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(3) Stylistic equivalence, where there is 'functional equivalence' of
elements in both original and translation aiming at an expressive
identity with an invariant of ideational meaning.
(4) Textual (syntagmatic) equivalence, where there is equivalence of
the syntagmatic structuring of a text, ie. equivalence of form and
shape.
Translation involves more than the substitution in the receptor
language of lexical and grammatical structures which correspond to
their counterparts in the source language. It aspires to achieve
Popovic's 'expressive identity' between SL and TL texts, which I take
to mean a totality of semantic informativity of a magnitude similar to
that of the original. But equivalence does not only imply that the TL
text should be equally identical, on both the linguistic and semantic
level, to the original. The impressionistic impact of the target text
on the target reader should be as equally identical to that of the
source text on its immediate recipient. For translation, especially
literary translation, is both expressive and impressive.
Jakobson (1966, pp232-239) maintains that equivalence cannot be
defined in terms of sameness or synonymy. For him, translation is no
more than 'a creative transposition', with no further claim to identity
between SL and TL texts. Finally, he concludes that "Poetry, by
definition, is untranslatable. Only creative transposition is
possible: either interlingual transposition - from one language to
another, or finally intersemiotic transposition - from one system of
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