2.2 The Classification of Untranslatability

1. Linguistic Untranslatability and Cultural Untranslatability

According to the reasons that cause untranslatability, it 源Z自+吹冰=文-论(文+网[www.chuibin.com can be classified into two kinds: linguistic untranslatability and cultural untranslatability. Linguistic untranslatability is relatively stable, so it seldom changes with the development of time. Linguistic untranslatability includes untranslatability in phonology, untranslatability in character structure and untranslatability in rhetoric.

 Cultural differences widely exist in different countries and regions. Though different areas in China spare the same language, that is, Pu Tonghua, there still exists big cultural differences, let alone the cultural differences between English and Chinese. Just as Eugene Nida (1993) said, “For truly successful translating, biculturalism is even more important than bilingualism, since words only have meanings in terms of the cultures in which they function.” (82) In conclusion, most of the problems in translation are resulted from the barrier which is caused by language differences. Cultural untranslatability is, as the name implies, caused by cultures, to be specific, cultural untranslatability is mainly caused by different geographical conditions, culture origins and so on. Therefore, the cultural patterns and cultural characteristics between different countries are totally different. Untranslatability resulted from this kind of cultural gaps is called cultural untranslatability. Cultural untranslatability is, comparatively speaking, more flexible, and it can change with the development of time and society.