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Translated Text: I fail to recognize your eminence.
According to the previous examples, to a certain extent, it comes to a conclusion that cultural factor has influenced the using of literal and free translation.
2.3.2 Grammatical Element
Besides the cultural element, grammar is another influential factor which affects the using of literal and free translation.
It goes without saying that literal translation often be used in some simple grammatical structures, while free translation has to be used in the complicated constructions.
III. Translatability and Untranslatability
In the translators’ opinion, the problem which may exist on a 50-50 basis is one of the most contradictory between different languages. Thereby, an argument has been caused between linguistic translatability and untranslatability. Generally speaking, the controversy just concentrates on whether the language is translatable or not and whether the special form of language is translatable or not. After all, in that case, what is the condition of translatability and what is not?
3.1 The Condition of Translatability
There are a lot of commonalities between languages all over the world. Linguistic translatability has been decided by the unity of language functions, if the function of original work has a coincidence with the translated text, then the language is translatable.
From ancient times to the present, a large number of famous works which have been translated into a lot of different languages have become the spiritual values of human beings. Great quantities of scientific and technological achievements which have been spread from one country to others have had a great benefit to the power of production of human beings. All these accomplishments can not be achieved if there is no translation. Therefore, to a certain extent, it comes to a conclusion that language is translatable.
3.2 The Conditions of Untranslatability
According to the comprehensive survey, some scholars have put emphasis on the untranslatability. They believed that, to some extent, translatability has its limitation and even untranslatable.
To begin with, from the point of view of vocabulary, some words can not find the corresponding ones in the translated language owing to the unbalanced development of each nation and some distinctive features of geography, history and culture. For instance, some words about science and technology, philosophy and culture are all untranslatable.
Secondly, from the point of view of grammatical system, some languages are untranslatable. Although most of languages have perfect and developed grammatical systems, if the grammatical structure of one language differs from another, translators have to change some structures of grammar so as to ensure its translatability.
Besides, it is not easy for some special language forms to be translated. For example, many translators considerer that poem is untranslatable. While if a poem is translated, the aroma of the poem would disappear.
In addition, some cultural phenomenon between different nations is also untranslatable. Because a number of particular national languages have formed their own features in grammars and sentence structures according to their different cultural backgrounds, custom of society and background of times so as to make some cultural phenomenon not easy to be translated.
Taking “毛笔”“墨” as examples, people can not find two words to explain these two Chinese characters, if they are translated into Chinese brush(or writing brush), Chinese ink, the appearance of things can not be expressed accurately.
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