Abstract:

A new discipline is faced with the situations of understanding and misunderstanding. How a correct understanding of transknowletology is achievable? This question is fundamental for transknowletology, which is understandably expected to have both definite theoretical underpinnings and effectively practical guidelines to untranslatable instances. Reflecting on transknowletology, we are led to propose the following viewpoints: in terms of transknowletology, the source text of translation is treated as a collection of knowledge, and the translation practice is a process of fulfilling two tasks: identifying description knowledge and making knowledge description. Accordingly, this study not only exemplifies the theoretical insights but also demonstrates the practical use of transknowletology, based on Russell’s theory of knowledge. This study has obtained the following findings: The meaning of source text is knowledge based; The description knowledge is both propositions of judgment at the deep level and declarative statements of judgment at the surface level; The practical translation process includes two steps: the first is to conduct an inventory of description knowledge contained in the source text, and the second is to provide knowledge description for the need of target text. It is evidenced that certain problems of untranslatabiliy can be solved effectively in the light of transknowletology.

Key words: transknowletology, Russell’s theory of knowledge, description knowledge, knowledge description, untranslatability