Cultural Blanks And The Yange'Translation Of Hong Lou Meng

"Translation is not only a bilingual activity, but at the same time, a bicultural activity.?Owing to natural and social lhctors, the culture of a nation is unique and has its own characteristics. hat is excellent for one language culture does not fit easily into the patterns of other cultures.?Consequently, during the course of translation, there are some cultural elements that are obvious and taken for granted to the source language readers, but are extremely hard to be understood by the target language readers, which is called cultural blanks by Russian translation theorist LQ. Sorokin. As cultural blanks show great influence on the translation of cultural infomiation, it is of great significance for us to probe into the problem of cultural blanks originating from the distinctions of different cultures. Yang Xianyi and his wife Gladys Yang~ masters in translation, have translated Hong Lou Meng, a masterpiece in Chinese classical literature, into English successfully. Hong Lou Meng is an encyclopaedia of Chinese literature and more apt to create cultural blanks in translation. It is more convincing for us to take the translation of Hong Lou Meng for example in pursue of possible strategies to fill in the cultural blanks to the greatest extent. In Chapter 1, I introduce the definition of culture; the levels of culture; the relationship between language, culture and translation, for this is the theoretical basis to study the problem of cultural blanks in the process of translation. In Chapter 2, I introduce the definition of cultural blank ~ the categories of cultural blanks and relevant studies on it in order to offer a thorough introduction to this culture-specific phenomenon during the course of cultural communication and the following is the topic of the limitation in the realization of translation equivalence to imply cultural blanks can be absolutely filled in. 2 Cultural Blanka and the Yangs?Translation of Hong Lou hang In Chapter 3, on the basis of the previous two chapters and the introduction of Hong Lou Meng and Cao Xueqin and Yang Xianyi translation ideas, I put forward ten translation strategies:(1) literal translation (2) cultural equivalent (3) contextual amplification (4) cultural explanation (5) annotation (6) cultural deletion (7) conceptual broadening (8) shift of perspective (9) transliteration (10) combination of the above. And a detailed analysis is done about the translation strategies the Yangs adopt in the translaiton of some aspects of cultural blanks such as:Chinese Imperial Examination System; Chinese official titles; Buddhism; Chinese traditional custom; Chinese historical allusions. Conclusions are drawn in the last chapter. As culture can feed itself with new elements in the course of translation, some previous cultural blanks may mean nothing now. Therefore, the translation strategies we adopt should change according to the development of international cultural communication. Certainly, the strategies raised in this thesis are far from exclusive and adequate. We should strive to seek for more useful and adequate strategies to fill in the cultural blanks to the largest degree.