The Limitation Of Translatability: A Perspective Of Translation Between Chinese Usage And English Usage

Translation is a field full of paradoxes. Translatability and untranslatability is one pair of the paradoxes with long history. Whether language is translatable or not has always been a question of great academic concern. There are many disagreements on this question, or in certain cases, to what degree languages are translatable, so came into being the concept of "limitation of translatability".As supporters of translatability, we claim that translation is possible, but the limitation of translatability does exist in the process of interlingual transfer. It takes root in the differences between languages and national cultures and is caused by the inevitable contradictions and difficulties arising in the process of translation.The limitation of translatability has always been a major concern of translation between Chinese and English, because Chinese and English belong to two different language families (the Sino-Tibetan language family and the Indo-European language family). The limitation of translatability is more prominent in translation between Chinese usage and English usage, as usage is a very important part of a language and it takes root in national culture and society. Thereby, the thesis does the research on the limitation of translatability from the perspective of translation between Chinese usage and English usage. It mainly analyzes how the differences between Chinese usage and English usage influence the interlingual translating processes and cause difficulties in interlingual translation. Furthermore, some ways to reduce the limitation of translatability are put forward in the thesis.The argumentation of lay-out of this thesis is as follows:Chapter One gives a comparative account of the concepts and the theoretical foundations of both translatability and untranslatability, andexplores the relationship between the two. Then, the concept of the limitation of translatability is put forward. After the retrospect of the history about it, we analyze the reasons for the limitation of translatability and the obstruction in interlingual transfer.Chapter Two discusses definitions, features and contents of usage and explores the internal cause for usage obstruction in translation between Chinese and English.Chapter Three is the core of the thesis. It deals with five aspects of usage: collocation of words, idioms, negative and positive expressions, activeness or passivity, sentence focus and hierarchies. By the method of contrast and with the help of many examples in both the two languages, this chapter aims at exploring the usage obstruction in translation between Chinese and English.Chapter Four is devoted to the ways to reduce the limitation of translatability.