Conflicting views have been expressed by linguists concerning the problem of translatability ranging from an entire negative stand, typical of W. von Humbolt who considered each language an embodiment of national spirit and the nation’s world view and therefore regarded translation as an impossible task, to unqualified positive attitude, found in many contemporary writings on translation. The very fact that translation makes interlingual communication possible is an argument in favor of translatability. Yet it is an oversimplification to claim that every meaningful element of the text is translatable. In his preface to the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain says that he had reproduced in the book `painstakingly and with the -… support of personal familiarity` the shavings of a number of dialects ( the Missouri Negro dialect, the backwoods South-western dialects, the Pike-County dialect, etc.). Naturally none of these fine distinctions can be reflected in the translation.
Yet by using colloquial and substandard form the translator can give an adequate impression of the character’s social and educational status and will thus render the most essential functional characteristics of these dialect features. As compared to the determining semantic and functional properties of the text which are perfectly translatable the untranslatable elements are marginal and relatively unimportant. Besides, as we shall show in the next lesson, most of the losses can be to some extent compensated for. Therefore, we may speak of sufficient ( though not necessarily complete) translatability to permit effective interlingual communication and adequate rendering of communicatively relevant information.

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