Between Languages: What Interpreting Really Involves

The Myth of Equivalence

Interpreting is often described as transferring meaning from one language to another. It sounds tidy. Almost mechanical. At the heart of that description sits a powerful assumption: that languages contain equivalents—ready-made matches waiting to be swapped across.

After 35 years working between BSL and English, I’ve come to see that this assumption is less a method and more a myth. In this first reflection, I want to start there—because once equivalence begins to unravel, so does our understanding of what the work really involves.

The concept of equivalence has been a central, and highly debated, idea in translation theory for decades. Early theorists sought to classify and define it—often along a spectrum between formal equivalence (staying close to the source form) and dynamic or functional equivalence (conveying the same effect or function in the target language)⁩.

Linguist Eugene Nida’s work exemplifies this tension. Eugene Nida distinguished between formal equivalence, which attempts to mirror source structure and content, and dynamic equivalence, which focuses on producing a comparable effect in the target language audience. Yet even this dynamic approach doesn’t claim identical replicas of meaning—it acknowledges that languages organise reality differently; instead, it aims for similar impact rather than identical form.

Other scholars have pointed out that equivalence is not just difficult—it’s controversial. The term itself has been described as the biggest bugbear of translation theory, debated and re‑debated without ever settling into a universal, workable definition because languages don’t naturally line up like identical puzzles waiting to be clicked together.

In sign language interpreting, this myth of neat equivalence becomes especially clear. BSL and English differ not only in grammar and lexicon, but in cultural framing, metaphor, spatial grammars, and embodied meaning. What looks equivalent on paper often feels hollow or misleading in practice. So rather than striving for equivalence between languages, we learn to operate between them—tracking intention, context, interaction, and effect, and making choices that honour meaning rather than mirroring forms.

A couple of examples:

Idioms and Cultural Luggage

Take the English idiom “Don’t beat around the bush.” In English, it’s a mildly impatient nudge to get to the point. But translated literally into BSL? It falls completely flat—there is no bush, no beating, and the point is lost in a flurry of confused foliage.

Instead, an interpreter might opt for a more culturally and linguistically fitting BSL construction like “POINT SAY WHAT?” accompanied by appropriate facial expression and affect. The meaning is preserved, but the form is entirely transformed. This is not equivalence—it’s intelligent re-creation.

Structure and Spatial Meaning

BSL’s spatial grammar offers another clear challenge to equivalence. In a discussion about family dynamics, a BSL user might set up two people in space and refer to them directionally to show contrast or conflict. English has no equivalent spatial mechanism.

An interpreter can’t simply point and hope—it requires restructuring the message into comparative clauses, shifting voice, and maintaining clarity without the visual anchors BSL naturally provides. Again, the goal isn’t structural equivalence, but functional clarity: ensuring the listener grasps the relationships, tensions, or narrative shifts as intended.

What We Do Instead

If not equivalence, then what? What do interpreters aim for when no direct match exists, when the sentence unravels into idiom, inference, or cultural context?

We aim for functional accuracy—capturing not the form of the message, but its effect. It’s not about mirroring words; it’s about translating experience. The intention, the tone, the relationship dynamics, the emotional weight—that’s what we carry across. And we do it using a toolkit that is more art than algorithm.

One of the most essential tools in that kit is contextual judgement. Every choice—word order, register, gesture, facial expression—is guided by who’s speaking, to whom, in what setting, with what stakes. What lands well in a medical setting might feel wildly inappropriate in a stand-up comedy night, and vice versa. The interpreter is constantly negotiating tone, cultural framing, and audience needs, even as the conversation unfolds.

Another tool: creative reformulation. When a phrase has no neat parallel in the target language, we rebuild it. We might break it down, explain it, replace it with something that resonates culturally, or reshape it entirely. In BSL/English work, this often means drawing on visual storytelling, spatial grammar, and affect in BSL—or restructuring and rephrasing in English to carry over what can’t be shown directly.

And then there’s the subtle but vital act of calibration—deciding how close to stay to the source message, and when to diverge slightly to maintain clarity or tone. Sometimes a metaphor needs to go. Sometimes a joke needs softening. Sometimes, the only way to keep the speaker’s intention intact is to say something slightly different.

Far from being a failure to achieve equivalence, this is the work: negotiating meaning across linguistic and cultural worlds, and making it land. It’s not about being invisible. It’s about being intelligently present—as a listener, a thinker, and a meaning-maker.

Anecdote

I still remember, years ago, interpreting for a Deaf client describing a spectacularly chaotic family gathering. You know the type—stories flying, characters being mapped out in space, the drama unfolding like a live theatre piece performed in BSL. It was vivid, expressive, and gloriously non-linear. Everyone had a place in the narrative—quite literally, as uncles, cousins, and grudges were assigned locations in the signing space with all the flair of a seasoned storyteller.

And there I was, trying to carry that across into English for the hearing participants. Not just the content, but the feel of it. The pace, the energy, the perfectly timed eyebrow raises that said more than any sentence ever could. A literal interpretation would’ve been about as useful as a flat-pack manual with no diagrams.

So I shifted gears. Brought in narrative structure, changed voices, added just enough context to keep it intelligible without over-explaining the life out of it. It wasn’t equivalent, not in form or phrasing—but it landed. The hearing listeners laughed in the right places. They winced in the others. The story survived the crossing.

That moment reminded me that interpreting isn’t about neat conversions. It’s about resonance. It’s relational rather than mechanical, shaped by judgement rather than formula. And once we let go of equivalence, something else comes into view: the cultural currents, tacit knowledge, and ethical tensions that quietly shape every decision we make. Those are harder to define—but they are where the real work lives.

This series of blogs (1 of 3) gathers a few reflections from 35 years working between BSL and English. I begin with the myth of one-to-one translation—because once that assumption starts to unravel, it reveals the cultural, tacit, and ethical judgements that quietly shape the work.

📚Further Reading

Eugene Nida on Dynamic Equivalence Formal vs. dynamic equivalence explained explained—how translating meaning, not just words, can shape entire disciplines.

Equivalence and Translation Studies A scholarly overview of how “equivalence” became both a cornerstone and a controversy in the world of translation.

Sign Language Interpreting and Cultural Framing This paper digs into how interpreters navigate culture, not just language—a sharp read from Heriot-Watt researchers.