What is dynamic equivalence﹖

This broad theory of translation attempts to reproduce in the English reader the same understanding of meaning and degree of impact and challenge that the original Hebrew and Greek audiences experienced when the Scriptures were first produced. This is accomplished through a thought-for-thought, meaning-for-meaning, translation style.

What is dynamic equivalence?
When a statement in one language is translated into another language, there are two things that the translator must consider.

The form of words
The force of meaning
Translation is not accomplished by merely substituting words in a word-for-word equivalence. More often than not, this will not produce the force (or dynamic) of meaning. The translator will therefore modify the form of words so as to achieve the same force of meaning. The jargon for "the same force of meaning" is "dynamic equivalence".


An example
The best way to explain dynamic equivalence, and why it is important, is to take an example from the scriptures. There are dozens of examples. To keep our study as simple as possible however, I have tried to choose just one example that would illustrate the principle of dynamic equivalence well. It is a phrase in Acts 20:7.



In the original manuscript, the phrase would have appeared something like this. Writers used only capital letters and did not put spaces between words...

THE PHRASE IN THE MANUSCRIPTS
τημιατωνσαββατων


Translators today have the Greek in an easier form to read. The spaces have been inserted, and a lower case script is used. The phrase we are using as an example looks like this. The translator task is to help us understand what these Greek words mean, and he (or she) will do so by using an English phrase that conveys the same meaning as that Greek phrase does.

THE PHRASE IN TODAY'S GREEK TEXTS
τη μια των σαββατων


The translator would not (as we mentioned above) simply write an equivalent English word in place of each Greek word as is done below. A word-for-word replacement is of little use, because it is only a form of words equivalent, and does not convey the force of meaning (the dynamic equivalence). Whilst each English word is a counterpart of a Greek word, this string of English words is not a translation, because it fails to convey the meaning that the string of Greek words conveys.

THE PHRASE IN ENGLISH WORDS
the one of-the sabbaths?/span>


The translator, because he understands the Greek, would see three changes that need to be made in the above English rendering, so that it will give the sense of the Greek...

the word "σαββατων" rendered "sabbaths'" really means "week" in this instance
the word "μια" rendered "one" has the ordinal sense and actually means "first" in this instance
there is an elipsis in the Greek phrase and a word implied in the Greek needs to be supplied in the English, namely the word "day"
So the translator writes the phrase this way...

THE PHRASE IN ENGLISH SENSE
the first day of the week

The Greek phrase is now rendered in plain English such that we understand it well. The phrase has been made intelligible to us. Most translators would be satisfied with this translation. It nicely conveys both the form of words and the force of meaning.