Degrees of equivalence: A case of novel ' Shirish ko Phool'

Abstract

This present research study entitled “Degrees of Equivalence: A Case of Novel Shirish Ko Phool” has been conducted to explore the degrees of equivalence between two versions of cultural terms, their frequency and the techniques of translation and contribution of techniques in degrees of equivalence. The sources of data were both versions of the novel ‘Shirish Ko Phool’. To fulfil the objectives, the researcher underlined 200 cultural words and selected 50 terms out of them using stratified random sampling procedure; 10 terms in each cultural categories; ecology, material culture, social and organizational culture, religious culture and conceptual terms. Observation was used as the main tool for the research. The researcher categorised, analysed and interpreted the data with the help of ‘Brihat Nepali Sabdakosh’ published by Shajha Publication, Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary published by OUP and Nepali-English Dictionary published by Ekta Publication Nepal. Six degrees of equivalence were found between SLT and TLT. Among them, optimum degree of equivalence was the most frequent one which covered 36 per cent, whereas poor and mistranslations were the least frequent ones covering 6 per cent each. Similarly, nine techniques of translation were used. Literal translation was the technique mostly used i.e. it covered 36 per cent. On the other hand, couplet, back translation, definition and deletion were the least used technique of translation covering 2 per cent each. In similar vein, literal translation was found to constitute the highest percentage of optimum degree of equivalence i.e. 77.77 per cent. The major finding of this research is that to obtain optimum degree of equivalence, the translator used literal translation as a technique as much as possible. This thesis has five chapters. Chapter one sets the background of the study; chapter two reviews the literature; chapter three introduces the methodologies; chapter four discusses the data and findings and chapter five concludes and recommends. References and appendices constitute the final section of this research.