On The Limit Of Cultural Translatability

On the basis of the close relationship between language and culture and the existence of cultural differences, there must be losses of cultural information in the course of translation, cultural translatability can only be a question of limit. The existence of the limit of cultural translatability in translation is an objective reality that can't be avoided in translators' practice. As to the improvement of translation and promotion of the cross-cultural exchange, it is of theoretical and practical significance to study the limit of cultural translatability and look for the methods to solve it. The thesis analyzes some main reasons that cause the limit of cultural translatability by revealing the relationships between language, culture and translation. The author gives an in-depth analysis of the inevitable loss in cultural translation and some compensation methods adopted by the translators by discussing some cultural translation practices. Then, the author explores some translators' research achievements of theory, which show us what the theorists have done and in what way their work can help one get better understanding about the essence of translation. Grounded on the previous chapters, chapter four is particularly allocated to discussing how to compensate the culture loss to the maximum extent, the author suggests the following compensation methods for compensating the loss and at the same time gives brief comments on each of them, and in the latter part, the author focuses on the general considerations in cultural compensation and points out that priority of cultural compensation should be set on alienation, rather than on adaptation. At last, the author summarizes the full text and points out that because of existence of cultural difference, the existence of the limit of translatability is an objective reality, however, the limit of translatability is not too static to change either, but in the dynamic change. With the further inter-culture communications, the degree of translatability is becoming higher and higher and the limit of cultural translatability is being reduced.