Problems of Translating Definite and Indefinite Articles from English into Arabic

A study of definite and indefinite articles is one of the most problematic areas in the fields of syntax, grammar, and translation. No doubt, the articles system differs greatly from one language to another, and; therefore one of the biggest problems for translators tackling the translation of articles from English into Arabic is the difficulty of specifying the type of reference each article involves in its cotext and context. This study mainly aims at: (1) giving a comprehensive study of definite and indefinite articles in English and Arabic; (2) specifying and selecting different samples of definite and indefinite articles from books of English grammar; (3) comparing and contrasting articles systems in English and Arabic; (4) showing the type of reference each article involves in its cotext and context; (5) showing how the specified samples are realized in Arabic; and (6) specifying the method of translation that has been used by the subjects. To achieve the objectives above, the study hypothesizes that: (1) the translation of definite and indefinite articles poses serious problems for translators as well as learners of English and Arabic because of the different types of references these articles involve; (2) since, there is no complete formal correspondence between articles systems in English and Arabic; therefore, translators who adopt a dynamic equivalence are more successful than those who adopt a formal equivalence; and (3) nil-equivalence of indefinite articles between English and Arabic poses serious problems for translators and contrastive analysts. To test the validity of the hypotheses, this study draws on a miscellany of data sources for its analysis. Sixty seven samples of different patterns with different reference were translated from English into Arabic by six M.A students in the Department of Translation. English texts with their renderings have been analysed by using tables in terms of reference (e.g., generic, specific, and unique) and type of translation methods. The main findings the study arrived at are: (1) despite the fact that there is a formal correspondence between the English definite article “the” and the Arabic definite article “أل التعريف” on the word rank as well as phrase rank, this generalization does not always work, since in many cases the translation equivalence of the English zero article happens to be definite article in Arabic; (2) with reference to definite generic, reference, a formal correspondence has been achieved between the definite article in English and its equivalence “أل التعريف” in Arabic; (3) as far as definite specific reference is concerned, formal correspondence has been achieved by most subjects with few exceptions. The study ends with some conclusions, suggestions for future studies and recommendations for pedagogical implications.

Incorrect specification of these references result in inappropriate and inaccurate renderings.

AIMS OF THE STUDY
The present thesis aims at: (1) Giving a comprehensive study of definite and indefinite articles in English and Arabic .

HYPOTHES ES
In the current study, it is hypothesized that: (1) Translation of definite and indefinite articles poses serious problems for translators as well as learners of English because of the different types of references these articles involve. (2) Since, there is no formal correspondence between articles systems in English and Arabic; therefore, translators who adopt a dynamic equivalence are more successful than those who adopt a formal equivalence. (3) Nil-equivalence of indefinite articles between English and Arabic poses serious problems for translators and contrastive analysts.

II. SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The current thesis is confined to the study and translation of definite and indefinite articles from English into Arabic. Sixty seven different patterns with different types of references from books of grammar with their six renderings have been chosen as units of analyses because of time and space limits. The study limits itself to a onedirection translation, viz., from English into Arabic.

III.
PROCEDURE AND DATA COLLECTION The procedure used in this thesis can be summarized as follows: (1) A theoretical framework of definite and indefinite articles is made and the semantic ambiguity which arises from the overlap between different types of references has been removed. This may affect the process of translation.

VALUE OF THE STUDY
Translators, translation theorists, students and practitioners of translation can avail of this study when tackling translation of definite and indefinite articles across languages and cultures. It is also expected to be relevant to appropriate cultural interaction, and mutual understanding between English and Arabic cultures and societies. Furthermore, results and conclusions arrived at are anticipated to have theoretical and pedagogical implications for grammarians, translators, syllabus designers and researchers.
have acquired their names as a consequence of this fact and of its actual or attributed significance in the light of the conventions that regulate the assignment of names in particular cultures) (yeom, 1998: 51). This means that, in default of specific contextual information to the contrary, for most speakers of English the name "Napoleon" will usually be taken to refer to this culturally salient entity. It also means that there will be a whole host of shared associations and connotations clustering around the name "Napoleon", which go to make up what some philosophers refer to as the intension, or individual concept, "Napoleon". However, it does not mean that the name "Napoleon" as such has any descriptive content or sense (for further comments, see Kaplan, 1989: 500, Lyons, 1991: 68 and2005: 295).
Apart from proper names, there are two main subclasses of referring expressions that are distinguishable, both syntactically and semantically, in English: nounheaded noun-phrases and pronouns. Actually, the traditional analysis of what are called noun-headed noun-phrases (e.g., "the boy" , "those four old houses") can be challenged on both syntactic and semantic grounds. For simplicity, the conventional view will be adopted according to which it is indeed the noun that is the head, or principal constituent, in such phrases: hence the term "noun headed". It is also worth pointing out that the term "noun-phrase" is used in the sense in which it is now commonly used in linguistics. Nounphrases, in this sense, are not necessarily composed of more than one word: i.e., they are not necessarily phrases in the traditional sense of the term "phrase" (for further details, see McCawley, 1976: 68, Matthews, 1981: 36, and Lyons, 2005.
In some languages, words denoting classes of entities can be employed to refer to individuals without any accompanying modifier (definite or indefinite article, demonstrative adjective, etc.): this is not the case in English, where nouns such as "man" or "tree" (count nouns) cannot be employed, without modification by means of a determiner ("the" , "that" , etc.), a quantifier ("one" , etc.) or some more complex expression, to refer to individuals. But languages vary considerably in this respect, and there are many differences of detail among languages which fall into one class (English, French, German, etc.) and languages which fall into another (Russian, Latin, etc.). This fact is mentioned because most of the discussion of referring expressions in general, and of noun-headed nounphrases in particular, in the recent literature is skewed towards languages that behave, syntactically, more or less like English. The treatment of reference in this study is highly selective and, of necessity, uses examples from English. It must; therefore, be emphasized the importance of bearing constantly in mind that English is only one o f several thousand natural languages, many of which do things differently (Romine, 1985: 11, Poole, 1999: 111, Lyons, 2005.
Noun-headed noun-phrases can be classified semantically in several ways. One subclass to which philosophers have devoted considerable attention is that of definite descriptions: expressions which refer to some definite entity and identify it, in part, by means of the descriptive content of the expression. English examples include "the man" and "John's father". As the term "definite description" suggests, all such expressions may be factorized, semantically if not syntactically and lexically, into two components. One of these, is descriptive (e.g., the word "man" in "in the man"); the other is purely referential (e.g., the definite article "the" in English). Here it will suffice to point out that the referential component is nondescriptive, in that it does not identify the entity that is being referred to by describing any of its contextindependent properties (Potts, 1994: 44, Thomas, 1996: 31, and Lyons, 2005. The head-noun (e.g., "man" in "the man") in so-called definite descriptions will be more or less descriptive of the referent according to the specificity or generality of its sense. At the limit of generality in English is the word "entity", which can be used to refer to physical and nonphysical (Hoope, 1992: 67) objects and is derived from a Latin word which was deliberately created by philosophers to have exactly the degree of generality that it does have. Since it is descriptively unrestricted, it can combine freely with any other modifying adjective, noun, relative clause, prepositional phrase, etc. But the vast majority of entitydenoting nouns in English are not like this. They fall into "different sortal categories according to what are held to be the essential (or ontologically necessary) properties of the classes of entities that they denote". For example, "thing" denotes a class of inanimate entities, concrete or abstract; "person" denotes a subclass of animate entities of which human beings are the prototypical (though possibly not the sole) members (Hoop, 1992: 67, andLyons, 2005: 297).
These differences of denotational category (or subcategory) based on actual or assumed ontological differences of kind, quality, process, etc. (which may in part determine and in part be determined by the formal and substantive universals of human cognition) are the source of what has been called categoried incongruity and have distinguished from contradiction (Huddleston, 1984: 28, Lyons, 1991: 70 and 2005. The two logically separable components of definite descriptions give rise to two different kinds of presupposition: existential and sortal (or categorical). For example, whoever uses the expression "the woman" or "the man" , in what we may call, loosely, an ordinary context, is committed to the existential presupposition that the referent exists and the sortal presupposition that it is of a particular sort, or category: the category of persons. It is existential presupposition; however, that has been most extensively discussed in recent years by both philosophers and linguists (Lyons, 2005: 298). The reason is that the violation of an existential presupposition, unlike the violation of a sortal presupposition (e.g., Quadruplicity drinks procrastination. Thursday is in bed with Friday) cannot be accounted for as being in any way anomalous within the framework of sentence-based semantics. To take the now famous example: there is nothing wrong with the sentence.
It is in the utterance of this sentence (to make a statement) at a time when there is no king of France that the existential presupposition is violated (Allwood, et al, 1985: 116;and Langacker, 1987: 72, and Lyons, 1991: 71, and 2005.
We shall not go into the various controversies associated with the notion of existential presupposition. We will simply point out that, on the view of sentences, utterances and propositions taken in this study, anyone who deliberately violates an existential presupposition in using what purports to be a definite description fails to express any proposition at all. Looked at in this way, much of the recent discussion of presupposition by philosophically minded semanticists, important though it may appear to those who are committed to a strictly truth-conditional theory of meaning, is of secondary importance in linguistic semantics. But there are, none the less, one or two important points to be made in this connexion (Cann, 1993: 54, O'Grady, et al, 1997: 28, and Lyons, 2005.
First, it is not just definite descriptions that involve existential presuppositions, but referring expressions of all kinds. Reference is intrinsically connected with existence; one cannot successfully refer to something that does not exist. One can, of course, successfully refer to imaginary, fictional and hypothetical entities; but in so doing, one presupposes that they exist in an imaginary, fictional or hypothetical world. Similarly, one can (and frequently does) refer to dead persons. One can refer to them in a past-tense sentence as existent in a world (or state of the world)which itself no longer exists (e.g., Socrates was condemned to death in 399 BC for "allegedly" corrupting the young men of Athens). More interestingly, one can refer to them as existent in the present world in literature or oral tradition (e.g., Socrates tells us "in the works of Plato" that noone does wrong knowingly or voluntarily) (for further comments, see Cann, 1993: 55, Samovar and Porter, 2002: 91, and Lyons, 2005.
Second, the falsity of the descriptive content of a referring expression, whether it is a definite description or not-does not nullify the act of reference and render it void. One can successfully, but mistakenly, refer to someone or something by means of a description which, as it happens, is false Jackendoff, 2001: 87, Marten, 2002: 94 and Lyons, 2005: 300). Let us suppose-to adopt and modify a now famous example-that x and y are at a cocktail party and that x notices some third person, z, holding in his hand a tumbler filled with a colourless liquid and also containing ice and lemon. In these circumstances x might successfully refer to z for the benefit of y by using the expression "the man (over there) drinking gin and tonic". Here it is sufficient to note that, whether an expression of this kind is added to the definite description or not, in the circumstances envisaged there will commonly be some gesture or other signal drawing the addressee's attention to the referent. Let us now further suppose that, as a matter of fact, z's glass contains, not gin and tonic, but water (and even that z is not drinking it, but merely holding it for someone else). The fact that the descriptive content of "the man drinking gin and tonic" is false does not mean that x has failed to refer to z. If y successfully identifies z as the intended referent, x has successfully referred to z. Indeed, x need not be mistaken about the facts in order to refer successfully (but falsely) to z. There are all sorts of everyday situations in which, out of politeness or for other reasons, we refer to people, animals or things by means of descriptions that we know or believe to be false. In short, the actual truth or falsity of the descriptive content of a referring expression is not directly relevant to its success. Normal human interaction is governed by a set of culturally determined conventions, amongst which truthfulness is often very properly moderated by politeness. (Jackendoff, 2001: 87, Marten, 2002: 94, and Lyons, 2005.
What should be emphasized is that definite descriptions, more obviously that proper names, are context-dependent. Their use as referring expressions cannot be satisfactorily accounted for solely within the framework of sentence-based truth-conditional semantics. When speakers employ a definite description, they indicate by means of the referential part of the expression that they are performing an act of reference, and, in doing so, they tacitly assure the addressee that the descriptive part of the expression will contain all the information that is required, in context, to identify the referent (cf. Kadmon, 1990: 280, Ioup, 1997: 240, and Lyons, 2005.
Here it is sufficient to note that such generally accepted de re / de dicto ambiguities of the kind illustrated here give us particularly cogent reasons for extending the theory of reference beyond the bounds of what have been loosely and inadequately called ordinary contexts. Indeed, it is arguable that there is much more intensionality involved in so-called ordinary contexts than is generally supposed (Kripke, 1977: 70, 1980: 55, and Lyons, 2005.

VII. REFERENCE AND ARTICLES IN ENGLISH AND ARABIC
Articles belong to the wider class of "determiners", words or phrases that come at the beginning of a noun phrase and signal whether the information is new or familiar, or which tell us something about quantity (Aziz, 1979(Aziz, : 27, 1989: 95, Azar, 1992: 206, Leech and Svartvik, 1994: 237, Biber et al., 2000.
English uses three types of articles. They are as follows: (1) The Definite Article "the": It is used to express definiteness for all kinds of nouns (i.e., countable nouns both singular and plural as well as mass nouns) (Neuman, 1981: 12, Azar, 1992: 207, and Murphy and Smalzer, 2003. The following table is illustrative Mass Nouns The gold, The knowledge Definite Meaning (2) The Indefinite Article "a / an" : It is used to express indefinite meaning of singular count nouns (Heim,1987(Heim, :25, 1991(Heim, : 56, 1992. The following table is interesting. It has been pointed out that determiners, of which the articles are central, determine the reference of the noun with which they are used. Let us consider the following examples. (1) An aeroplane is faster than a car.
(2) I found a ring.
In example (1) an aeroplane does not refer to any specific aeroplane. It refers to the whole class of aeroplanes . This reference is called "generic reference". In example (2), on the other hand, the noun phrase "a ring" refers to a specific ring; its reference is ; therefore, termed "specific reference". The difference between these two references obtains in the plural as well, e.g.

VIII. ARTICLES AND GENERIC REFERENCE IN ENGLIS H AND ARABIC
Reference is generic when a noun phrase refers to a whole class rather than to an individual person or thing (Heim, 1991: 56, Enc, 1991: 4, and Benita, 2004 Generic "the" takes place with plural noun phrases in two special cases: a) Nationality Nouns: i.e., noun phrases referring to the people of a nationality, an ethnic group, etc., e.g. 1. The Japanese are short .
(generic) 2. The Russians are tall . By contrast, the indefinite article has a distinctly limited role in conveying generic meaning, since it tends in non-referring use to carry a general partitive implication (such that "a" means "any") which may in certain contexts be merely tantamount to a generic (Heim, 1991: 57 andEnc, 1991: 4). The limitations on generic implication can be seen in comparing the following examples: 1. Tigers run more gracefully than most animals . 2. A tiger runs more gracefully than most animals.

Tigers are becoming extinct .
But note : 4. *A tiger is becoming extinct .
With regard to the generic use of the zero article, the following examples are illustrative . 1. Cigarettes are bad for your health .

Hydrogen is lighter than Oxygen .
From examples (1) and (2) , one can say that the generic use of zero article with both plurals nouns (example 1) and noncount nouns (example 2) identifies the class considered as an "undifferentiated whole" (Quirk et al., 1985: 272).
As for Arabic, the definite article ‫التعريف"‬ ‫"أل‬ is used with a noun to indicate generic reference, e.g. 1. ‫الكلب‬ (The dog) .
Arabic may use partial generic reference which is expressed by a noun. Such nouns have "zero article", e.g.

‫الغربية‬ ‫الدول‬ ‫سياسة‬
(The politics of the western Countries) .
The adjectival "equivalent" takes the definite article, e.g.

‫اإلنكليزي‬ ‫الشعر‬
(English {Poetry) . (for further details, see Aziz, 1989: 106) As it has been mentioned earlier, the singular and the plural are neutralized in generic reference, and the dual number is always specific whether definite or indefinite, e.g.

‫زهرتين‬ ‫قطفت‬
(I picked up two flowers) (indefinite specific) . (cf. Aziz, 1989: 106). One can come to the conclusion that English uses three articles (i.e., the definite / indefinite / zero) for expressing generic reference, whereas Arabic uses the definite article with all types of common nouns for expressing the generic reference. The following table is illustrative . In this sentence, the indefinite a dog cannot refer to a specific dog. Rather the sentence is generic, expressing a property of the canine species.
There is another use of indefiniteness. A's question can be roughly interpreted as follows:

Does John have any dogs ?
This is the use which is traditionally called a quantificational use of indefiniteness. The question is not about a particular dog, and so it is odd to refer to the dog by a pronoun like it. Instead, the pronoun one is used to denote an arbitrary dog (cf. Abusch, 1994: 90, andYeom, 1998: 41).
This can be compared with the following discourse. 4. A friend of mine is going to graduate soon. He is very smart.
The indefinite is generally regarded as specific. Specificity has been characterized as the speaker having an individual in mind. In other words, when the speaker utters the sentence, he seems to have a particular friend in mind. In this case, the indefinite allows for using a pronoun he in order to refer to the specific friend (Enc, 1991: 25 andYeom, 1998: 4).
The issue I am interested in is restricted to the uses of indefinites illustrated in (2) and (4) I will not discuss indefinites which are interpreted as generic. The Discussion begins with the issue of whether the two uses of indefinites which are illustrated in (2) and (4) reflect semantic ambiguities. This distinction is not clear-cut. Let's look at the following discourse: 5. John has a dog. It is black and white.
It seems that the indefinite a dog can be interpreted as quantificational. These two sentences can be true in a situation where the speaker hears that John has a dog which is black and white. It may be that John has more than one dog, and that the speaker does not know this. One fact is that it is possible for the speaker not to have a particular dog in mind. Still it allows for the use of the pronoun it.
There is some evidence that shows that prag matic factors intervene in the use of pronouns. 6. [At least one student] is going to present a paper. He is well aware of the problems with the paper.
If the quantifier at least one student cannot be about a particular student, there may be no possibility that a student can be picked out by what is actually expressed. In (6), however, the speaker can use the pronoun he to refer to a student. This would be strange if the speaker had no student in mind when he utters the first sentence. A still more interesting case arises when the two sentences are uttered by two different speakers. In the following conversation, A is talking to C, but in the middle of it, B is intruding into the conversation and asking a question. 7. A: At least one student is going to present a paper.
B: Is he aware of the problems with the paper ? In ordering situations, B's question is odd. If use of the quantifier at least one student allows for the use of the pronoun, there is no reason the pronoun makes B's utterance odd. B's question becomes acceptable only when B knows what student A is talking about and A also knows that B knows who A is talking about. In this sense, the use of the pronoun not only is linguistically determined, bu t needs pragmatic consideration (Heim, 1992: 190 andYeom, 1998: 5).
Despite pragmatic consideration, indefinites must be distinguished from a quantifier like at least one student. Let's look at the following conversation. 8. A: John has a dog .
B: Is it black and white ? Even when B does not know which dog A is talking about, he can use the pronoun it. This does not mean that an indefinite allows for a pronoun like it even if the indefinite is used in a quantificational reading. We have already witnessed that in some cases where an indefinite is quantificational, one is used. Closer scrutiny reveals that still some other pragmatic factor is involved in the use of the pronoun in (8). A's statement is semantically true when John has two or more dogs., but in this situation B's question is infelicitous. Even if A's statement asserts that John has at least one dog, B understands it as implicating that John has only one dog considering the possibility that if John had two or more dogs and A knew it, he would make a different utterance (Ward andPrince, 1991: 170 andYeom, 1998: 5).
In order to see whether indefinites are ambiguous, we have to find cases where pragmatic factors cannot intervene. It is hard to come up with such cases since in making utterances we are always supposed to follow some pragmatic principles. For this reason, it is difficult to examine indefinites as to whether or not they are ambiguous (cf. Diesing, 1992: 50).

X. ARTICLE AND SPECIFIC REFERENCE IN ENGLIS H AND ARABIC
Tackling specific reference, a distinction must be first drawn between indefinite and definite reference. In indefinite specific reference, the indefinite article "a/an" is used with singular nouns and zero article or the unstressed indefinite "some" is used with plural and mass nouns (see 208), e.g. 1. I saw a girl and a boy standing under a tree. (indefinite specific reference). 2. I found (some) girls and (some) boys playing in a garden. (indefinite specific reference). 3. Joe has been chasing (some) women ever since he was young. 4. I would like to have (some) coffee or (some) tea.
In regard to definite specific reference, it can be expressed by using the definite article before singular and plural count nouns as well as mass nouns. Let us consider the following examples. 1. When the policeman had gone, I remembered that I had not told him about the damaged window-pane.

2.
Would the children like to go out and play ? (definite specific reference). 3. Oh dear ! The ink has not come out of the carpet.
In sentences (1), (2) and (3) the identity of the particular "policeman", "damaged window-pane", "children", "ink", "carpet" is obvious because they are physically present and visible. But the reference might be obvious because the situational reference was in the minds of addressor and addressee (Quirk et al., 1972(Quirk et al., : 154, 1985 As for Arabic, it seems that the indefinite and definite specific reference can be expressed by using zero Article and the definite article respectively (Aziz, 1979(Aziz, : 20, 1989: 105, Ilyas, 1985: 52, Kremers, 2000, e.g.
The definite article can also be used for what is given in the situational context, e.g.

‫الحديقة‬ ‫أزهار‬ (The flowers of the garden).
In Arabic, one can also draw a distinction between linguistic reference and situational reference. Linguistic reference may be either anaphoric or Cataphoric. The following examples are illustrative. As for dual number, it is by definition specific, e.g. 1. ‫وردتين‬ ‫زرعت‬ (I planted two roses) (Indefinite specific Reference).
One can illustrate the distinction between specific reference both definite and indefinite by using the following tables.

Articles and Unique Reference In English and Arabic:
Proper nouns are basically "names", by which we understand the designation of specific people (Dickens), places (London) months (March), days (Friday) holidays (Christmas), magazines (Times), and so forth. Names have "unique" reference, and do not generally share the formal characteristics of common nouns. In particular, they lack articles, or rather article contrast: London ~ *the London ~ *a London The Hague ~ *Hague ~ *a Hague Names reflect their uniqueness of reference in writing by our use of initial capitals. This device enables us to raise to the uniqueness of proper noun status such concepts as "Fate" , "Fortune" , "Heaven" , "Hell" , "Truth" , "Nature" , "Paradise" . These are sometimes written with initial capital letter (Quirk et al, 1972(Quirk et al, : 160, 1985 Sometimes, names have restrictive modification to give a partitive meaning to the name, proper nouns take the (cataphoric) definite article. As for Arabic, unique reference points to a single individual and is expressed by zero article used with proper nouns: , ‫عمر‬ , ‫دمشق‬ ‫أربيل‬ , ‫حلب‬ A number of proper nouns such as geographical place names can take the "definite article", e.g. , ‫الديوانية‬ , ‫القدس‬ ‫الناصرية‬ , despite the fact that the "zero article" is also used in spoken colloquial language: ‫قدس‬ , ‫ناصرية‬ , ‫ديوانية‬ . The proper noun may be converted to a common noun with a change in its reference by placing it in construct to another noun. The zero article is used and the noun phrase has generic reference, e.g. ‫زمانه‬ ‫سيبويه‬ (The Sibawayhi of his age) ‫الشرق‬ ‫باريس‬ (The Paris of the East). If the proper noun originally takes the definite article, the article is dropped, e.g. ‫الموصل‬ → ‫الجنوب‬ ‫موصل‬ ‫المتنبي‬ → ‫قومه‬ ‫متنبي‬ (Aziz, 1989: 106).
One can draw a distinction between unique reference in English and Arabic by using the following table.

XI.
THE MODEL ADOPTED From our literature review that tackled the specification of definite and indefinite articles, one can say that this topic has been studied from different points view, namely syntactic, semantic and logical. In fact, depending on one level or view is not sufficient to grasp the whole subject; therefore, we will adopt an eclectic approach in order to specify the accurate and exact types of references for the articles in question.

The Concept of Translation:
The term translation itself has several meanings: it can refer to the general subject field, the product (the text that has been translated) or the process ( the act of producing the translation, otherwise known as translating). The process of translation between two different written languages involves the translator changing an original written text (the source text or ST) in the original verbal language (the source language or SL) into a written text (the target text or TT) in a different verbal language (the target language or TL). This type corresponds to 'interlingual translation' and is one of the three categories of translation desribed by the Intralingual translation would occur for example, when we rephrase an expression or text in the same language to explain or clarify something we might have said or written. Intersemiotic translation would occur if a written text were translated, for example, into music, film or painting. It is interlingual trans lation which is the traditional, although by no means exclusive, focus of translation studies (for further comments, see Kussmaul, 1995: 60).

Formal and Dynamic Equivalence and the Principle of Equivalent Effect:
The old terms such as 'literal' , 'free' and 'faithful' translation, are discarded by Nida in favour of 'two basic orientations' or 'types of equivalence' (Nida 1964: 159): (1) formal equivalence and (2) dynamic equivalence. These are defined by Nida as follows:

Formal Equivalence:
Formal equivalence focuses attention on the message itself, in both form and content. One is concerned that the message in the receptor language should match as closely as possible the different elements in the source language (Nida 1964: 159).
Formal equivalence is thus keenly oriented towards the ST structure, which exerts strong influence on determining accuracy and correctness. Most typical of this kind of translation are 'gloss translations' , with a close approximation to ST structure, often with scholarly footnotes, allowing the student in an academic environment to gain close access to the language and customs of the source culture.

Dynamic Equi valence:
Dynamic equivalence is based on what Nida calls 'the principle of equivalence effect' , where 'the relationship between receptor and message should be substantially the same as that which existed between the original receptors and the message' (Nida 1964: 159). The message has to be tailored to the receptor's linguistic needs and cultural expectation and 'aims at complete naturalness of expression' 'Naturalness' is a key requirement for Nida. Indeed, he defines the goal of dynamic equivalence as seeking 'the closest natural equivalence to the sourcelanguage message' (Nida 1964: 166, Nida andTaber 1969: 12). This receptor-oriented approach considers adaptations of grammar, of lexicon and of cultural references to be essential in order to achieve naturalness; the TT language should not show interference from the SL, and the 'foreignness' of the ST setting is minimized in a way that would now be criticized by later culturally oriented translation theorists , 1988a, 1988b, Bell, 1991, Baker, 1992, Farghal, 1993, and Hatim and Mason, 1997, and Farghal and Shunnaq, 1999. For Nida, the success of the translation depends above all on achieving equivalent response. It is one of the 'four basic requirements of translation' , which are : 1. making sense ; 2. conveying the spirit and manner of the original ; 3. having a natural and easy form of expression ; 4. producing a similar response .
It is interesting to note the similarity with Tytler's principles of translation in one of the early attempts at systematizing translation theory at the end of the eighteenth century (Kamal, 1999: 45, Ke, 2001: 7, Karamanian, 2005.
Although dynamic equivalence is aimed at, it is also a graded concept since Nida accepts that the 'conflict' between the traditional notions of content and form cannot always be easily resolved. As a general rule for such conflicts, Nida underlines that 'correspondence in meaning must have priority over correspondence in style' if equivalent effect is to be achieved. (See also, Kussmaul, 1995: 60 andHongwei, 1999: 50