Application Of Grey System Theory To Translation--Transformation Between Translatablility And Untranslatability

Nowadays, with the continuous development of international exchanges, translation has already become an indispensable way of communication among different countries. In the process of bilingual transference, translation is intercommunication not only across languages, but also across cultures. Therefore, it is confronted with barriers in both language and culture at the same time. It is just due to those barriers that in the field of translation, the research on limits of translatability and untranslatability has been frequently and broadly concerned. Being fully aware of the difficulty in dealing with limits of translatability and untranslatability in practical translation activities, the author has thus viewed the problems boldly from the angel of sciences, borrowing ideas from the Grey System Theory which has been exerting an increasingly important role in fields of system theory and cybernetics in recent years. The purpose is to make the theory as the foundation to find some practical and effective ways in conducting transformation between translatability and untranslatability better.In the paper, the author begins with the brief introduction to the definition of Grey System, and the major ideas and principles of the Grey System Theory. The language system is proved by the principles of system theory to be a grey system. Therefore, being the communicating activity between two language systems (which are grey systems), translation is undoubtedly a systematic process and thus can be instructed by Grey System Theory. Then, in the second chapter, the theoretical possibility for the existence of limits of translatability and untranslatability is demonstrated. In Chapter Three, the author attempts to suggest the method in transferring limits of translatability and untranslatability, that is to build the channel for message transferring which has been obstructed or even absent in cross-language communications by the acquisition of grey quantum and data. Hopefully the information transformation between two languages would be successfully and effectively achieved in this way. To make the depiction clear, the author has turned to the classification of the phenomena of limits of translatability and untranslatability, providing examples respectively according to each item; then on basis of the grey processing, some practically infeasible advice is raised to try to conduct the cross-language transference in order to find out appropriate methods in translation.This thesis mainly involves the reasonable combination of linguistics, translation, cross-culture communication and the Grey System Theory. It focuses on the attempts in applying the methodology of Grey System Theory in instructing the treatment and transference of limits of translatability and untranslatability in actual translating activities.