This document discusses Roman Jakobson's theories on translation from his 1959 essay. It outlines the three types of translation he described: interlingual, intralingual, and intersemiotic. Interlingual translation involves replacing messages in one language with those in another. The document also discusses Saussure's conception of the linguistic sign consisting of a signifier and signified. Finally, it notes that Jakobson examined issues of linguistic meaning and equivalence in translation, and that differences between languages can be rendered through interlingual translation, except for poetry which requires creative transposition.

1. Equivalence and
Equivalent Effect
Lectured by
S.Mehrparvar

2. Roman Jakobson
• 1896-1982
• Russian- American linguist
• Literary theorist
• Pioneer of the structural analysis of language
• Influenced by the work of Ferdinand de
Saussure

3. • In his famaus essay 1959 ( on linguistic aspects of
translation)
• Jakobsen described three kinds of tranlations:
- interlingual translation
- intralingual tranlation
- intersemiotic translation

4. Interlingual
• Refering to tranlation between two different
written sign system (replacing a verbal sign
with another sign but belonging to a
different language

5. • Interlingual translation involves ‘substitut[ing]
messages in one language not for separate code-units
but for entire messages in some other language’.

6. Saussure’s conception of “Sign”
• Saussure sets out the relation between the
signifier and the signified.

7. Saussure’s conception of “Sign”
• A sign is composed of two elements: a ‘signifier’ (i.e.
the spoken and written signal) and the ‘signified’ (i.e.
the concept it represents).

8. Saussure’s conception of “Sign”
• The same signifier could stand for a different
signified (and thus it is a different sign).
• Similarly, many signifiers could stand for the same
concept. The signifier and signified together form the
linguistic sign, but that sign is arbitrary or
unmotivated. (Saussure, 83: 67-9)

9. • It is possible to understand what is signified by a
word even if we have never seen/experienced the
concept/thing in real life. (Jakobson, 1959)
• 2 examples:
- ambrosia
- nectar

10. • Jakobsen has three principle ideas in linguistic
- Typology : classification of languages in terms of shareds
grammatical features
- Markedness: the study of more natural grammatical forms
- Linguistic universals: the study of general features of
languages in the world

11. Universalism
VS
linguistic ralativity
(sapir-wharf hypothesis)
rejected by Pinker 1994

12. • Roman Jakobson examines the issues of linguistic
meaning and equivalence in ‘On Linguistic Aspects
of Translation’ (1959).

13. • There is ordinarily no full equivalence between code-
units. (Jakobson, 1959)

14. • In Jakobson’s discussion, the problem of meaning
and equivalence focuses on differences in the
structure and terminology of languages, but not on
any inability of one language to render a message
that has been written in another verbal language.

15. • Cross-linguistic differences center around obligatory
grammatical and lexical forms: ‘Languages differ
essentially in what they must convey and not in
what they may convey’. (Jakobson, 1959)
• Differences occur at:
• Level of gender
• Level ofaspect
• Level of semantic fields

16. • Differences between languages can be rendered
interlingually.
• Only poetry is ‘untranslatable’ and requires
‘creative transposition’, because in poetry
• ▪form expresses sense；