On Lexical Gap Between English And Chinese And Its Translation Strategies

Language is a social and cultural phenomenon. Differences between cultures manifest themselves in languages, such differences and their manifestation often lead to lexical gap. In translation field, it refers to the absence of equivalent words of source language in target language. Lexical gap, the result of cultural vacancy and discrepancy is an issue that a translator has to handle in the process of translation. Therefore, the study of lexical gap and its translation strategies helps improve intercultural communication between English and Chinese people, promotes the reduction or elimination of national estrangement and brings colorful alien culture to both cultures.Lexical gap emerges in the process of communication between different languages and cultures. Manifestations of lexical gap can be found at grammatical, semantic and cultural levels. The causes include linguistic and cultural factors. The problems of lexical gap in translation practice can be handled with complementary strategies, since its untranslatability is relative, absolute untranslatability doesn't exist.Generally speaking, the two translation strategies are usually adopted to deal with lexical gap. They are domestication and foreignization. Nida's equivalence theory is a kind of domestication approach, because he advocates the closest natural equivalence in target language. On the other hand, Venuti emphasized cultural transmission and intercultural communication in translation practice, his"resistance"theory which is opposite to domestication, advocates foreignization.In conclusion,Domestication and foreignization are usually two strategies employed by a translator for handling language and culture differences . As for which between the two should be chosen for a particular circumstance, it has a lot to do with various factors such as translation purposes, text types, translator intentions and target readers. Besides, they should not be put in direct opposition to each other. Therefore,it is improper or even impossible for a translator to adopt one strategy all the time in dealing with lexical gap translation. The mutual complement of domestication and foreignization is a better way to solve the problem. All of the factors mentioned above together with the reader's acceptability and translation as an intercultural communication play a significant role and have to be taken into consideration in the transference of lexical gap from source language culture into the target language.