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On The Unit Of Transfer In Translation Luo Xuanmin Tsinghua University, Beijing, China Abstract: In this paper the author has distinguished two kinds of translation units: the unit of transfer and the unit of analysis. The paper, however, focuses on the discussion of the unit of transfer. Formulas are designed for different types of clauses and therefore, the textual construction of clauses in both original and target texts can be described through comparative linguistic analysis. With an addition of nexus clause in translation, which is a unique phenomenon in translation, the clause theory in translation has achieved a very strong explanatory power and can be applied into translation in other languages or in other types or genres of literary text. Key words: clause, text, transfer, formula, nexus I. Introduction The problem of translation unit ranks among the most complicated problems of translation theory. In translating, we always hope to find a unit which on one hand, can be transferred freely and reciprocally between two languages, and on the other, can supply with all necessary conveniences for our translation. This inevitably comes to a contradiction that bigger units are convenient for analysis but not for transfer; smaller units are easy for transfer but hard for analysis. There is no easy conciliation between the two. Our solution is to divide translation unit into two: an analytic unit and a transfer unit. Since a translation is generally done on textual level, they are also called analytic and transfer units respectively in textual translation. I have illustrated in my previous papers the feasibility of text being the analytic unit in textual translation. What I am going to propose and illustrate in this paper is that clause is the basic transfer unit in textual translation, which is, in certain sense, a contribution to Eugene Nida’s investigation on clause in translation. Nida (1984:209) points out three types of difficulties for corres