A Prototype-theoretical Approach To Translatability

Among various issues in translation studies, the study of translatability has drawn special attention for a long time. In traditional structural view, based on the classic categorization, translatability has been approached in two ways: the universalist one and the monadist one. Supporters of the former approach claim that the existence of linguistic universals ensures translatability and thus which is expressed in one language can also be interpreted by another language. Those who hold the latter idea maintain that each linguistic community interprets reality in its own particular way, which jeopardizes translatability. However, some stands between the two and proposes that the translatability of a text is varied on different dimensions: issues on the cognitive and expressive level are translatable, on the cultural level are partial translatable, and on the artistic level are untranslatable. This structural approach proposes systems of categorization that separate "source" text from "target" text or "language" from "meaning". Apart from this traditional view, deconstructive theorists resist such systems of categorization and undertake a radical redrawing of translatability and lead people to rethink this issue, but its limitless interpreting and denying everything also make people bewildered and lost.Proposed in the mid 1970s, Prototype Theory (PT henceforth) has been applied in many fields. Based on PT, prototype integrates a set of characteristic properties of all members within a category, which serves as the cognitive reference point for us to compare. Prototype is an abstraction, integration and is dynamic and preferable in choice. Cultural and contextual factors play very important roles in prototype recognition. With these characteristics, PT is strong and powerful in various fields, including both translation theory and practice. With the application of PT, translation can be understood as a prototype category and translatability can be more effectively studied.This thesis introduces PT to the study of translation, with the focus on the issue of translatability. After careful analysis, the paper holds that translation is an activity of trying to seek for the optimal exemplar of the source text through the target text. Based on this proposal, the paper proposes that translatability depends on the existence of the exemplar which is sufficiently close to SL text prototype and the corresponding TL text prototype and then studies this issue from four different dimensions. Translatability in the cognitive dimension depends on the existence of good exemplars of the cognitive prototype, in the expressive dimension depends on the existence of good exemplars of the expressive prototype, in the cultural dimension depends on the existence of good exemplars of the cultural prototype and in the artistic dimension depends on the existence of good exemplars of the artistic prototype. These ideas are illustrated by instances from the four English versions of The Analects of Confucius.