Introduction This research paper addresses the question of translatability as a key concept for understanding encounters between cultures

and interactions within cultures. In this view, translatability implies translation of otherness without subsuming it under preconceived notions. The following chapters are aimed at exploring the notion of translatability by pointing out why this has become an issue not only in the manifold operations of our day-to-day living, but also in relation to what has become a prime concern of the humanities : i.e. cultural studies. e usually associate translation with converting one language into another, be it foreign, technical, professional, or otherwise. !owadays, however, not only languages have to be translated. In a rapidly shrinking world, many different cultures have come into close contact with one another, calling for a mutual understanding not only in terms of the culture to which one belongs, but also in terms of the specificity pertaining to the culture encountered. The more the latter becomes the case, the more a kind of translation is bound to occur, as the specificity of the culture encountered can be grasped only when pro"ected onto what is familiar. In this respect a foreign culture is not simply subsumed under one#s own frame of reference$ instead, the very frame is sub"ected to alterations in order to accommodate what does not fit. The first chapter, %Introducing translation&, aims at comprehension of the term and process of the act of translation, when encountering between cultures or interactions between levels of culture involving either assimilation or appropriation by making inroads into one another, trying to get out of a different culture or the different intracultural levels what seems attractive, useful, or what has to be combated and suppressed for whatever reasons. Translatability, however, requires construing a discourse that allows for transposing a foreign culture into another. 'eaning, functions and purpose in translation are consequently discussed in the second chapter, applying modern ideas of hermeneutics. (ll the arguments presented in this chapter underline the importance of proper understanding of the original functions as well as the purposes before doing a translation. The third chapter presents the different approaches to the )un*translatability of texts, giving special attention to the theories generated in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It analyses the views of scholars who adopted a monadist stance, and those who chose a universalist interpretation )+ugene (. !ida, for instance*. It is argued that the shift of attention away from the concept of untranslatability, which has characteri,ed recent theories is only superficial and that it has resulted, on the one hand, from the expansion of the concept of translation itself and, on the other, from a wish to leave behind traditional, ideologically motivated arguments which could be perceived as problematic. -hapter three, %The communicative nature of language and translation and the degree of translatability& contains different examples, which highlight the different perception and mental organi,ation of reality, which can be used to explain the existence of certain

.gaps. between languages. (ll these can turn translation into a very difficult process. Translators have to be aware of these gaps, in order to produce a satisfactory target text. (cceptance of the hypothesis that each language conditions the way in which its speakers perceive and interpret the world presupposes: That there will be terms which are specific to each linguistic community. That there will be concepts which are common to two or more linguistic communities and nevertheless have different connotations in each of them. That each linguistic community structures reality in a different way, according to its own linguistic codes. (ll these factors have to be borne in mind when approaching the translation of any text. They can give rise to translatability problems, but the fact that they apply to very specific items which can be distinctly outlined implies that they cannot support a hypothesis of total untranslatability. If a translation nevertheless should fail to measure up to the original in terms of quality, the reason will normally be an insufficiency of syntactic and lexical inventories in that particular T/ 0target language1. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate, with examples, that even those apparently untranslatable units )phrases, expressions, texts* may have an ingenious translation, which translates the full meaning of the source item. ===== INTRODUCTION

Translation, this controversial discipline, has always incited the minds of linguists and writers. This was mainly due to the fact that in order to better understand the secrets of translation, one has to deal with it from an interdisciplinary point of view. 2or this, concepts from linguistics, text theory, semiotics, aesthetics, philosophy, sociology, psychology and psycholinguistics are needed. The complementarity of this discipline brought to me the interest for and choice of my dissertation topic, namely, dealing with idioms and with the elements needed to translate them. 3esides the elements mentioned previously, translation invite the comprehension and interpreting of the original. (s (ndrei 3antas and +lena -roitoru put

it in their work Didactica Traducerii, 4who gets to comprehend is able to translate5. 3oth in one language and between two or several languages, the communication between humans is a form of translation. Thus, translation as an act of communication has the role of an 4authority5 which censors the effect of diversity produced by the multitude of languages. The first chapter of the paper will offer not only a description over the evolution and the concept of translation and the translator5s status in different stages of history, but will also provide information about the principles applied in the process of translation. In this chapter, the emphasis will lie upon translation approached in a diachronic development, but also upon the attempts made by different theorists and translators regarding the establishment of a set of rules needed to guide them )and many others* in their work. The second chapter will deal with the concept of language and with its properties. The goal will be that of showing how language varies, what comes out of its variation, and how it interacts with register. In the third and the last chapter, the focal point will be that of describing the concept of dialect, and the effects caused by the usage of slang vocabulary on the language spoken hip hop artists. This paper is meant to hopefully assist in demonstrating the complex process that the translation of idiomatic structures is, and also to show the effect of the relation between dialects and register on the process of translation.

Conclusions Translation is considered to be an act of reproduction, through which the meaning of a text is transferred from one language to another. There are basically two perspectives we could choose from to study translation: there is the historical perspective, focusing on the paths already taken in the effort to bridge the differences between languages. 3ut we can also view translation as a set of possible correspondences between languages, and each translation as a contextuali,ed instance of these possibilities. The ob"ect of translation is not so much what may be expressed and hence translated, it is the way in which something is expressed in one language as opposed to another. 6r, more precisely, it is the way in which the differences in the expressive power of two languages may be overcome. (s 7usan 3assnett points out, contemporary translation studies are struggling against .the old binary concept of translation 0which1 saw original and translated text as two poles,.

seeking in contrast to conceptuali,e translation as a dynamic activity fully engaged with cultural systems )3assnett 899::;;*. The translator#s task is therefore to continually search and research, to deconstruct and reconstruct the text. In a large sense, the translator is identified with any communicator or mediator )whether listeners or readers, monolinguals or bilinguals* as they receive signals containing messages encoded. The sender selects the message and the code, encodes the message, selects the channel of communication and transmits the signal containing the message. The receiver receives the signal containing the message, recogni,es the code, decodes the signal and finally retrieves and comprehends the message. The translator is both a receiver and a producer, a special category of communicator whose behavior )act o communication* is conditioned by the previous one and whose reception of that previous act is intensive. <nlike other receivers who have a choice whether to pay more or less attention to their listening or reading, the translator interacts closely with the source language text, whether for immediate purpose )simultaneous interpreter=* or in a more reflective way )literary translator*, In domesticating texts, the translator adopts a strategy through which the T/, not the 7/ is culturally dominant. -ulture-specific terms are neutrali,ed and re-expressed in terms of what is familiar to the dominant culture. If the translation is done from a culturally dominant 7/ to a minority-status T/, domestication protects 7/ values. ith the belief that all translations necessarily have propensity towards one method, we can have the following classification: > > > > > > > > ord-for-word translation /iteral translation 2aithful translation 7emantic translation (daptation 2ree translation Idiomatic translation -ommunicative translation ord-for word translation - the 7/ words are closely followed. 7/ word order is preserved, word meanings are taken out of context. -ultural words are literally rendered.

./iteral translation is also a pre-translation process:

/iteral translation - the 7/ grammatical constructions are converted to their nearest T/ equivalents.

 2aithful translation tries to reproduce the precise contextual meaning of the 7/ words but within the constraints of the T/ grammar. -ultural words are transferred and the same applies to the T/ grammatical and lexical .abnormalities. )as compared to the 7/*. This kind of translation is as faithful as possible to the writer#s intentions. It can be labelled as uncompromising and dogmatic. 7emantic translation focuses on the aesthetic value )the beautiful and the natural sound* of the 7/ text, compensating and compromising on meaning. -ultural words may be translated by a third culturally neutral term or by a functional term and not by cultural equivalents,. 7emantic translation is more flexible, more creative, and more imaginative$ it largely allows the translator#s empathy to work. (daptation is said to be the freest form of translation. It is mainly used for plays )comedies* and poetry. 6f course, the themes, characters, and the plot are preserved. The 7/ cultural terms are converted to the T/ culture and the text is practically re-written. 2ree translation - reproduces the matter without the manner, the context without the form of the original. Idiomatic translation reproduces the message of the original, but distorts shades of meaning by showing preference to colloquialisms and idioms where these do not appear in the 7/ text. -ommunicative translation attempts to convey the most precise contextual meaning of the original. 3oth content and language are readily acceptable and comprehensible. 6f all these methods, only semantic and communicative translations fulfill the two ma"or aims of translation: accuracy and economy. 7imilarities between the two methods are also to be noticed: both use stock and dead metaphors, normal collocations, technical terms, colloquialisms, slang, phaticisms, ordinary language. Throughout history, translators have had to contend with the fact that the target language is deficient when it comes to translating the source text into that language. 7uch deficiencies can be clearly identified as, for example, lexical or morpho-syntactic deficiencies or as problems of polysemy. 'ore often, however, the deficiency in the receiving code has to do with the relation between signs and their users, a relation that

reflects such things as individuality, social position, and geographical origin of the speakers. 'ost of the differences are tied to the grammatical properties of the linguistic structure, that is, to those properties that bind words together into phrases and relate them to classes of sentences constituted by different words but similar relations. The interlingual translation is bound to reflect the translator#s own creative interpretation of the 7/ text. 'oreover, the degree to which the translator reproduces the form, metre, rhythm, tone, register, etc. of the 7/ text, will be as much determined by the T/ system as by the 7/ system and will also depend on the function of the translation. To sum up, after integrating the research achievements of modern day translation circles, translation is an activity comprising the interpretation of the sense of a text in one language - the source text - and the production of another, equivalent text in another language - the target text . The goal of translation is to establish a relationship of equivalence between the source and the target texts )that is to say, both texts communicate the same message*, while taking into account the various constraints placed on the translator. These constraints include the rules of grammar of the source language, its writing conventions, its idioms and the like.The term translation is also used for the product of this procedure. Translation is also the name given to a profession which consists of transferring ideas expressed in writing from one language to another. ===== CONCLUSIONS The purpose of this paper has been that of demonstrating that translation is much wider and complex a field than many people believe it to be. If only the sub"ect of this paper, that is, idioms and problems related to their translation, proved to be quite vast and intricate, as I myself have found out, only think how large this field of translating is and how many other fields are also involved in the process of rendering a good translation. The complex analysis of a text which is to be translated encompasses the fields of linguistics, psycholinguistics, semantics, pragmatics, discourse analyses, textual typology, cultural context and comunication competence. (ll these fields involved in the process of translation re"ect the idea that translation only means reelaborating a text from another language, so that the surface meaning is approximately the same and the structures of the original text are preserved, if only they do not affect the structures of the translation. In the first chapter of the paper I have tried to present the evolution of the concept of translation in different historical periods starting with the ?oman period and ending with the twentieth century. The changes suffered by the concept of translation have been underlined. The controversial status of the translator has also been a topic for discussion in this first chapter.

The second chapter has dealt with the problem of translating idioms. (lso, it has presented some issues of translation methods. This chapter has emphasi,ed the problems with idioms and texts containing idioms. The third chapter has had as purpose the translation of texts containing idioms from different fields. In this chapter I have also tried to group some idioms in synonymic series. (s a more general conclusion, the translation of idioms is a delicate problem even for proficient +nglish speakers, because there are no fixed rules to follow and the meaning of the idioms has either to be learned by heart or deduced from the context.