Giải pháp cho vấn đề bất tương đương dịch thuật anh việt ở cấp độ từ vựng trong văn bản truyền thông

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
*********************

TRỊNH THỊ NGỌC HÂN

INVESTIGATING THE TRANSLATION STRATEGIES FOR
ENGLISH-VIETNAMESE NON-EQUIVALENCE
AT WORD LEVEL IN THE MEDIA TEXT
(Giải pháp cho vấn đề bất tương đương dịch thuật Anh - Việt
ở cấp độ từ vựng trong văn bản truyền thông)
MINOR MASTER THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS
CODE: 8220201.01


Hanoi, 2019
VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES
*********************

TRỊNH THỊ NGỌC HÂN

INVESTIGATING THE TRANSLATION STRATEGIES FOR
ENGLISH-VIETNAMESE NON-EQUIVALENCE
AT WORD LEVEL IN THE MEDIA TEXT
(Giải pháp cho vấn đề bất tương đương dịch thuật Anh - Việt
ở cấp độ từ vựng trong văn bản truyền thông)

MINOR MASTER THESIS

FIELD: ENGLISH LINGUISTICS
CODE: 8220201.01
SUPERVISOR: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Le Hung Tien


Hanoi, 2019


DECLARATION
I, Trinh Thi Ngoc Han, hereby declare that the work in this thesis is the
result of my own research. It is recognized that should this declaration be
found to be false, disciplinary actions could be taken and penalties could be
imposed in accordance with university policies and rules.
Hanoi, April 2019

Trịnh Thị Ngọc Hân

4


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my
supervisor, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Le Hung Tien, who inspired me to conduct this
research and spent his time giving me invaluable suggestions, corrections and
improvement, without which I would have been, no doubt, unable to finish
the thesis.
I also send my gratitude to my family, who have always been
supporting me during the completion of this study.

I also give sincere thanks to my friends and colleagues for their great
support and encouragement.
Without the help of those people, this study has not been completed.

5


ABSTRACT
This paper aims at highlighting the fact that ‘non-equivalence' represent a
concept worth revisiting and dealing with when tackling the translation
process of media text. At which, many problems of translation at word level
arises. Some experts have proposed strategies to deal with these problems,
among whom, Baker (1992, 2011 2018) is a prominent author in this
expertise. The purpose of this present study is, then, to reveal the strategies
used in English-Vietnamese translation of media text accordingly with
Baker’s (2018) theory. The Vietnamese translated data were collected from an
official and copyrighted news agency of Vietnam namely Bnews (Vietnam
News Agency). The source language data were collected from Reuter. The
findings sought to reveal how Vietnamese media text professional translators
employed the strategies to deal with the problems of non-equivalence in
English-Vietnamese translations. The results of the study contribute to an
understanding of contemporary strategies dealing with non-equivalence in
translation. Practical suggestions for translators and further research were also
proposed.
Keywords: non-equivalence, media text, target language, source language,
translation strategies

6

TABLES OF CONTENT

ABBREVIATIONS
SL

Source Language

TL

Target Language

TE

Translation Equivalence

RQ

Research question

TT

Target text

7


TABLES OF FIGURES

TABLES OF APPENDIXES

8


Chapter I
INTRODUCTION

This chapter presents the background of the study, aims and objectives
of the study, scope of the study, significance and the outline of the report.
1.1. Rationale
Along with the tremendous development of science and technology,
media texts have been enriched and soon became a big corpus in diverse
fields, which is an infinite source of information. This in turn has resulted in
an urgent need of translation to bridge the communication gap and make
changes, in which, as Zeldin (1995, p. 465) says ‘I see the meeting of people,
bodies, thoughts, emotions, or actions as the start of change. Each link created
by a meeting is like a filament, which, if they were all visible, would make the
world look as though it is covered with gossamer.’
Even though communication is the primary aim and function of a
translated text, Venuti (2012, p. 11) states that today ‘we are far from thinking
that translating is a simple communicative act’ and that ‘a translation never
communicates in an untroubled fashion because the translator negotiates the
linguistic and cultural differences of the source by reducing them and
supplying another set of differences drawn from the receiving situation to
enable the translation to circulate there.’
The troubles arise in the process of translation between two different
written languages, which involves the changing of an original written text (the
source text or ST) in the original verbal language (the source language or SL)
into a written text (the target text or TT) in a different verbal language (the

9

target language or TL). If translating were of only the transmission of these
concepts, it would be easy and universal and one would simply replace the
English name for a concept with the Vietnamese name. As Culler (1976, pp.
21-22) says ‘If language were like this the task of learning a new language
would also be much easier than it is. But anyone who has attempted either of
these tasks has acquired, alas, a vast amount of direct proof that languages are
not nomenclatures, that the concepts . . . of one language may differ radically
from those of another … Each language articulates or organizes the world
differently. Languages do not simply name existing categories, they articulate
their own.’
Based on this discussion, finding the equivalence at word level from one
language into another obliges translators to have a good command of knowledge
of both source language and target language. This comes to the fact that any
language has some certain words which more or less are different from one
another, which poses the notion of non-equivalence in translation and poses
difficulties for the translators and strategies for dealing with them.
In her latest study, Baker (2018, p. 19) has strongly remarked that ‘nonequivalence at word level means that the target language has no direct
equivalence for a word which occurs in the source text. The type and level of
difficulty posed can vary tremendously depending on the nature of nonequivalence.’ This requires the translator to go beyond what the average
listener or reader has to do so as to reach an adequate understanding of a text.
1.2. Aims and Objectives of the Study
This present research is conducted on a descriptive and qualitative
procedure that facilitates the difficulties in the mentioned areas. First, the
researcher carefully analyzed the difficulties relevant to the aim of the study

10

and classify them into different categories. Second, an attempt was made to
exemplify any of these difficulties from translating English media texts into
Vietnamese. Third, the strategies to cope with these difficulties were analyzed
and discussed. In so doing, this present study sought to answer the one
following research question:
1. What are the problems of English-Vietnamese non-equivalence at
word level in the media text?
2. What are the strategies used by the translators to solve the problems
of non‐equivalence at word level found in the media text?
1.3. Scope of the study
Given the scope of the study, this present research project focuses on
investigating the strategies to cope with English – Vietnamese nonequivalence at word level. However, as Baker (2018, p. 16) states ‘It is
virtually impossible to offer absolute guidelines for dealing with the various
types on non-equivalence which exist among languages,’ thus, the analysis of
non-equivalence is heavily based on the concepts of common problems of
non-equivalence proposed by Baker (2018). Other factors such as extralinguistics and intra-linguistics are neglected in this study.
Furthermore, due to the time and scope of this minor research project,
the media text is narrowed down into five newspaper articles from two
biggest news agents in Vietnamese, who usually translate global news or
stories into local newsfeed.
1.4. The Significance of the Study
Vietnam is a developing country that needs more and more science,
technology and knowledge to integrate the Industry 4.0 and reach the level of
development of the neighboring countries, as Tiến (2006) states that

11


translation plays an important role in the development of the society. Besides,
this study contributes to an understanding of the strategies to solve the

English-Vietnamese non-equivalence in the media text.
Moreover, this study attempts to propose useful suggestions for
newspaper translators and the learners of English through newspapers.
Besides, this present study may help me fulfil my personal academic interest
into translation and translating and solve my problems of teaching and
translating in my expertise and at my institution.
1.5. Organization of the thesis
This thesis consists of six chapters. Following this introduction, which
briefly drew attention to the basic concepts of translation, and the rise of the
problems of non-equivalence in translation. A focus for the research questions
were

subsequently

investigated

and

guidelines

for

an

appropriate

methodology were proposed. The scope of the study was also set up to narrow
down the research problems and to explain the feasibility of the study.
Chapter 2 reviews the extant literature and previous studies that
motivates the researcher to conduct this research and generates the hypotheses

of this thesis. This chapter suggests a critique that defines the concepts of
translation, equivalence and non-equivalence as well as reviews the previous
study on this problem.
Chapter 3 describes the data collection procedures, the research design
and theoretical and analytical framework of the study. Key findings from
analysis of the research data are presented in Chapter 4.
Chapter 5 includes a detailed account and interpretation of the findings
of the study, with reference to three research questions and in relation to

12


previous relevant research findings. Chapter 6 summarizes the study findings,
focuses on theoretical and pedagogical implications of the study.
Chapter II
REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
As more and more language professionals are required to have a high
level of active competence in a second or foreign language, the need for the
understanding of translation increases. Needless to say, translation has never
been an easy task to tackle. This chapter first reviews the extant literature of
translation, translation equivalence and non-equivalence, the strategies to deal
with non-equivalence at word level and it also presents related studies so far
in the field.
2.1. Definition of Translation
It’s likely that for as long as there has been speech, people have been
studying language and there have been works of translation, which dates back
at least as far as some time before BC (Malmkjaer, 2018). In each of different
traditions such as Arab, Chinese, Indian, Western, and so on, there has its own
history to trace back, however, such linguistics can still be regarded as a
relatively young discipline until Fox (2006, p. 317) puts it that the discipline

became established in nineteenth century and it is what Burridge (2013, p.
141) describes as ‘a new science, distinct from literary studies and
philosophical enquiry.’
Talking about the concept of translation in applied linguistics means
immediately bringing up against fundamental issues such as the view about
the world, the status of knowledge and cultural political, and academic
practices and relationships and among different opinions in any and all of

13


these areas (Halverson, 2010). many scholars have become interested in
translation and interpreting (Halverson, 2010; Hatim & Mason, 1990, 2013;
Nida, 1964; Nida & Taber, 1982; Vinay & Darbelnet, 1995).
Since Catford’s (1965, p. 1) words as ‘an operation performed on
languages,’ it has been criticized by Snell-Hornby (1995, p. 20) for expressing
too narrow a view of what translation is and for stating translation rules as
‘isolated and even absurdly simplistic sentences.’ At some points in the 20 th
and early 21st century, cognitive processes involved in translating and
interpreting, and there was a so-called theory of sense developed by
Seleskovitch and Lederer (1989, 2002). However, according to Malmkjaer
(2018, p. 15), there is a possibility that ‘at least some negative views of
linguistics as a foundation for the development of translation and interpreting
studies were based on a desire to forge independent disciplines and a concern
that the complex processes of translating and interpreting would be
overlooked in the effort to relate languages to each other.’
At the peak of modern translation studies, there comes a question as
such is translation universal? This question was brought up in Malmkjaer’s
(2018) work, in which he discusses the central role of norms in descriptive
translation studies as ‘it is norms that determine the (type and extent of)

equivalence manifested by actual translations’ (as cited in Malmkjaer, 2018,
p. 20). There is an explanation that norms can decide regularities in
translational behavior. Toury (2012, p. 81) states that ‘norms can influence not
only translation of all kinds, but also at every stage of the act’ but on the
notion of universal he confirms ‘a universal of translation… are young, or
otherwise weak’ (p. 140). It is noted here that the universal in translation
tradition as a norm, a social product is completely different from Chomskyan

14


theory explained in Universal Grammar as principles that control the forms of
language and parameters that form language (Chomsky, 1993).
Concerning this issue, Newmark (1988, p. 43) remarks if there is more
or less a universal, there is no translation problem at all. That originates the
terms equivalence and non-equivalence in translation, when each language
has its own grammar, sentence, verb, culture and norms.
2.2. Equivalence in Translation
Numerous linguistic scholars recognized the importance of seeking a
proper equivalence during translation process. However, the notion is
undoubtedly among the most problematic and controversial areas in the field
of translation theory as Bassnett (2002, p. 34) states it is ‘a much-used and
abuse term in Translation Studies’ This term has also been discussed from
different points of view and bas been approached from various perspectives.
Some theorists have define translation in terms of equivalence relation
(Catford, 1965; Nida & Taber, 1982; Pym, 2014).
Catford (1965, p. 24) defines ‘equivalence is sentence-to-sentence, at
another, group-to-group, at another, word-to-word.’ The condition for
translation equivalence can be as follow ‘Translation equivalence occurs
when an SL (source language) and TL (target language) texts or items are

related to (at least some of) the same relevant features of situation substance.’
(Catford, 1965, p. 50). In the meantime, Snell-Hornby (1995, p. 22) denies the
theoretical notion of equivalence as ‘an illusion of symmetry between
languages.’ However, House (1997, p. 26) fights back Snell-Hornby’s
argument as ‘Snell-Hornby singles out one particular dictionary entry, which
supports her claim that equivalence basically equals identity and promptly

15


proceeds to dismiss equivalence as ‘an illustration’ in translation studies.’
More on this, Pym (2014) comments on Snell-Hornby’s as not convincing.
Notably, Bassnett (2002) discerns upon equivalence in a sense that it is
not a search for sameness, since sameness cannot exist between two TL
versions of the same text, let alone between SL and the TL.
House (1997) states the notion of equivalence is the conceptual basis of
translation. Catford (1965, p. 21) also shares “the central problem of
translation practice is that of finding TL equivalents and the central task of
translation theory is therefore that of defining the nature and conditions of
translation equivalence.’
In contrast to Catford’s (1965) formal-textual equivalence, Nida (1964,
p. 166) defines it as something more dynamic:
1. Equivalence, which points toward the source language message
2. Natural, which points toward the receptor language
3. Closest, which binds the two orientations together on the basis of
the highest degree of approximation
Newmark (1988, p. 198) emphasizes situational equivalence and he
argues that ‘synonymy. Paraphrase and grammatical variation all of which
might do the job in a given situation, but would be inaccurate.’ This definition
includes cultures, the SL writers and the TL readers, the norms of each

language, the settings, traditions, and even the prejudices of the translators.
From another definition of translation equivalence, Popovie (as cited in
Bassnett, 2002, p. 33) differentiates four types: linguistic equivalence, where
the linguistic level of both SL and TL texts should be considered;
paradigmatic equivalence, where such elements as grammar, or lexical
equivalence; stylistic equivalence, where there should be some functional

16


equivalence; and textual equivalence, where the syntagmatic structure of a
text should be considered.
Focusing on the similarity, Chesterman (1996, p. 160) eases a clam that
‘adequate similarity is enough-adequate for a given purpose, in a given
context … anything more would be an inefficient use of recourses’
From structural point of view, Jakobson (2012) suggests three types of
translation: intralingual, interlingual and intersemiotic. His contribution is
concerning with understanding of meaning and viewing translation as
communicate model. He concludes ‘substituting messages in one language
not for separate cods but for inter messages in some other language. It
involves to equivalent messages in two different cods. (Jakobson, 2012, 139)
In this sense, equivalence and substituting are two key words.
In conclusion, it can be concluded that the notion of translation
equivalence is of something troubled. There are so many types, so many
levels and so many approaches to translation equivalence. On topping this off,
Venuti (2008, p. 246) sums up ‘A translated text should be the site where
linguistic and cultural differences are somehow signaled, where a reader gets
some sense of a cultural other, and resistance, a translation strategy based on
an aesthetic of discontinuity, can best signal those differences, that sense of
otherness, by reminding the reader of the gains and losses in the translation

process and the unbridgeable gaps between cultures.’ In addition, he states
that the meaning of text is unstable and it cannot be reproduced in another
context, which arises the term of non-equivalence in translation.
2.3. Non-equivalence in Translation
It is likely that scholars agree that standards of translation rely on
equivalence and non-equivalence and other associated judgement criteria

17


(Baker, 2009). In this sense, non-equivalence is a central attention in
translations studies and the concept of non-equivalence has had its share of
both criticism and challenge. Baker (2018) puts it that there are various nonequivalence problems, and these problems occur at different levels of
translation such as word, grammar or text. Thus, the factors affecting the
choice of a suitable equivalent in a given context may be ‘strictly linguistic’,
may be ‘extra-linguistic’ and that ‘It is imposable to offer absolute guidelines
for dealing with the various types of non-equivalence which exist among
languages’ (Baker, 2018, p. 16).
2.3.1 Non-equivalence at word level
In the same work, Baker (2018, p.19) defines ‘non-equivalence at word
level means that the TL has no direct equivalent for a word which occurs in
the ST.’ In which, he establishes eleven different problems of non-equivalence
at word level.
(1) Culture-specific concepts. As Kramsch (2003) claims that nature,
culture and language have the inter-relationship, thus, the source word
may express a concept which is totally ignorant to the target culture.
Baker (2018, p. 20) states that this may well relate to a religious belief,
a social custom, or a type of food. For example, in Vietnamese we have
‘nem’ as a food but there is no such term in English.
(2) The source-language concept is not lexicalized in the target language

(Baker, 2018, p.20). This happens when the source language word may
have a wider range of concepts which is known in the target culture but
simply not lexicalized. For example, the word ‘bon appetit’ in French
or ‘chúc ngon miệng’ in Vietnamese is easy to understand, but English
has no ready equivalent for it. Instead, people in the UK often say
‘Enjoy your meal’ or more recently people may say ‘good appetite’ but

18


this phrase is found to be strange or incomprehensible when the phrase
stands alone.
(3) The source-language is semantically complex (Baker, 2018, p. 20). This
case is a rather complex problem in translation, as Bolinger and Sears
(1986, as cited in Baker, 2018, p. 20) put it that ‘words do not have to
be morphologically complex to be semantically complex.’ But in other
words, the word can be a single morpheme and, in their development,
languages automatically assign a complex set of meanings to the word.
For example, I n Vietnamese, the word ‘thương’ is too complex to
translate into one word in English and vice versa. In which, ‘thương’ is
defined as ‘có tình cảm gắn bó và thường tỏ ra săn sóc’ (Phê, 2018).
(4) The source and target languages make different distinctions in meaning
(Baker, 2018, p. 20). This happens when the target language may have
more or fewer distinctions in a concept than the source language. For
example, in Vietnamese we have different terms for ‘bamboo’ in
English such as ‘luồng, lứa, bương, tre, sậy…’
(5) The Target language lacks a superordinate (Baker, 2018, p. 21). It is
when the target language may have specific words but there is not a
general word to head the semantic field. Take the word facilities in
English, meaning ‘any equipment, building, services, etc. that are

provided for a particular activity or purpose’ (Hornby, 2015, p. 545). It
does not have a ready equivalent in Vietnamese, however, it does have
many specific words and expressions which can be a part or thought of
as a type of facilities, for example thiết bị, cơ sở vật chất… On
discussing British Sign Language, Brennan (1999, as cited in Baker,
2018, p. 21):
An ongoing problem for interpreter is that the speaker often uses
an English generic term for which British Sign Language (BSL)

19


has no direct equivalent: the opposite problem is that BSL is
frequently much more specific than English. Some examples of
generic English terms … include: touch, hit, murder, assault,
hold. While the English word hit does not specify how someone
was hit (for example with the flat hand, the fist, the back of the
hand etc.) or where someone was hit (on the face, head, legs,
back, etc.), a sighed version of hit would typically be quite
specific in relation to how and where.
(6) The target language lacks a specific term (hyponym) (Baker, 2018, p.
21). As Baker (2018, p. 21) says ‘languages tend to have general words
(superordinate) but lack specific ones (hyponym), since each language
makes only those distinctions in meaning which seem relevant to its
particular environment.’ For example, under house, English has a large
number of hyponyms which have no equivalents in Vietnamese such as
bungalow, croft, chalet, lodge, mansion, manor, villa, hall…
(7) Differences in physical or interpersonal perspective (Baker, 2018, p.
21). Physical perspective may be of more importance in one language
than it is in another. Take come/go, take/bring in English. Interpersonal

perspective may include the relationship between participants in
discourse. Take she in English, we have a variety of terms to denote
‘she’ such as cô ấy, chị ấy, bạn gái ấy, thím ấy, mợ ấy, etc.
(8) Differences in expressive meaning (Baker, 2018, p. 22). This is a difficult
concept to acquire for, and the translator has to have a sense of sensitivity
to some extent to capture the expressive meaning of words. In that case,
the translator can add some evaluative element by means of a modifier or
adverb or by building it in somewhere else in the text. Baker (2018, p.23)
adds ‘this is often the case with items which relate to sensitive issues, such
as religion, politics and sex. Take homosexual for example, it does not

20


really project a pejorative idea in English, however, in Vietnamese
translation as đồng giới can be an assault or criticism.
(9) Differences in form. As Baker (2018, p. 22) puts it ‘there is often no
equivalent in the target language for a particular form in the source text.
Certain suffixes and prefixes which convey propositional and other
types of meaning in English often have no direct equivalents in other
languages.’ This use of suffixes in English are very creative, which may
convey expressive meaning and may be more difficult to translate.
Baker (2018, p. 23) cites an exciting example as ‘One advertisement for
the chocolate Toblerone which appeared in many outlets in the mid1990s showed three chocolate triangles against a larger image of the
three pyramids in Egypt, with the caption ‘Ancient Tobleronism?’
appearing next to the pyramids. Here, the -ism ending evokes
spirituality (as in Buddhism) and, possibly, tradition – the kind we
associate with established schools of thought that have large numbers
of loyal followers, such as Marx ism, Existential ism and so on. Eating
Toblerone is thus likened to a spiritual experience; at the same time, the

making of the chocolate, as well as eating it, are presented as part of a
tradition, with a long and stable history.’
(10) Differences in frequency and purpose of using specific forms. This
happens when a particular form does have a ready equivalent in the
target language, but there may be a difference in the frequency with
which it is used or the purpose for which it is used.
(11) The use of loan words in the source text. This is a complicated process,
once the translator borrows a loan word, he or she may not predict or
control its development or additional meanings it might (not) take.
To sum up, it seems unlikely to deal with all these problems of nonequivalence at the same time, but ‘it is important first of all to assess its

21


significance and implications in a given context (Baker, 2018, p. 24). A
translator’s job is to try, as much as possible, to convey the meaning of key
words and to bear in mind the similarity or the near-equivalence.
2.3.2. Strategies in Non-equivalence at Word Level
In translation studies, many scholars have used the term translation
strategies widely. Kearns (2009, p. 282) connotes the term ‘strategy’ as ‘a
teleological course of action undertaken to achieve a particular goal in an
optimal way.’ Meanwhile, Venuti (2001, p. 240) defines ‘Strategies of
translation involve the basic tasks of choosing the foreign text to be translated
and developing a method to translate it.’ Also on this issue, Lorscher (1991, p.
76 as cited in Scmmell, 2018, p. 48) focuses on the procedure as potentially
conscious during translation process, he defines ‘A translation strategy is a
potentially conscious procedure for the solution of a problem which an
individual is faced with when translating a text segment from one language
into another.’ Riccardi (1998, p. 172) has connected creativity with translation
strategies, he states ‘the interpreter applies different strategies to cope with

his/her task. Strategies are both language-specific and language-independent
in constant interplay during the reception and production of the text. This
interpreting performance will be creative.’ In this sense, he also focuses on the
language as being both specific and independent.
Palmer (1981, p. 21) pays attention to the role of the translator as a
professional to deal with the problem of non-equivalence: ‘The words of a
language often reflect not so much the reality of the world, but the interests of
the people who speak it.’ This view is agreed with by Baker’s (2018, p. 24)
and Baker lists out eight strategies professional translators should use for
dealing with non-equivalence at word level.

22


(1) Translation by a more general word (superordinate) (Baker, 2018, p.
25). This strategy is the commonest to deal with many types of nonequivalence, especially in the area of propositional meaning and in
given semantic field.
(2) Translation by a more neutral/less expressive word (Baker, 2018, p.
27). This strategy is useful when the target language does not have the
right word to the source language.
(3) Translation by cultural substitution. Baker (2018, p. 30) puts it ‘this
strategy involves replacing a culture-specific item or expression with a
target language item which does not have the same propositional
meaning but is likely to have a similar impact on the target reader, for
instance by evoking a similar context in the target language.’
(4) Translation using a loan word or loan word plus explanation. This
strategy is particularly common in dealing with culture-specific items,
modern concepts and buzzwords (Baker, 2018, p. 34).
(5) Translation by paraphrase using a related word. As Baker (2018, p. 38)
puts it ‘this strategy tends to be used when the concept expressed by

the source item is lexicalized in the target language but in a different
form and when the frequency with which a certain form is used in the
source text is significantly higher than would be natural in the target
language.’
(6) Translation by paraphrase using unrelated words (Baker, 2018, p. 40).
This strategy seems most useful when the paraphrase may be based on
modifying a superordinate or simply on unpacking the meaning of the
source item.
(7) Translation by omission. Baker (2019, p. 43) states ‘this strategy may
sound rather drastic, but in fact, it does not harm to omit translating a
word or expression in some contexts.’

23


(8) Translation by illustration (Baker, 2018, p. 45). It is most useful when
there is a lack of equivalent in the target language referring to a
physical entity or restrictions on space and when the text has to remain
short.
In conclusion, thought on both local and global translation strategies has
been discussed in the development of translation studies since the 1990s
(Kearns, 2009) or in his work, Venuti (2001) so calls it domesticating
strategies and foreignizing strategies. To top this off, Chesterman (2016, p.
86) proposes that ‘strategies are ways in which translators seek to react to
norms, … to try to conform to them, … not necessarily to achieve
maximum equivalence, but simply to arrive at the best version they can
think of, what they regard as the optimal translation.’
2.4. Review of Previous Study
Leonardi (2000) introduces Baker’s (2018) theory as “an extremely
interesting discussion of the notion of equivalence” (p. 7). As appraised in

Leonardi’s (2000) paper, Baker (2018) has provided “a more detailed list of
conditions upon which the concept of equivalence can be defined”. The
author particularly compliments levels of Baker’s approach as “putting
together the linguistic and the communicative approach” and agrees that in a
bottom-up approach to translation, equivalence at word level is the first
element to be taken into consideration by the translator.
Paluszkiewicz-Misiaczek (2005) accommodates the readers with a
considerably comprehensive analysis on Baker’s theory on non-equivalence at
word level before attempting to address specific problematic words and
expressions between English and Polish. The paper strongly corroborates
Baker’s theory by working on every problems and strategies of non-

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equivalence at word level and rationally provides the pros and cons of each.
All in all, the pertinence of Baker’s theory has been critically recognized. As a
brief introduction, the following table will present common problems of nonequivalence at word level as specified by Baker (2018).
In the article “Translation-Strategies Use: A Classroom-Based
Examination of Baker’s Taxonomy”, Aguado-Gimenez and Perez-Paredes
(2005) explore the use of strategies by undergraduate. The study evaluates
student’s translation from English to Spanish. An experiment was
conducted among 160 third-year students of English Studies who supposed
to be at upper-intermediate or advanced level of English. Those students
were provided a prior instruction about basic concepts on equivalence and
Baker’s (2018) categories as well as a variety of strategies to solve nonequivalence.
Aguado-Gimenez and Perez-Paredes (2005) notes that translation
using a related word; translation by paraphrase using unrelated words and
translation by omission seem to be favoured by Spanish native speakers.
According to the study, Spanish students did not use strategies such as

translation by a more general word and translation by cultural substitution
while their English classmates did not use the following strategies:
translation using a loan word or a loan word plus an explanation, and
translation by cultural substitution. It was concluded that all the students
failed to use cultural substitution. Regarding the failure of the students, the
author explains that the students at that level of translation training are not
qualified enough to master the use of given strategies though they tried to
apply provided strategies when exposing to difficult situations. Above all,
the study reaffirms the accuracy and pertinence of Baker’s strategy
taxonomy.

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