Characteristics of equivalence of the second level.
44. In the second type of equivalence the common part of the contents of the O and the T does not only render the same purport of communication, but also reflects the same extra-linguistic situation. The situation is a sum of objects and their relations described in the utterance. Any text contains information about something, is related with some real or imaginary situation. The communicative function of the text cannot be effected without some situationally oriented message. It is impossible to imagine a continuous text about nothing.
45. A fuller rendering of the original contents in the second type of equivalence in comparison with the first one, where only the purport of communication was preserved, does not mean rendering of all semantic elements of the original. Retaining of the indication to the same situation is accompanied in the second-type translations by essential structural-semantic divergences from the original. The thing is, that the situation described is a complicated phenomenon, which cannot be described in one utterance fully, with multiplicity of its sides, properties and peculiarities. One and the same situation can be described through various combinations of its peculiarities. The result of this is the possibility and necessity of identification of the situation by indicating to some of its features. There appear sets of utterances, which are perceived by native speakers as synonymic (“meaning the same”), despite full difference of language means constituting them.
In this respect there appears the necessity to differentiate between the fact of indicating to the situation and the way of its describing, i.e. the part of the contents of the utterance, indicating the features of the situation, through which it is reflected in the utterance. Language users can realize the identity of the situations, described differently. And this means, that in the contents of any utterance there is information, giving an opportunity to judge what situation is described in it, and what features are used for its description.
46. The difference between identification of the situation and ways of its description reflects peculiarities of relations between language, thinking and reality described. It is clear that in the contents of the utterance there are not situations and their features themselves, but their mental images, transmitted as some knowledge and information, i.e. in the shape of some message. The character of reflection of the chosen features and the inner arrangement of the information about them make a kind of logical structure of the message. The chosen features of the situation are described by including them into a wide notional category. The units of sense reflecting separate features of the situation are general notions or contensive categories. For example, the foundation of the situation “some object is on the table” may be made by the notions “state”, “perception”, “action”. One can say “The book is on the table” (state), “I see a book on the table” (perception), “The book was placed on the table” (action). Another example is the possibility of choice between the phrases Он сюда не приходит (motion), Он здесь не бывает (being), Я его здесь не вижу (perception), Его сюда не приглашают (action).
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Different ways of forming the message are united by the identity of the situation. The similarity of their contents is based on extra-linguistic experience of the communicants. From our experience we know that to see a man in some place is possible if he comes there, i.e. is present there. It means that utterances Она там почти не бывает, Мы ее там редко видим mean the same. The descriptions themselves there practically no common semantic features (semes).
Similarly, it is not difficult to reveal the real foundation of the identity of the contents in cases of describing the situation by different contensive categories:
Ночь уже почти миновала. – Скоро наступит рассвет.
Она никуда не выходит. – Она ведет уединенный образ жизни.
Он хорошо сохранился. – Он выглядит моложе своих лет.
Мы такими делами не занимаемся. – Это не по нашей части. К нам это не имеет отношения.
In such cases there are various logical, mainly causal-consequential connections between the messages of different structure.
47. Identification of the situation is reflection of some real situation in the contents of the utterance by one of possible ways of its description. In its turn way of describing the situation is the reflection of features of the situation in the contents of the utterance, which are used for its identification and are generalized in contensive categories.
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For the second type of equivalence it is characteristic identification of the situation in the O and the T of the same situation, when the way of its description is changed. The foundation for semantic identification of the two texts is the universal character of relations between language and extra-linguistic reality.
People speaking the same language can identify similar situations, described differently. Translators actually treat on this ground speech units formed in different languages, despite the absence of correspondence between their components, as meaning the same.
48. The second type of equivalence is presented by a group of translations, whose semantic similarity with the O is not based on the similarity of language means used in the process of it.
This can be illustrated by the following examples:
He answered the telephone.
Он снял трубку.
You are not fit to be in a boat.
Тебя нельзя пускать в лодку.
You see one bear, you have seen them all.
Все медведи похожи друг на друга.
This group of examples is similar to the first one, as the equivalence of translations here does not involve any parallelism of lexical or structural units. Most of the words or syntactical structures of the original have no direct correspondences in the translation. At the same time it is obvious that there is a greater proximity of contents than in the preceding group. Besides the purport of communication there is some additional information contained in the original that is retained. This fact can be easily proved if we compare the examples of the two groups.
Consider, for instance, the translations:
(1) That’s a pretty thing to say. Постыдился бы!
(2) Не answered the telephone. Он снял трубку.
In (1) the things referred to are different, so that there is hardly any logical connection between the two statements. The similarity of the original and the translation is restricted to the fact that in both cases we can draw identical conclusions about the emotional attitude of the speaker to the preceding remark of his interlocutor.
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In (2) the incomparable language units in the original and in the translation describe, in fact, the same action, refer to identical reality, as a telephone call cannot be answered unless one picks up the receiver. Both texts give different information about the same, or, as one sometimes says, they express the same idea "using different words". It is the type of equivalence that can be well explained in terms of the situational theory.We may presume that such phrases describe identical situations but each is presented in a different way. Thus in this group of translations the equivalence implies retention of two types of information contained in the original — the purport of communication and the indication of the situation. Since in each of the two texts the situation is described in a different way, the common feature is not the method of description but the reference to the situation, the possibility of identifying the situation, no matter how it is described in the text. The information which characterized the second type of equivalence can, therefore, be designated as "identification of the situation".
49. The characteristic features of relations between the O and the T of the second level are:
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