Globalization seems to have imposed a
new paradigm on us whether we approve of it or not we ought to adapt and
adjust to the matrix we live in and this involves complying with what
appears to be practical and feasible. This appears to be consistent
with what Thomas Kuhn (1996) conceives of the conditions and
circumstances which induce ‘paradigm change’ in the theories and
mechanisms we use in some of the social sciences or humanities which we
subscribe to in order to account for a particular transaction be that
translation or a communication encounter between two individuals. To be
precisely candid, what takes place in the process of translation along
with the heightened debate among translation scholars concerning the
question of ‘equivalence’ has ushered in such a state of affairs which
calls for a real solution or a paradigm change in our overall approach
to translation equivalence. This particular approach has taken into
account the applicability of the mechanisms with which one can account
as intelligibly as possible for both the fragility of the notion of
translation ‘equivalence’, and the possibility of considering the act of
translation as an act of inter-cultural communication encounter.
Therefore, this paper is designed to underlie the existence of a
paradigm shift in the process of translation equivalence and underscore
the countless merits of adopting the proposition which subscribes for
‘skopos theory’ or a functionalist approach as a viable solution to so
many problems confronting every translator as well as communicators.
My rationale for such a claim comes from various but highly salient
reasons one of which is that the existing translation approaches on
‘translation equivalence’ do not seem to provide inclusive remedies to
what confront the translator in translating technology terms, nor do
some of these approaches acknowledge the significance of the elevation
of the role of the translator to an author status; and the merit of
prioritizing the target text over the source text on a more practical
and rational basis.Keywords:Translation, functional equivalence, technology terms, paradigm change