Direct transfer

Established equivalent

Render a fixed expression by the fixed expression the target language already has. Also called Équivalence or idiomatic equivalent.

Reference/All techniques

Obligatory Phrase Clause Vinay & Darbelnet (1958, équivalence) Delisle (1993) Molina & Hurtado Albir (2002)

What it is

An established equivalent replaces a fixed source expression with the fixed target expression that covers the same situation. The two are unrelated in wording and often in imagery; what they share is the occasion of use. The translator is not composing anything, but recognizing that the target language has already settled the matter.

Vinay and Darbelnet introduced this as équivalence and applied it to the whole inventory of ready-made language: idioms, proverbs, fixed phrases, interjections, onomatopoeia and clichés. Their point was that these units describe a situation by entirely different structural and stylistic means in each language, so the unit of translation is the situation rather than any of its parts. Molina and Hurtado Albir relabeled it "established equivalent" and narrowed the definition to a term or expression recognized as an equivalent by dictionaries or by established usage in the target language, which shifts the criterion from the translator's judgement to an external record. Delisle similarly treats the operation as a matter of retrieving what the target language already provides.

The category carries an unresolved objection. Pym has observed that Vinay and Darbelnet used "equivalent" throughout without ever formally defining it, and Molina and Hurtado Albir themselves question whether équivalence names a procedure at all, or whether it merely describes a result that other procedures produce. The objection explains why some inventories drop the category, and why an established equivalent can usually be reanalysed after the fact as adaptation, modulation or paraphrase.

When it applies

  • The source unit is fixed rather than composed: a proverb, an idiom, a formula of politeness, a conventional exclamation.
  • The target language holds a comparable fixed unit used in the same situations and at a comparable register.
  • The source expression is opaque, so a component-by-component rendering would yield either nonsense or an unintended literal reading.
  • Convention governs the wording, as in correspondence formulae, warning notices and legal recitals, where the reader expects the received phrasing.

Examples

FR>EN

  • Source: Aïe !
  • Target: Ouch!
  • Comment: The standard illustration for interjections. There is no shared material at all, and no analysis of the source form would produce the target form. What matches is the occasion, and the equivalence is fixed in the dictionary rather than chosen by the translator.

TR>EN

  • Source: hav hav
  • Target: woof woof
  • Comment: Onomatopoeia is conventional, not phonetic: each language has agreed on a spelling for the same sound. Transferring the source form produces an unreadable string, which is why Vinay and Darbelnet grouped onomatopoeia with idioms rather than with sound.

NL>EN

  • Source: Nu komt de aap uit de mouw.
  • Target: Now the cat is out of the bag.
  • Comment: Two unrelated images, one situation: a concealed matter has become visible. Preserving the Dutch monkey and sleeve would force the reader to reconstruct an idiom that English does not have, losing the ordinariness the source expression carries.

DE>EN

  • Source: Aller Anfang ist schwer.
  • Target: The first step is the hardest.
  • Comment: Proverbs behave as single units. The German is a commonplace and the English is a commonplace; a faithful rendering of the German wording would produce a sentence that reads as an observation rather than as a saying, which misreports its function.

Watch out for

The failure mode is over-application. An established equivalent is admissible only where the source unit is genuinely fixed; applied to ordinary composed language it becomes an unrequested idiomatization, and the reviser's objection is that the source said something plainer than the target now says.

  • Check register and currency. An equivalent that exists but has aged, or that belongs to a different regional variety, imports a marking the source did not have.
  • Check the cultural load. Where the source idiom carries a reference the text goes on to exploit, substituting a target idiom breaks that later reference.
  • In binding text, apply it to formulae and not to substance. Recitals, oaths and attestation clauses have received target wordings; operative provisions do not, and a familiar phrase there substitutes one legal system's standard language for another's.

References

  • Vinay, J.-P. & Darbelnet, J. (1958). Stylistique comparée du français et de l'anglais: méthode de traduction. Paris: Didier. English translation by J. C. Sager & M.-J. Hamel (1995), Comparative Stylistics of French and English: A Methodology for Translation, Benjamins Translation Library 11. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, pp. 38–39.
  • Delisle, J. (1993). La traduction raisonnée: manuel d'initiation à la traduction professionnelle de l'anglais vers le français. Ottawa: Presses de l'Université d'Ottawa.
  • Molina, L. & Hurtado Albir, A. (2002). "Translation Techniques Revisited: A Dynamic and Functionalist Approach." Meta 47(4), 498–512.
  • Pym, A. (2014). Exploring Translation Theories, 2nd edition. London: Routledge, Ch. 2.

Terminological situations that call for this

The entries below describe states of a concept or of its designation in which this technique is the operation that answers them. They are reasons of evidence and of conceptual fit rather than of grammar.

Assessing term equivalenceEqual authenticity and autonomous conceptsPrimary and secondary term formationProper names and institutional designationsSynonymy, polysemy and acceptabilitySources of term evidenceTerminological phraseologyText type and the admissibility of an equivalent

Fixed units this technique places

The entries below are units whose target wording was settled before the translation began. Where this technique applies to one of them, the work is retrieval rather than composition: the fixed form is found and placed, and a fresh rendering would be an error rather than a variant.

Attestation and certification formulaeBinomials and doubletsCitation formulaeComplex prepositions and institutional connectorsOpening and closing formulae in correspondenceJudicial and procedural formulaeReference and amendment formulaeDefinitional formulaeConnectives and discourse relationsDrafting manuals and style guidesFrames with variable slotsHeadings, rubrics and form labelsLexical bundles and recurrent sequencesMetadiscourse and signpostingModality formulae in binding textModel texts and precedentPerformative and enacting formulaePreamble and recital formulaeRoutine formulaeStandard clauses and boilerplate

Expectations this technique converts to

The entries below are expectations that fully determine the target form. Where this technique applies to one of them there is one right output once the governing authority is known, and a wrong output is a finding rather than a variant, whoever holds the expectation.

Short titles and abbreviated citation

Related entries

Recognized translation Adaptation Paraphrase Trope change

Translation that can be checked

Every Translyta delivery comes with a quality report and a terminology report, so the decisions described here are visible to your reviser instead of buried in the text.

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