1) Translate into Spanish the paragraphs below considering that the main target audience is the Spanish-speaking LGBT community in California. The Spanish translation will be posted in the National Center for Lesbian Rights website and will be used in court for further proceedings. Imagine you are a professional translator working for a US translation agency, and you have to team up with other translators across Latin America who are working in other documents of this same project. The agency requires the team to strictly follow this glossary: https://www.courts.ca.gov/selfhelp-glossary.htm?rdeLocaleAttr=es#p
2) Analyse, either in Spanish or in English, the following glossary entry considering the concepts of dynamic and formal equivalences in translation:
Materials:
a) Márquez, N. P. (2008). Diferentes aproximaciones al concepto de equivalencia en traducción y su aplicación en la práctica profesional. Tonos Digital: Revista Electrónica de Estudios Filológicos, 1-15.
[L]a verdadera revolución del concepto de equivalencia llegó de manos del modelo teórico de Eugene Nida. Como verdadero precursor de la traductología como disciplina, Nida en su obra titulada Toward a Science of Translation with Special Reference to Principles and Procedures involved in Bible Translation, define el proceso de traducción como una reproducción en la lengua del receptor meta de un equivalente lo más fiel posible al original, respetándose en primer lugar el contenido, y en segundo lugar el estilo:
“Translating consists of reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source language message, first in terms of meaning, secondly in terms of style”.
De esta manera, Nida desarrolló un enfoque comunicativo de la traducción. Básicamente, Nida defiende que, a la hora de realizar su trabajo, el traductor se debate entre dos modos o estilos de traducir que representan dos polos opuestos: la traducción de “equivalencia formal” (acercándose más al texto origen) y la de “equivalencia dinámica” (acercándose más al lector y a la cultura meta).
La traducción por equivalencia formal se orienta principalmente a conservar la forma lingüística que tiene el original en la lengua de salida, tratando de imitarla en la sucesión de las palabras, en la sintaxis y, en la medida de lo posible, en la sonoridad y la fonología de la lengua de llegada. En definitiva, nos encontraríamos ante una traducción literal.
La equivalencia formal sólo se produce en raras ocasiones, ya que factores tales como las diferencias culturales no permiten un calco de las estructurales formales, obteniéndose como resultado una sensación de extrañeza en el lector meta en la mayoría de los casos en que se utiliza este tipo de equivalencia. Obviamente, el lector meta espera obtener un producto que no sea capaz de reconocer como traducción, sino como un constructo que identifique dentro de las estructuras formales e idiomáticas de su lengua.
El otro modo de traducir se denomina por equivalencia dinámica y no trata de calcar la lengua origen, sino de reproducir con los recursos propios de la lengua de llegada el efecto pragmático que un texto produce en un oyente o lector. Nida defiende la idea de que la intención de todo traductor debe ser la de provocar en el receptor del texto meta el mismo efecto que produce el texto original en su lector. La equivalencia dinámica o de efecto consiste en la adaptación del texto al nuevo lector de forma que éste conciba la traducción como un texto natural, no forzado, dentro de su comunidad lingüística, para lo que el traductor deberá superar distancias lingüísticas y culturales. El traductor debe, en definitiva, buscar el equivalente más natural y más próximo y trasladar el efecto del texto original al texto meta.
b) Dayan, L. (2012). Dynamic equivalence and formal correspondence in translation between Chinese and English. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 2(12), 242-247.
A dynamic equivalence, as defined by Nida, is to reproduce "in the receptor language the closest natural equivalence of the source-language message..."
The key words are "closest", "natural" and "equivalence". By "closest", he indicates that owing to the impossibility of absolute equivalence, the "closest" equivalence is the most ideal one. Nida particularly stresses that "a natural rendering must fit the receptor language and culture as a whole; the context of the particular message; and the receptor-language audience". To put it plain, either the meaning or form should not sound "foreign". The essence of dynamic equivalence is the receptor's response, in Nida's own term, "the degree to which the receptors of the message in the receptor language respond to it in substantially the same manner as the receptors in the source language". The reaction or response is based on the comprehensive reception of the message, not only understanding the meaning or content, but also feeling in the way the original readers do. By laying stress on the receptor's response, he underlines the improvement to the source text by the receptor's subjectivity and aesthetic sense.
Nida [Eugene] puts forward dynamic equivalence in opposition to formal correspondence. In speaking of naturalness, he is strongly against translationese —— formal fidelity, with resulting unfaithfulness to the content and impact of the message. Basically, a formal equivalence translation, as Nida states, is source-oriented, which is designated to reveal as much as possible the form and content of the original message, that is, to match as closely as possible the formal elements like grammatical units, consistency in word usage, meanings in terms of the source context, just to name some.
[L]anguage and culture are inseparable. "Language is an integral part of culture," John Lyon says, "and that the lexical distinctions drawn by each language will tend to reflect the culturally-important features of objects, institutions and activities in the society in which the language operates". Peter Newmark echoes Lyon's opinion by stating: "culture is the way of life and its manifestations that are peculiar to a community that uses a particular language as its means of expression".
Text to translate into Spanish
INTRODUCTION
Appellant, A.G., alleged in his complaint for wrongful death below that Respondent, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, entered his father’s home, used a Taser on his father – who was mentally ill – because he would not stop singing in his bathroom, and that his father died as a result. (App. Appendix at pp. 9-11.) The Superior Court improperly dismissed A.G.’s wrongful death claim solely because A.G.’s father, Brian Pickett, was not A.G.’s biological or adoptive father, even though A.G. alleged facts that, if proven, would establish that Mr. Pickett was A.G.’s legal parent under well- settled California law. (See Order at p. 2; App. Appendix at p. 146.) Under the plain language of California’s statutes, any child who can establish that the decedent is their legal parent under the California Uniform Parentage Act (hereafter California UPA), as A.G. has alleged, has standing to bring an action for wrongful death under Code of Civil Procedure, Section 377.60. The Superior Court’s dismissal of A.G.’s claim is contrary to California statutes, severely undermines California’s public policy, and violates the U.S. and California Constitutions.
The Superior Court’s finding that wrongful death claims can only be brought by children with biological or adoptive parents is contrary to the plain language of California’s parentage, probate, and wrongful death statutes. California allows any child to bring a wrongful death action after the death of a parent if the decedent’s parentage can be established under the California UPA. A.G. has alleged facts showing that Mr. Pickett is his legal parent under the California UPA and thus has standing.
California’s wrongful death statute allows “[a] cause of action for the death of a person caused by the wrongful act or neglect of another may be asserted by. . . [t]he decedent’s surviving spouse, domestic partner, children, and issue of deceased children.” (Code of Civ. Proc., § 377.60, subd. (a), italics added.)1 Both parties recognize that whether a claimant has standing to bring a wrongful death action under Code of Civil Procedure Section 377.60 is determined by whether the claimant would inherit intestate under the Probate Code. (Resp. Br. at p. 8; Pet. Br. at pp. 26-27.) As another Division of this Court has explained, the term “children” in Code of Civil Procedure, Section 377.60 means a person who would inherit intestate as a child of the decedent under the Probate Code. (Cheyanna M. v. A.C. Nielsen Co. (1998) 66 Cal.App.4th 855, 863–864; see also Scott v. Thompson (2010) 184 Cal.App.4th 1506, 1514 [non-biological father who was a presumed parent under Fam. Code § 7611, subd. (a) had standing to bring a wrongful death claim because he was entitled to inherit intestate from the child under the Probate Code].)
Respondent incorrectly asserts that A.G. would not inherit intestate from Mr. Pickett because only a decedent’s biological “issue” are entitled to inherit. (Respondent’s Brief at p. 13.) Respondent provides no citation or support for this proposition, nor does any exist. The plain language of the Probate Code provides that a child inherits intestate if parentage is established under the California UPA, which A.G. has alleged he can prove. Under the Probate Code, a person’s “issue” “means all his or her lineal descendants of all generations, with the relationship of parent and child at each generation being determined by the definitions of child and parent.” (Prob. Code, § 50.) The Probate Code further provides that “a relationship of parent and child” exists between a person and their “natural parents” and that “[a] natural parent and child relationship is established where that relationship is presumed and not rebutted pursuant to the Uniform Parentage Act.” (Prob. Code, §§ 6450, 6453).
The Superior Court’s ruling also effectively excludes children with same-sex parents, who nearly always have a non- biological parent,2 from the benefits of Code of Civil Procedure Section 377.60. As the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized, same-sex parents and their children have equal protection and due process rights to receive all the same state law benefits granted to different-sex parents and their children. (Obergefell v. Hodges (2015) 135 S.Ct. 2584, 2600 [holding that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry and noting harms suffered by children of same-sex parents because of unequal treatment]; see also U.S. v. Windsor (2013) 133 S. Ct. 2675, 2696 [holding that the federal law prohibiting recognition of marriages between same-sex spouses serves no “legitimate purpose,” but rather “instructs . . . all persons with whom same-sex couples interact, including their own children, that their marriage is less worthy than the marriages of others”].) California law recognizes circumstances in which same-sex parents, like similarly situated different-sex parents, are legal parents even if they do not have a biological or adoptive relationship to their children. That includes circumstances, where a biological parent’s same-sex partner holds a child out as her child and raises the child as her own, even though she is not biologically related to the child, and families with children conceived through assisted reproduction. (Elisa B., supra, 37 Cal.4th 108 [holding that the same provision relied on to establish the legal parentage of a non-biological father in In re Nicholas H., supra, 28 Cal.4th 56 must be applied equally to a non-biological mother]; Fam. Code § 7611 [listing methods of establishing that a person is a “natural parent” using gender neutral language]; Fam. Code § 7613, subd. (a) [person who consents in writing to conception of a child through assisted reproduction is a legal parent].) The result of the Superior Court’s ruling thus violates both the U.S. and California Constitutions.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, amici respectfully request that this Court reverse the decision below and remand this case for a determination of Mr. Pickett’s parentage and allow A.G. to proceed with his wrongful death claim.
Respectfully submitted February 5, 2018, /s/ Catherine P. Sakimura
