Venuti versus Nida

In western translation theories, Lawrence Venuti and Eugene Nida appear to be standing at too opposing poles regarding the equivalence theory, and are notable for their prominent disagreement on the issue. Their theories diverge in their responses to equivalence, and disagree, essentially, on the functions of translation as well as the aspects of an acceptable translation. This disagreement unfolded itself clearly during a conference at Binghamton University in 1991. In this essay, I intend to juxtapose the exceptionally different theoretical approaches of these two prominent translation scholars. I also intend to show how Venuti’s views on translation in practice challenges Nida’s theoretical approaches to translation, and surprisingly enough his own theories particularly speaking, foreignizing and domesticating translations in which he has been extensively engaged. Finally I intend to show how Venuti’s practice of translation challenges his earlier attack on Nida’s conceptions of the “dynamic equivalence,” “naturalness of expression” (Nida 1964: 159) and the notion of “the equivalent effect” (de Waard & Nida 1986: 9).