Abstract：Along with the development and maturity of theories on translation, a growing interest among translators has emerged to explore the untranslatability in translation. Translators gradually begin to explore the translation limitations from the aspects of the language itself and different cultural origins. The translation of idioms has also been one of the research interests in studies of translation. Some color idioms from Oxford Dictionary of Current Idiomatic English are collected and analyzed in detail to explore the untranslatability and the reasons that cause untranslatability based on Catford’s translation theory. The present study analyzes the cultural untranslatability and the reasons that cause cultural untranslatability in English to Chinese color idioms translation. It is hoped that this study will benefit translators who study and translate English idioms and give inspirations to them.

Key Words: color idiom；Catford’s translation theory；untranslatability；cultural untranslatability

摘要：随着翻译理论的不断发展和成熟，可译性和不可译性问题日渐受到翻译学家的关注。翻译学者们逐渐开始从语言本身和不同国家的文化渊源对翻译的可译程度进行探讨。对习语的翻译研究也是热点研究之一。本文收集了《牛津当代英语习语字典》若干条颜色习语，运用卡特福德的翻译理论，对不可译性和产生不可译性的原因进行研究。本文分析了颜色习语中的文化不可译性，描述了颜色习语的文化不可译性产生的原因。希望本文的研究结果能为译者在翻译英语习语过程中提供帮助并希望对译者有所启发。

关键词：颜色习语；卡特福德的翻译理论；不可译性；文化不可译性