«[...] las palabras que nos sustituyen y a veces alguien recuerda o transmite, no siempre confesando su procedencia¹».

"[...] the words that replace us and that someone occasionally remembers or passes on, not always confessing to their provenance [...]"².

In the previous two units, we saw what can be some meanings or applications of the notion of "equivalence" in Peircean semiotics. We got a very fortuitous and relative notion. But, as far as translation is concerned, the main researcher that historically dedicated himself to the question of equivalence is J. C. Catford that in 1965 published the classic A linguistic theory of translation. An essay in applied linguistics, to which reference was made by other researchers for a long while after. This text is where translations studies are identified as (that, as is evident from the following quotation, was not yet specifically so named) a branch of comparative linguistics:

The aspect that we now call "chronotopical" in translation is destroyed at its basis, because the spacetime coordinates are eliminated a priori from the scope of research:

The notion of "equivalence" is fundamental for translation, because it is part of its own definition:

And in my opinion the main problem of the whole Catford theory is his following of the notion of equivalence in order to base any other upon it. People following this course have already time and again come across the notion of "total translation" as part of Peeter Torop's theory, but until this point I have never mentioned the prehistory of the "total translation" locution, a central part of this very essay by Catford, pre-dating Torop by thirty tears. Here the notion of "total translation" is counterbalanced by the notion of restricted translation, which is the substitution of textual material of the TL only at one level, i.e. only at graphological or phonological level. By contrast, the definition of total translation is:

The recent notion of "total translation", as it is evident, does not accept much of Catford's definition. The notion of "totality" is accepted mostly, applied however to textual components completely different in the semiotic context.
  The aim of Catford's total translation is finding "textual equivalents" and their substitution. Here is the definition that is given:

Something is therefore equivalent to something else - even in this view - only in a specific occasion, i.e. it is a contingent, not absolute, equivalence. This feature undermines the notion of equivalence as (mathematical) parity of value. Maybe it is not worthwhile investing too much energy in discussing the term "equivalent" more than Catford himself does. He starts from an absolute term and the, step by step, empties it of all its features until just the shell is left. We have arrived at the point where it is too difficult to decide what an equivalent is; he proposes, therefore, to go on translating in order to see 2hat happens. The equivalent is then defined as the portion of text changing when a portion of prototext changes:

This empirical strategy is not altogether successful, however, because there is the problem of the mismatching grammar categories (parts of speech) between different languages, in the given case Russian, French and English. Comparing the English, French, and Russian sentence:

the easily visible problem that, any way you decide to define "equivalent", the English "a" has no equivalents in the other two languages. Catford allows for the problem but does not let it go, rather he shifts the argument to another level:

On a scientific plane, this should lead to the creation of a different model, not based on the word as minimal translation unit, but on longer text fragments. Unfortunately, this is not the case. The "a doctor" case is just left unresolved.
  Another problem faced by the equivalence theory is the one of the semantic field of a word. There are no two identical semantic fields, not only between two languages compared, but not even in the same language. Catford knows that, and consequently tells us:

It is advisable to let slide the contradiction implied in the sentence "more than one equivalent". Here Catford implicitly reveals that what lends strength to his theory is the possibility of the creation of translating machines. Catford is not dealing with translation, but with machine translation, even though he never tells us so explicitly. The many hints dispersed in his text, however, make us realize that perfectly well. Facing the polysemy, and difference of semantic field, problems, Catford reacts with statistics, the utility of which he neglects to explain:

Possessing this precious datum, equivalence-probabilities, we now know something very, very important. Namely, that when in a translation we meet the word X, in 60% of the cases we translate it with the word Y. Provided the type of text does not vary. Provided the subject does not vary. Provided the author does not vary. Provided the historical time does not vary. Provided the register does not vary. Provided the collocation does not vary.
  Will be able our hero to accomplish his task? We shall see in the next unit (continued).

Bibliographical references

CATFORD J. C. A Linguistic Theory of Translation, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1965. ISBN 0-19-437018-6

MARÍAS J. Negra espalda del tiempo, Punto de lectura, 2000 (original edition 1998), ISBN 84-663-0007-7.

MARÍAS J. Dark Back of Time, New York, New Directions, 2001 (translated by Esther Allen), ISBN 0-8112-1466-4.