3. Cultural untranslatability
“According to J.C. Catford, instance of untranslatability can arise from two sources: one is linguistic, and the other is culture.” P25
Nida also mentions that words have meaning only in terms of the total cultural setting.
And what is culture, Edward Tylor gave the definition the earliest in his the Primitive Culture: “Culture or civilization taken in its wide anthro-graphic sense is that complete whole which include knowledge, beliefs, art, morals, law, custom and other capabilities and habits acquired by a men as a member of society.”P478
Peter Newmark wrote in his A Textbook of Translation: “I define the culture as the way of life and his manifestation that are peculiar to a community that uses a peculiar language as its means of expression.” [10]P94
Translation is a very important medium for cultural exchange between people using different languages. It is one of the most important tasks from translators and translation researchers viewing problems of translation from the angle of cultural exchange in order to increase the degree of cultural exchange achieved by translation as much as possible.
It is known to all that language is an important aspect of culture. Culture includes and affects language, it is the ground from which language grows and develops. All languages are products of the culture of the country and the nation. They all have long historical background and various cultural connotations. The history, social system, natural environment, religion and customs are all shown vividly in their culturally- loaded words, proverbs, idioms, and so on. In traditional practice, there are often no such words in target language, and the translators have to find the similar codes or make some new codes to replace, so when these culturally loaded words are translated into another language, the cultural connotations are lost. Nida once pointed out that: “For the success translation, being familiar with two cultures is even more important than mastering two languages, because the language has its meaning only in the cultural background.” [11]P92
Chinese culture belongs to eastern culture, and English culture is European and American culture, which belongs to the western culture. There are essential difference between eastern culture and western culture, so the untranslatability is understandable.
3.1. Untranslatability resulted from culture gap
3.1.1. Material culture
Different nations live in different places, and will have different images for the same thing. We often hear some Chinese say: “走，喝酒去！”The word “酒”is difficult to translate. It includes liquor, spirit, alcohol, drink, beer, wine, and so on. These words are all “酒”，but the liquor and spirit means low quality, and the drinks include hard drinks and soft drinks, while the wine is often referred to the grape or fruit wine.
In English, the daffodil is the symbol of spring and happiness, but in Chinese, it is only a kind of flower called “黄水仙”。In Chinese people’s mind, the plum, orchid, chrysanthemum and bamboo are all the symbol of high spirit. But English people do not think so.
1 ，英语论文 |
