8 - Partial equivalence

Summary

Legitimate strategies

It needs to be borne in mind that, in numerous entries, partial equivalence is embedded in multiple equivalence. The treatment of multiple equivalence is thus often also the treatment of partial equivalence. However, there is one important distinction between these two types of treatment. The principal goal of the treatment of multiple equivalence is to segregate the equivalents and enable the user to deploy each of them in the right co-text and context. The treatment of partial equivalence is geared primarily toward demonstrating the differences between the SL entry word and its TL equivalent. Consequently, divergences fromlegitimate strategies for treatingmultiple equivalence leave the SL language user incapable of differentiating and correctly deploying the equivalents. In contrast, divergences from the treatment of partial equivalence leave either SL or TL users unaware of the differences between the entryword and its equivalent.

In this section I discuss the following additional and broadly defined strategies of addressing partial equivalence per se:

1. (1) listing;

2. (2) cross-referencing;

3. (3) glossing;

4. (4) labeling;

5. (5) exemplifying; and

6. (6) illustrating.

Some of the strategies are more common with certain types of partial equivalence. I will discuss these strategies in turn, showing their relation with the types of partial equivalence. As was the case with the previously discussed zero equivalence, partial equivalence can also be embedded in instances of multiple equivalence; as a result, some examples presented in this section include such cases.

It should also be noted that addressing partial equivalence constitutes a somewhat less demanding task than sorting out zero and multiple equivalence. In the case of partial equivalence there does exist some kind of equivalence, even if it is only at a rather rudimentary level, and the sole remaining task is to fine-tune it by exposing the difference.

Listing, the first strategy to be discussed, relies on simply stating the partial equivalent in its lexicographic environment without using any specific resources. There are three possible forms of this strategy:

1. self-evident partial equivalence;

2. partial equivalence resolved by multiple equivalence; and

3. macrostructurally resolved partial equivalence.