What it is
Two expressions are converses when they describe one state of affairs from the two ends of the relation binding the participants. Buy and sell, lend and borrow, precede and follow: each pair names a single event twice, once from each side. Applying the strategy means selecting the member that puts the participant the target sentence needs in subject position. The arguments exchange roles, the proposition holds unchanged, and nothing is negated, added or dropped.
Chesterman lists converses as S4 among the semantic strategies, with buy and sell as his own illustration. Filing it as semantic rather than syntactic is deliberate: the reversal is achieved by choosing a different lexeme, not by rearranging a clause around the same one. Converseness is not itself a translation concept but a standard relation in descriptive semantics, alongside complementarity and gradable antonymy; Chesterman's contribution is to treat it as an operation a translator can reach for.
Two neighbours need separating. Antonymy, Chesterman's S2, selects the opposite term and adds a negative element. A converse contains no negation and no antonym: its members are not opposites but complementary descriptions of one relation. Voice change is the grammatical analogue: a passive reverses which participant is thematic while keeping the verb, whereas a converse changes the verb and keeps the voice. Where the target avoids the passive, the converse is the lexical route to the same information structure.
When it applies
- The target has no single verb covering the source's direction of the relation, or its natural collocation runs the other way.
- Topic continuity requires a particular participant as subject, and the passive is unavailable, unidiomatic or too formal for the register.
- The source verb is direction-neutral and relies on case marking, so the target must commit to one member of the pair.
- Target conventions fix the perspective, as in contract recitals drafted from one party's side.
Examples
DE>EN
- Source: Er hat mir sein Auto geliehen.
- Target: I borrowed his car.
- Comment: German leihen names the transaction without fixing its direction; the dative pronoun supplies it. English has one verb per participant, so the translator must choose. Taking the borrower as subject keeps the first person thematic across the passage, and the event, the parties and the object are untouched.
FR>EN
- Source: La commission a remis son rapport au ministre.
- Target: The minister received the commission's report.
- Comment: One handover, described from the receiving end. The converse gives the minister subject position without a passive and without demoting the commission to an agent phrase. Where the paragraph continues about the minister, the source ordering forces a subject change at every sentence boundary.
NL>EN
- Source: De toelichting gaat vooraf aan de bijlagen.
- Target: The annexes follow the explanatory memorandum.
- Comment: Precede and follow express one ordering relation from its two ends. The reversal is licit precisely because the pair is converse; an antonym pair would not permit the exchange without altering what is asserted.
TR>EN
- Source: Alıcı satış bedelini satıcıya öder.
- Target: The seller receives the purchase price from the buyer.
- Comment: Formally impeccable and professionally wrong here. The source imposes an obligation on the buyer; the converse describes the seller's position. In an operative provision the party named as subject is the party bound, so the reversal moves the duty.
Watch out for
The commonest error is treating any pair of related verbs as converses. A true converse holds in both directions: if A sold the property to B, then B bought it from A. Teach and learn fail that test, since teaching does not entail learning, and so do pairs that merely feel symmetrical, such as offer and accept.
- Apply the negation test before classifying. If a negative element has appeared or disappeared, the operation is antonymy rather than a converse.
- Converses redistribute given and new information. A reversal that reads well in isolation can break the theme chain of the surrounding paragraph.
- In binding text the subject of an obligation is substantive. Reversal belongs in narrative and explanatory passages, not where rights and duties are allocated.
References
- Chesterman, A. (1997). Memes of Translation: The Spread of Ideas in Translation Theory. Benjamins Translation Library 22. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, Ch. 4. Revised edition (2016), Benjamins Translation Library 123, Ch. 4.
- Lyons, J. (1977). Semantics, Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.