Introduction
Literary translation is a branch which receives a great attention by many scholars in the translation studies. The simplest distinction of literary translation, which can distinguish it from other translations, is three-fold or threedimensional (Hochel, 1991). Hochel (1991) describes the three-fold of translating literary works as follows, firstly it is translated from an original language to another one; secondly, it is changed from one time which is created in a literature work to a new one that means the time in a finished translation; finally, it is altered from a specific space which used for cultural milieu in the original work to another. These complexities of literature lead to a wide variety of translating procedures, for example, literal translation and non-literal translation, which are generally accepted in translation studies. As a whole, it is resonable to apply both of them in translating literature. As literal translation can get access to an accurate translation product, which is depended on the syntactic level, however, in the view of stylistic requirement, it leaves a lot to be desired. To some extent, it might also bring "interferences" into "equivalents", by contrast, non-literal translation may be more cognitive, which consider the situation of original text and provide moderate modification(Wilss, 1996). Thus, Wilss (1996) proposed that the result of non-literal translation is not only keeping the semantic meaning, but also the equivalent rhetorics, which has received a great attention in literary translation. It should be acknowledged that it is not very easy to provide a desirable equivalent for every source language (SL), as each country has its own unique SL such as the use of tense, sentence structure or system (Hochel, 1991; Hietaranta, 1993). All of the above difference are suject to the distinctive cultures of each country.
As there are differnet cultures exist around the world, it is necessary to consider the cross-culture in the literature. According to Wilss (1996), the readers cannot understand the meanings without understanding the culture, and Triandis' s opinion is also mentioned (cited in Wilss,1996, p85) as follows:
"cultures differ from on another in degrees, along several dimensions. Anthropologists have shown us that the world is divided into cultural areas. Within these areas interaction should be easier, provided the same response is adequate. If the same situation calls for a different response, the fact that two cultures belong to the same cultural area may lead to difficulties…"
In translation studies, many scholars pay great attention to cross-culture and try to search a more balanced approach for it. For example, Goodenough (cited in Wilss, 1996) suggests that culture is not a purely material phenomenon which is composed of actions or emotions in people's mind, but a kind of way of thinking which might be interpreted differently. The aim of literary translation is to enable the readers to understand the underlying cultural meaning, and then might benefit from it, thus, it is quite important to apply cultural translation in translating literature especially in novels.
There are a large number of different language and cultures in the whole world, therefore, equivalence might be a good way to balance the meaning in the literal translation. That is said, in every translation there will be limitations. It is impossible to achieve a satisfactory equvalent to a given SL, because it is difficult to give an equal ideas from language L1 (the SL) to language L2 (the target language). Based on this discussion, this paper will focus on the communicative equivalence that the readers could easily obtain the meanings, although the novels they read might write in another language. It means that translators can apply equivalence translation in novels to a moderate degree, which could keep cultural values of the original works. This paper is structured as follows. In section 1, it describes the equivalence in translating novels. In section 2 and 3, it discusses creativity in equivlence and the importance of cultural values. Section 4 describes the relation between equivalence and cultural values. In the last section, it presents conclusion.
1 Equivalence in translating novels
The word equivalence is frequently used in literary translation which tend to transcend the cultural differences from source translation (ST) to target translation (TT), and it is a controversial point that scholars have different ideas. Some researchers prefer the 'linguistic knowledge' which focuses on the meaning of the text, and other researchers agree with the 'world knowledge' (Schaffner,1992, p155) which means the outer meaning of text. It is impossible to provide an explicit definition, and it would be better to focus on limited aspects of the conception of equivalence. For example, according to Holmes' view (cited in Hietaranta,1992, p117):
Equivalence, like sameness, is asking too much. The languages and cultures to be bridged, however close they may sometimes seem, are too far apart and too disparately structured for true equivlaence to be possible. …Rather it consists in fiding what I should prefer to call counterparts or matchings-words, turns of phrase, and the rest, fulfilling functions in the language of the translation and the culture of its reader that in many and appropriate ways are closely akin to those of the words etc. in the language and culture of the original and its reader.
The above quotation indicates that it is unlikely to translate the source text as same as the target text, thus, equivalence is not reliable. It might be constrained for translation theorists, and it is unresonable that 'a theoretical model of translation' (Beaugrande, 1978) can offer a solution for all the problems which would occur during the working of translators. The translators could make their readers understand the meaning, which is conveyed from the source text, by changing the translation tools or techniques (Hietaranta, 1992). To some extent translation seems as a communication,it is impossibe to keep it just at the linguistic level but also consider the cultural meaning (Cheng, L.&Sin, K.K.,2008). Bruce (1995) describes that translational equivalence is the similarity between a word or expression in one language and its translation in another. This similarity results from overlapping ranges of reference. An equivalent is a corresponding word or expression in another language. However, as Shveitser (1993) pointed out, a distinction of effort exists in translating between equivalence and adequacy. Full equivalence is the highest possible quality of translation. Adequacy, on the other hand, requires a less exhaustive retrieval of the fully communicative-functional contents of the original. Therefore, there is a gap between equivalence and adequacy. Baker (1992) provides a more detailed framework for the equivalence. She explores the conception of equivalence at different levels, such as lexical, grammatical, textual, and pragmatic, in relation to the translation process, including all different aspects of translation and hence putting together the linguistic and the communicative approach. She further suggests that 'translators must not underestimate the cumulative effect of thematic choices on the way we interpret text' (Baker 1992,p129), which is strongly advocated by Halliday and Matthiessen as in the claim 'while translation should give equal weight to all three metafunctional contributions, there has been a strong tendency to give more weight to the ideational metafunction' (1999,p47). Because of the complexity and controversy in equivalence, it is sometimes argued that there is only gradable similarity.Later, Flaherty and colleagues (1988) proposed a stepwise validation for cross-cultural equivalence including five major dimensions. These dimensions are: 1. Content equivalence: investigator focuses on the cultural relevance of the content of each of an instrument's items to the culture being targeted for investigation. 2. Semantic equivalence: investigator addresses whether the meaning of each item is the same in the cultures of interest after translation of the instrument into the language of each culture. 3. Technical equivalence: investigator assesses whether the data collection method (that is, interview and questionnaire.) is comparable in each culture regarding the data yielded. 4. Criterion equivalence: investigator addresses interpretation of the measurement, that is, whether the concept stays the same when compared with the norm for each culture investigated. 5. Conceptual equivalence: investigator targets the instrument's ability to assess the same theoretical construct in each culture.
2 The concept of creativity in equivalence translation
Research on creativity, so far, is still a controversial field, as there are a variety of means, recognition. According to Guilford's view of creativity (1950), and it seems a definition of him (1968) which indicates that in the narrow sense, it relates to the creative abilities of a person. These abilities could determine the degree of the result of the creative action, which is dependent upon the motivation of that person. That is to say, creativity also refers to intelligence.
However, it is more likely to be a 'smoke-screen concept' which is proposed by Wilss.(1996, p49). According to Wilss (1996), the conception of translation creativity should be described at three aspects. Firstly, there is a dimension of creativity application, which is not suitable for all the human beings. Everyone has the ability of creativity, but it depends on the good linguistic knowledge. Secondly, one of the effective methods in translation is creativity, and it is not the only one. Finally, the degree of creativity is connected with the type of source which the translator would work on. For literature, it is possible to modify, as its 'stylistic differentiation and variation' (Wilss, 1996, p50), which requires a moderate translating.
3 Consideration of cultural values
According to Larson' s view (cited in Wilss, 1996, p85), "culture gives us our general patterns for dealing with problem, some of which arise with individual, while others come from his immediate environment…". It is possible to apply a cultural perspectives into translating novels which result in maintaining the cultural values. However, different culture may lead to problems between the source language culture and the target language culture. For example, a translator tell the same story which is given as an original novel, but it can not make a sense for readers. Kingston (1982) uses "ghost" in two different language and context. One is the mother's ghost story in China, and "ghost" refers to the spirits or the devils. It is easy for Chinese reader to understand. The other refers to the "foreigners" who live outside the China, and non-Chinese readers understand it in a multiple meanings which depend on the distinctive culture. The translator try to find a right level to keep the original cultural style,because translator come across new readers. This is related to the degrees of equivalence applied in translation.
4 The role of equivalence translation in protecting cultural values
Novels seem to be a treasure which represents the typical culture of each country, in this case, translation becomes a medium to spread the information. Equivalence translaion gets access to maintain the original textual value. Lee (2004) mentioned that 'cultural translation', and emphasizes cultural exchange in literary activity, which should take cultural values into account instead of sole remaining on the linguistic level. The main strength is trying to find a different strategy for translation, which would be a creative activity. It is reasonable to consider ethnic factors in literary translation. In this case, when an English-speaking reader reads an ethnic literature, it would be familiar to the reader with a distinctive writing. For example, in Kingston's novel (cited in Lee, 2004), she tends to show Chinese legends, which are heard from her mother who had lived in China, in her childhood stories which happened in America. It is not easy for the readers who are not live in China, therefore, the descriptions should be created and imaginative to some degree which result in a 'cultural and psychological interaction' (Lee, 2004, p106). Facing with the ideographic problem, it is significant to translate the ideographs into a landscape, which reduces the difficulty of imagining the pictures in the original context exactly for a different cultural reader.
Conclusion
This research paper has given an account of including cultural value in literary translation.During the translation process, there are three characters which refer to the transformation of language, time and space from ST to TT (Hochel, 1991). Translators should take cultural factors into account when they are dealing with translating works. To some extent, culture seems as a bridge for readers to get access to SL, it is impossible to know a new ideas of novels with ignoring the culture, and this view is related to the cross-cultrual equivalence translation in the following.
In this research paper, the aim was to determine equivalence translation, and how it can maintian the original cultural value. However, it is a controversial idea. For example, Ingo (1993, p130) suggests that equivalence does not work in the literary translation, if 'inexactness of lexicalization' and different linguistic systems are existed between two languages. On the contrary, Flaherty (1988) proposed that it is necessary to use equivalence in translating literature, especially the cross-cultural equivalence which divided into five aspects. This study has shown that equivalence is to keep the original cultural values for new readers who might come from different countries and use distinctive languages. In this case, creativity also play an important role in translation of novels, because it can be an aid of equivalence, for instance, the reader can understand the deep meaning through ethical factors which is one aspect of creativity.
The limitation lies in this paper that it just focus on one of five dimensions of equivlaence translation, which was proposed by Flaherty and colleagues in 1988. The rest four aspects semantic equivalence, technical equivalence, criterion equivalence and conceptual equivalence did not be considered. Further research might to be done to apply these four aspects in translating literature effectively.
In general, this study suggest that it is not provide an exactly way how equivalence might be achieved in the translation of novels, but in what kind of situation or what kind of content it should be applied, therefore, translators must be possessed adequate linguistic, extralinguistic, and sociocultural knowledge in two languages when they are doing literary translation.
