A Tentative Analysis Of Translatability And Untranslatability

Translation is a field full of paradoxes. During the long history of their intensive debate, translatability and untranslatability have experienced ebb and flow of people's preferences. On the one hand, language should be translatable; on the other, owing to the existence of certain differences, language is sometimes not completely translatable. Translatability and untranslatability inseparably exist side by side. The thesis casts an overview of translatability study both at home and abroad, inquires into the bases of translatability and untranslatability from the perspective of functional equivalence, and presents a dialectical analysis of the relationship between the two. The thesis is set out to explore the field concerned by focusing on the once neglected area—the embodiment of translatability in literary works as a case study. A case study based on literary work Jude the Obscure by Hardy is conducted through a comparative analysis of two Chinese versions. Thus, translatability can be demonstrated and epitomized much further.