ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at the philosophical, linguistic and socio-cultural underpinnings of untranslatability and its limits. Cultural knowledge, including knowledge of various sub-cultures, has long been recognized as indispensable for translation, as it is knowledge of the application linguistic units have in particular situational and social contexts which make translation possible. The linguistic relativity postulate is relevant in the translational process, in that it is necessary to relate the source text to its cultural context, as it is only in this context that the text has meaning. Such a more positive approach to translatability derives from linking linguistic diversity with external differences of historical, cultural and social background, rather than insisting on the overriding importance of linking cognitive and linguistic differences. Neurolinguistic studies are an important and promising new line of research, and the hypotheses suggested in this paradigm may well provide plausible descriptions and explanations about how translation is made possible.
