Based on the verdicts in A Dream of Red Mansions and their translations,this paper studies the co-existence of and transmission between binary elements in translation from the perspectives of media,physical existence,aesthetic techniques and function to probe into the artistic and scientific qualities of translation,with the combination of Chinese traditional literary theory and modern linguistic norm.The attention to the binary elements in translation can help avoid the intuitive perception and the rigid linguistic analysis in translation and guarantee both the flexibility of literary pattern and the scientific nature of modern linguistic norm in translation criticism.