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existing, mostly prescriptive and a-historical approaches to the
problem." (p.63) He bases his approach, which he labels 'functional-
relational equivalence', on the primary assumption that translation is
the replacement of one message, encoded in one natural langauge, by an
equivalent message, encoded in another language. For translating to
take place and translation to occur, three basic requirements should be
met: (1) the presence of two different language codes; (2) the
establishment of two distinct messages, each encoded in a different
language code; and (3) the establishment of a certain relationship
between the two messages. It is this relationship which Toury calls
'equivalence'. The establishment of equivalence between two distinct
messages encoded in two different langauge codes is constrained by
certain 'norms' which are neither extremely objective nor fully
subjective, but intersubjective factors determining the translational
solutions. By translational solutions Toury means the procedures
implemented to establish the relationship obtaining between the TT
(translated text) and the ST (source text). Translation norms may act
as a 'model' in accordance with which translations are actually
formulated.
Toury, then, sets out to bridge the gap between the concept of
'translational relationship', which is norm-governed, and 'translation
equivalence', which, far from being normative, is broad, flexible and
changeable. Such a gap, which is only apparent, could be bridged by
projecting the applicability of the norms onto the concept of
equivalence by postulating that:
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