An Analysis Of Cultural Vacancy On Lexical Level And Its Treatment In Translation

As a vehicle of communication, language is an indispensable part of cultures. Language reflects and transmits culture. Different languages mirror different cultural traits. Due to cultural differences in historical background, social customs, religious beliefs and ideology, each language is particular about certain objects and concepts that cannot find equivalents or corresponding expressions in other languages, which brings about many issues to be solved. One of them is "cultural vacancy", which is believed to be one of the main obstacles in intercultural communication. As the most active component of a language, word or lexicon is the basic unit of language building and is influenced and confined by religious beliefs, social customs, values and aesthetic attitude of a given nation. Culturally-loaded words especially culture-gapped words are the most sensitive language items and directly reflect a nation's unique culture.As an indispensable medium for intercultural communication and cultural exchanges, translation plays an increasingly important role in spreading culture and enhancing the mutual understanding of the people from different cultures. In order to deal with cultural gap problems and smooth the intercultural communication and translation, there is an urgent need for studies of cultural gap and its treatment in translation in the present age of globalization. This thesis first discusses the intimate relationship between language, culture and translation, and then analyses the origin of cultural gap, describes its types and the factors related to the culture gap existing between English and Chinese. Finally, it tries to explore some proper methods to solve cultural gap problems in translation.This thesis is divided into six parts. Chapter One is the general introduction in which the significance and objectives of the study are introduced. Chapter Two offers a sketchy overview of the development of cultural vacancy and lexical gaps in English and Chinese and discusses the previous studies on cultural vacancy at home and abroad. Chapter Three focuses on cultural vacancy and its reflection on lexical level--lexical gaps in English and Chinese. In this part, types and causes of cultural vacancy are discussed, and the phenomenon of lexical gap (the cultural vacancy on lexical level) is analyzed. Chapter Four is Contrastive study of lexical gaps of cultural vacancy between English and Chinese. Chapter Five concerns the principles and strategies in cultural vacancy translation between English and Chinese. Chapter Six is the conclusion of the whole thesis.The study on cultural vacancy on lexical level and its treatment in translation in this thesis aims to provide a new angle for the related studies in this field. It is only a tentative attempt and is not hoped to offer one or more than one "best ways" for translating culture-gapped words, but intended to summarize what has been done in this area and to pave the way for further studies.