and the
message’.
(Nida 1964a: 159).
26 Comments on form and dynamic equivalence
1. Formal equivalence, later called ‘formal correspondence’ (Nida and Taber
1969: 22–8), is thus keenly oriented towards the ST structure, which exerts
strong influence in determining accuracy and correctness. Most typical of
this kind of translation are ‘gloss translations’, with a close approximation to
ST structure, often with scholarly footnotes. This type of translation will often
be used in an academic or legal environment and allows the reader closer access
to the language and customs of the source culture.
2. Dynamic equivalence. The message has to be tailored to the receptor’s
linguistic needs and cultural expectation and ‘aims at complete
naturalness of expression’. ‘Naturalness’ is a key requirement for Nida.
Indeed, he defines the goal of dynamic equivalence as seeking ‘the closest
natural equivalent to the source-language message’ (Nida 1964a:
166, Nida and Taber 1969: 12). This receptor-oriented approach considers
adjustments of grammar, of lexicon and of cultural references to be essential in
order to achieve naturalness. The TT language should not show interference
from the SL, and the ‘foreignness’ of the ST setting is minimized (Nida 1964a:
167–8) in a way that would be criticized by later culturally-oriented
translation theorists.
27 Four basic requirements of translation
For Nida, the success of the translation depends above all on achieving equivalent
effect or response. It is one of the ‘four basic requirements of a translation’, which
are (ibid.: 164):
(1) making sense;
(2) conveying the spirit and manner of the original;
(3) having a natural and easy form of expression;
(4) producing a similar response.
Although dynamic equivalence aims to meet all four requirements, it is also a
graded concept since Nida accepts that the ‘conflict’ between the traditional
notions of content and form cannot always be easily resolved. As a general rule for
such conflicts, Nida considers that ‘correspondence in meaning must have priority
over correspondence in style’ if equivalent effect is to be achieved.
28 Importance of Nida’s work
The key role played by Nida is to develop the path away from strict word-for-word
equivalence.
His introduction of the concepts of formal and dynamic equivalence was crucial in
introducing a receptor-based (or reader-based) orientation to translation
theory.
Nida’s detailed description of real translation phenomena and situations in a
wealth of varied languages is an important rejoinder to the vague writings on
translation that had preceded it.
Nida was aware of what he terms (ibid.: 3) ‘the artistic sensitivity which is an
indispensable ingredient in any first-rate translation of a literary work’.
a. He went a long way to producing a systematic analytical procedure
for translators working with all kinds of texts
b. He factored into the translation equation the receivers of the TT and
their cultural expectations
Nida’s systematic linguistic approach to translation exerted considerable influence
on many subsequent and prominent translation scholars
29 Criticism of Nida’s work
Both the principle of equivalent effect and the concept of equivalence have come to
be heavily criticized for a number of reasons:
1. Lefevere (1993: 7) felt that equivalence was still overly concerned with the word
level,
2. Van den Broeck (1978: 40) and Larose (1989: 78) considered equivalent effect or
response to be impossible. (How is the ‘effect’ to be measured and on whom?
How can a text possibly have the same effect and elicit the same response in
two different cultures and times?) Indeed, the whole question of equivalence
inevitably entails subjective judgement from the translator or analyst.
3. Qian Hu the ‘implausibility’ of equivalent response. the impossibility of
achieving equivalent effect when meaning is bound up in form, for example
the effect of word order in Chinese and English, especially in literary works, Also,
that ‘the closest natural equivalent may stand in a contradictory relation with
dynamic equivalents’.
4. Qian Hu also discusses cultural references that may result in loss of the source
culture term/custom.
30 Criticism of Nida’s work
- The criticism that equivalent effect is subjective raises the question of whether
Nida’s theory of translation really is ‘scientific’.
- Whether a translator follows these procedures in practice.
- Gentzler denigrates Nida’s work for its theological and proselytizing standpoint. In
Gentzler’s view, dynamic equivalence is designed to convert the receptors, no
matter what their culture, to the dominant discourse and ideas of Protestant
Christianity.
- Nida is also taken to task by certain religious groups who maintain that the Word of
God is sacred and unalterable; the changes necessary to achieve dynamic
equivalence would thus verge on the sacrilegious.
31
Peter Newmark (12 April 1916 – 9
July 2011) was an English professor
of translation at the
University
He of the
was one of Surrey
main figures in the
founding of Translation Studies in the
English-speaking world in twentieth
century. He was also very influential in
the Spanish-speaking world.
He is widely read through a
series of accessible and occasionally
polemical works: A Textbook of
Translation (1988), Paragraphs on
Translation (1989), About Translation
(1991), More Paragraphs on Translation
(1998).
He was associated with the
founding and development of the Centre
for Translation Studies at Surrey. He was
chair of the editorial board of the Journal
of Specialised Translation. He also wrote
"Translation Now" bimonthly for
The Linguist and was an Editorial Board
32 Newmark’s Semantic and Communicative Translations
Newmark departs from Nida’s receptor-oriented line.
He feels that
● the success of equivalent effect is ‘illusory’ and that
● ‘the conflict of loyalties, the gap between emphasis on source and target
language, will
always remain as the overriding problem in translation theory and practice’
(Newmark 1981: 38).
Newmark suggests narrowing the gap by replacing the old terms with those of
‘semantic’ and ‘communicative’ translation:
Communicative translation attempts to produce on its
readers an effect as close
as possible to that obtained on the readers of the original.
Semantic translation
attempts to render, as closely as the semantic and syntactic
structures of the
second language allow, the exact contextual meaning of the
original.
33 Newmark’s Semantic and Communicative Translations
Semantic translation has similarities to Nida’s formal equivalence.
This description of communicative translation resembles Nida’s dynamic
equivalence in the effect it is trying to create on the TT reader, However, Newmark
distances himself from the full principle of equivalent effect, since that effect ‘is
inoperant if the text is out of TL space and time’ (1981: 69). [e.g. Translation of
Homer into modern British English].
Newmark also believes that, despite Nida, the readers are not ‘to be handed
everything on a plate’, with everything explained for them.
Newmark (ibid.: 63) indicates that semantic translation differs from literal
translation in that it ‘respects context’, interprets and even explains (metaphors,
for instance).
Other differences are revealed by Newmark’s definitions of his own terms (ibid.: 39–
69), summarized in Table 3.2. in the next slide.
34
35 Newmark’s Semantic and Communicative Translations
Importantly, as long as equivalent effect is achieved, Newmark holds literal
translation to be the best approach: In communicative as in semantic
translation, provided that equivalent effect is secured, the literal word-for-word
translation is not only the best, it is the only valid method of translation. (Newmark
1981: 39)
However, if there is a conflict between the two forms of translation (if semantic
translation
would result in an ‘abnormal’ TT or would not secure equivalent effect in the TL)
then communicative translation should be preferred.
An example of this, provided by Newmark (ibid.: 39), is the common sign bissiger
Hund and chien mechant. It would be translated communicatively as beware of
the dog! in order to communicate the message, not semantically as dog that bites!
and bad dog!
36 Discussion of Newmark
● Despite Newmark’s relevant criticisms of equivalent effect, the terms Semantic
and Communicative Translations raise some of the same points concerning the
translation process and the importance of the TT reader. [the overabundance of
terminology]
● Newmark has been criticized for his strong prescriptivism
● The language of his evaluations still bears traces of what he himself called the
‘pre-linguistics
era’ of translation studies: translations are ‘smooth’ or ‘awkward’, while
translation itself is an ‘art’ (if semantic) or a ‘craft’ (if communicative).
37 Discussion of Newmark
● The large number of examples in Newmark’s work provide ample guidance and
advice for the trainee,
● Many of the questions he tackles are of important practical relevance to
translation.
● It should also be noted that in his later discourse (e.g. Pedrola 1999, Newmark
2009: 34), he emphasized the aesthetic principles of writing, the difference
between ‘social, non-literary’ and ‘authoritative and serious’ translation and an
ethical and truth-seeking function for translation.
38
Nida’s move towards a science of translation
proved to be especially influential in Germany,
where the common term for translation studies is
bersetzungswissenschaft (‘translation science’).
Among the most prominent German scholars in
the translation science field during the 1970s
and 1980s were Wolfram Wilss, of Saarland
University, and, from the then German
Democratic Republic, the Leipzig School,
including Otto Kade and Albrecht Neubert (Snell-
Hornby 2006: 26–9, 2010).
Important work to refine the concept of
equivalence was carried out by Werner Koller in
Heidelberg (West Germany) and Bergen
(Norway). Koller’s Einfuhrung in die
Ubersetzungswissenschaft ([Research into the
science of translation] 1979a; see also Koller
1979b/1989 and 1995) examines the concept of
equivalence more closely along with its linked 14 Dec. 1942
term ‘correspondence’ (Koller 1979a: 176–91).
39 Koller’s Concept of Equivalence and Correspondence
(1) Correspondence falls within the field of contrastive linguistics, which
compares two language systems and describes differences and similarities
contrastively. Its parameters are those of Saussure’s langue (Saussure
1916/1983). This would include the identification of false friends (e.g. German
aktuel means current and not English actual) and of signs of lexical,
morphological and syntactic interference.
(2) Equivalence, on the other hand, relates to equivalent items in specific ST–TT
pairs and contexts. The parameter is that of Saussure’s parole. The following
two examples show specific equivalences of aktuel in real texts:
Aktuel sind 7 Besucher online = There are currently 7 guests online
Wir bemuhen diese Information so aktuel wie moglich zu halten = We shall try to
keep this information up-to-date.
Importantly, Koller (1979a: 185) points out that, while knowledge of
correspondences is indicative of competence in the foreign language, it is
knowledge and ability in equivalences that are indicative of competence in
translation.
40
Koller’s five types of equivalence relations
Koller differentiates five types of equivalence relations, constrained, in what is
known as
double linkage, by the ST on the one hand and by the communicative conditions
of the receiver on the other. These equivalence types are listed below:
(1) Denotative equivalence, related to equivalence of the extralinguistic content
of a text. Other literature, says Koller, calls this ‘content invariance’.
(2) Connotative equivalence, related to lexical choices, especially between near-
synonyms. Koller considers this type of equivalence to be referred to by others
as ‘stylistic equivalence’.
(3) Text-normative equivalence, related to text types, with different kinds of texts
behaving in different ways. This is closely linked to work by Katharina Reiss.
(4) Pragmatic equivalence, or ‘communicative equivalence’, is oriented towards
the receiver of the text or message. This is Nida’s dynamic equivalence.
(5) Formal equivalence, which is related to the form and aesthetics of the text,
includes wordplays and the individual stylistic features of the ST. It is referred
to by others as ‘expressive equivalence’ and should not be confused with Nida’s
term ‘formal equivalence’.
41
42 Hierarchical order of equivalence
The crucial point again is that, in order to assist the translator,
the equivalences are hierarchically ordered according to the
needs of the communicative situation. So, the translator first
tries denotative equivalence and, if this is inadequate, will need
to seek equivalence at a higher level – connotative, text-
normative, etc.
43
Anthony David Pym (born 1956 in
Perth, Australia) is a scholar best
known for his work in
translation studies.[1]
Pym is currently Distinguished
Professor of Translation and
Intercultural Studies at Rovira i Virgili
University in Spain[2] and Professor
Extraordinary at
Stellenbosch University[3] in South
Africa. He was a fellow of the
Catalan Institution for Research and Ad
vanced Studies
[4]
from 2010 to 2015, Visiting
Researcher at the
Middlebury Institute of International St
udies at Monterey
from 2008 to 2016, Walter Benjamin
Visiting Professor at the
University of Vienna in 2015,[5] and
44 Pym’s typology of equivalence
Analysing existing theories, Pym (2007) defines two types of equivalence and
describes how the rise of Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT) tools has given a new
twist to these types:
(i) ‘natural’ equivalence, where the focus is on identifying naturally-
occurring terms or stretches of language in the SL and TL. Translation
glossaries and term bases, for example, routinely seek to plot ‘natural’
equivalents in the relevant languages;
(ii) ‘directional’ equivalence, where the focus is on analysing and rendering
the ST meaning in an equivalent form in the TT. Translation memories, working
on a corpus of already translated material, impose existing ‘directional’
equivalents on the translator through the flagging up of exact and fuzzy
matches with stretches of language in the database.
45 Tertium Comparationis
In descriptive studies, perhaps the biggest bone of contention in the comparison of a ST and a TT
is the so-called tertium comparationis (‘the third comparator’), an invariant against which two
text segments can be measured to gauge variation from a core meaning.
Take the following example of a Hausa proverb:
ST TT
Linza: mi da wu:ta ma:ganin En: Desperate situations require
mahaukacin do:ki. desperate measures
(lit. ‘A bit with fire: the medicine for
a mad horse’)
Tertium comparationis
‘A very strong bit is needed to control a difficult horse’, or
‘strong action is needed to control a difficult person’
Whether the suggested target segment is an appropriate equivalent would depend on
circumstances, audience and the type of equivalence envisaged. On a racecourse, the ST
phrase might well not be so metaphorical and might require more formal equivalence in
translation.
46
