ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the question of when and why translation is possible and when translation becomes impossible. It looks at the philosophical, linguistic and socio-cultural underpinnings of translatability and its limits. The consequence of the strong linguistic relativity hypothesis for translation seems to be the denial of its theoretical possibility – ‘theoretical’ because the practice of translation flies in the face of this statement. Translatability is limited whenever the form of a linguistic unit takes on special importance. In poetry, only the creation of a new text is possible: ‘creative transposition’ takes over where translation finds its limits. Since each language is unique in its diversification, translation of this intralinguistic variation is severely curbed.
