The difficulties of translating Chinese into a Western language are notorious.Chinese is composed mainly of monosyllabic units with a wide range of diverse meanings.The grammar lacks clear tense distinctions.The characters are logographic but many contain pictorial rudiments or suggestions.The relations between propositions are paratactic rather than syntactic and punctuation marks represent breathing pauses far more than they do logical or grammatical segmentations.No grammar or dictionary is of very much use to the translator:only context,in the fullest linguistic-cultural sense, certifies meaning.(Steiner 1973:19)The difficulties of translating Chinese into a Western language are notorious. Chinese is composed mainly of monosyllabic units with a wide range of diverse meanings. The grammar lacks clear tense distinctions. The characters are logographic but many contain pictorial rudiments or suggestions. The relations between propositions are paratactic rather than syntactic and punctuation marks represent breathing pauses far more than they do logical or grammatical segmentations.No grammar or dictionary is of very much use to the translator: only context, in the fullest linguistic-cultural sense, certifies meaning. (Steiner 1973: 19)