Channels, Fall 2020

Channels • 20 20 • Volume 5 • Number 1 Page 17 Equivalence in Translation Across Genre Types Jordan Beale English, Literature, and Modern Languages Abstract — The current research investigates the topic of equivalence in translation considering differing genre types as defined by Katherine Reiss and R. W. Jumpelt. The background first addresses the imperfect nature of translation in practice, then offers a working definition of equivalence for the purpose of the study. The remainder of the background explains factors to consider when attempting to achieve an equivalent result in actual translation practice, moving from higher level decisions that dictate the translation assignment as a whole down to more moment by moment decisions in structure and word choice. A series of six short translations from German to English was conducted in the genres of business texts and linguistic research to test the validity of the points addressed in the previous discussion. These translations were reviewed by Cedarville University German faculty as well as naïve readers employed to test how natural the translated texts sounded and check for loss. A modified version of Julianne Hou se’s TQA model was also used to check for changes and loss from the translation process. While the information in the texts was successfully transferred from the source text (ST) to the target text (TT) and the majority of the readers did not suspect the texts to be translations, readers did detect some errors and identified them as signs that the text was not written originally by a native English speaker, though not necessarily that the text was a translation. The discussion addresses some of these errors in detail as related to the genre types and the elements discussed in the literature review. Keywords: Translation, equivalence, Reiss, German-English, effect Introduction ranslation is one of the oldest activities undertaken by mankind, dating back to the earliest written records available (Draganovici, 2010). Despite the rise in language learning worldwide, English knowledge, and automated translation, human translation is still an essential part of global communication. However, as most professionals can attest, there are good translations and bad translations. To address the question of how to improve poor translations, I review various aspects of translation which factor into making a natural, easy-to-read translation which can pass for a work written by a native of the target language. As a backdrop for this effort, this paper will contrast Jumpelt’s (1961) and Reiss’ (1981) genre models to determine what goes into making a good translation in varying genre type. T