Theory of Translation 1 Introduction

2.4 Language Universals 
The principle of uniqueness of languages leads to the rejection of translatability. But 
the empirical analysis of translation shows that translations are possible. R. B. 
Patankar argues that once we follow this line of argument, it will be impossible to 
describe, discuss and evaluate a work of art (65). Also, absolute communication even 
within a language is, at times, impossible. 
A few anthropologists like Joseph Greenberg have proved that the variation between 
languages is up to certain limits, and not ‘without assignable limit’, as stated by Sapir 
(qtd. in Baker, 202). In the 1960s, Greenberg collected a sample data from thirty 
languages from a variety of language families looking for similarities that had nothing 
to do with any historical relationship. Notably, he discovered many ‘universals’ in 
these languages, with varying degrees of statistical reliability. For the first time, says 
Mark Baker, it was proved that human languages have similarities that do not 
“emerge from shared culture or history but rather from general properties of human 
cognition and communication” (202). Contrary to Sapir’s view, it proved that there 
are “assignable limits” for language variation, suggesting the possibility of translation. 
‘Linguistic Universals’ may be defined as the features that all languages have in 
common. It is evident that all the languages have a conventional character. All 
languages have means to express the ideas, actions and experiences and can qualify 
these elements. Also, all languages have meaningful units, which express human 
experience and ideas through distinct patterns composed of different elements. The 
acoustic images are created by the combination of the distinct non-meaningful units 
called phonemes. The speaker of any language follows certain conventions of that 
particular language, e.g. the names given to the objects are common in a language. In 
all languages, adverbs and adjectives are used to describe an action and an object, 
respectively. 

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Also, to describe an action and the doer of the action is possible in all the languages 
by some means. Another principle is called as double articulation principle. Henry 
Schogt explains this principle as “it means that larger conceptual wholes are cut up 
into smaller independent elements” (39). Temperature is thus divided into hot, warm, 
tepid, and cold, time segments are divided into verbal tenses. 
The concept of ‘Language Universals’ proves the possibility of translation to the 
extent the source language and the target language genetically resemble or differ from 
each other. A language is potentially capable of expressing the totality of cognitive 
experience. This is applicable to all the languages. D. L. Bolinger affirms in clear 
terms: “There is no area of meaning encompassed by one language that cannot be 
encompassed by another, the more awkwardly sometimes but never with such 
imperfection that the idea cannot be put across” (9). Karl Vossller goes a step further 
and says: “If one denies the concept of translation, one must give up the concept of 
language community” (qtd. in Suresh Kumar, 1).
Chomsky’s structural analysis of language and his concept of ‘Universal Grammar’ 
prove that in spite of the formal differences in linguistic systems there is something 
common in the structures of all languages that allows transfer of messages. Edwin 
Gentzler comments that Chomsky’s deep structure model, his transformational rules 
“lend themselves to justifying a theory of translation … to represent an ‘underlying 
message’ in a second language” (47). Further, several translations carried out and read 
across the world for centuries establish the possibility of translation. In recent times, 
linguistic investigations and research findings in Translation Studies have proved that 
translations are worth attemptable.