A Study On Translatability From The Perspective Of Natural Semantic Metalanguage Theory

NSM theory was put forward by Anna Wierzbicka,an Australian linguistics professor,in the 1970 s.It is characterized by standardized description,clear explanation,concise grammar and avoidance of ethnocentrism.This study intends to analyze and explore the philosophical basis,academic ideas,research objectives and methods,and application of natural semantic metalanguage(NSM)theory by reviewing and comparing domestic and foreign research results of natural semantic metalanguage theory with qualitative research methods such as induction,deduction and comparative analysis,especially through its research on natural semantic metalanguage’s interpretative translation of various types of vocabulary,aiming to demonstrate the translatability of translation,and to provide a reference for the compilation of dictionaries in China.This research aims to answer the following three questions: 1.What is the philosophical basis of translatability in NSM Theory? 2.How can NSM’s view on Translatability be reflected? 3.In what areas can NSM translatability be applied?The result of the study indicates that: 1)The core ideas behind the NSM approach can be traced back to the 17 th century German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’s philosophical tradition of rationalism.He once compared semantic primes to the universally translatable “Alphabet of Human Thought”,which is the cornerstone of NSM theory.2)NSM’s view on translatability can be explicitly reflected by semantic primes,their syntactic rules,and reductive paraphrase.3)NSM translatability can be applied in many areas,such as in the semantic explications of cultural key words,emotional words and evaluative adjectives.It can be served as a reference for foreign language teaching and cross-cultural communication research.