The "formal-equivalence" approach emphasizes
fidelity to the lexical details and grammatical structure of the
source language, whereas "dynamic equivalence" tends to provide a rendering that is more natural to the
target language. According to
Eugene Nida,
dynamic equivalence, the term he originally coined, is the quality of a translation in which the message of the original text has been so transported into the receptor language that the
response of the
receptor is essentially like that of a receptor of the original text. The aim is that a reader of both languages will understand the meaning of the text similarly. In later years, Nida distanced himself from the term "dynamic equivalence" in favor of "
functional equivalence". What the term "functional equivalence" suggests is not just that the equivalence is between the function of the source text in the source culture and the function of the
target text (translation) in the target culture, but that "function" can be thought of as a property of the text. It is possible to associate functional equivalence with
how people interact in cultures. A similar distinction was expressed in 1199 by
Maimonides in a letter to his translator,
Samuel ibn Tibbon. He wrote: {{Blockquote Maimonides comes down on the side of dynamic/functional equivalence, though perhaps not going so far as to consider the cultural function of the text. He does clearly reject formal equivalence as "doubtful and corrupt". ==Theory and practice==