Translatability And Untranslatability In E-C Translation

The problem of translatability and untranslatability is a long-debated issue in the translation field. Its history accompanied the development of translation theory and practice. Its history is the history of the debate on translatability or untranslatability. In the early period of its history, the debate focuses on the possibility of translation; and with the development of translation theory the focus of the debate becomes more subjective and shifts to the degree of translatability. The issue is also related to many aspects of translation, which is helpful to the translation theory and practice. It is one of the central subjects in the translation field and calls for further study and theoretical deepening.The whole study is guided by materialist dialectics. Since all the things in the world are recognizable, writings as a whole are translatable. Translatability and untranslatability are relative concepts, there is no absolute translatability and untranslatability. The matter of translatability and untranslatability is in fact the matter of Degree of translatability rather than that of the possibility of translating.The Principle of Isomorphism and its Relativity manifesting in aspects of Culture and language is discussed as theoretical basis for translatability arid untranslatability in the present thesis. This explains how culture and languages ensure or hinder interlingual communication.Studying the problem of translatability and untranslatability is of great importance for some basic concepts on translation theory such as essence, criteria and methods of translating, which will undoubtedly benefit the practice of translation. With the guidance of this, some detailed and practical techniques and skills that are frequently used to change the untranslatable to translatable in English-Chinese are also introduced. These techniques and skills can be called Adaptation.The problem of translatability and untranslatability should be viewed dialectically. Only in this way, can writings be translated from the source language into the target language as much as possible, thus the Degree of translatability can be heightened.The whole thesis includes three parts: in Chapter 1 the history of the debate on translatability and untranslatability and the concept of translatability anduntranslatability are introduced; in Chapter 2 the theoretical foundation of translatability and untranslatability-Principle of Isomorphism and its relativity is explained; in Chapter 3 the focus shifts from the theory to practice, the first part of this chapter mainly introduces the significance of the theory of translatability and untranslatability to the translation theory from the points of essence of translating, criteria of translating and methods of translating, and in the second part of this chapter some common "untranslatable" cases and how to translate these cases more perfectly are listed and six frequently-used techniques to make the untranslatable to translatable are given. The last part of the thesis is the conclusion, in which a basic conclusion is made, that is, translatability is absolute, untranslatability is relative. At the same time, the task of translator is also introduced.