Equivalence and (un)translatability: Instances of the transfer between Romanian and English

Abstract

Abstract In very broad terms, translatability means that the translator is able to establish a relation of equivalence between a certain source text and its target variant. The notion of equivalence has a very complicated status in translation studies, because, on the one hand, this discipline does not provide a generally accepted definition of the concept, and, on the other, because it has a very complex nature, involving a variety of levels. The present article is based on the assumption that, even if there are situations when the source-language lexico-semantic items, grammatical structures or whole texts are so problematic that they seem almost impossible to be transferred into another language. The term “untranslatability” is not appropriately used with reference to such situations, because a certain type of equivalence can be always achieved. The article will approach the notions of equivalence and (un)translatability in both theoretical and practical terms, offering relevant examples specific to the transfer between Romanian and English.