Intercultural Contrastive Analysis Of Lexical Gaps Between English And Chinese

The lexical gap occurs whenever a language expresses a concept with a lexical unit whereas the other language expresses the same concept with a free combination of words due to differences in cultures or expressions. Lexical gap is divided into two kinds. One is lexical item vacancy, which means the word exists in one language rather than the other language. The other kind is semantic gap, which means the meaning contained in one language doesn't exist in another language. Lexical gap is very common between English and Chinese where there are a lot of differences in linguistic system and structures. Thus, it brings about great obstacles in cultural communications between English and Chinese. And it is a problem that can not be neglected in English teaching and learning.This study is to remove the barriers posed by lexical gaps and bridge lexical gaps between English and Chinese. This thesis emphasizes that translation is far from enough to bridge lexical gaps. A more positive method should be improving one's quality. That is to say, through understanding cultural background of the target-language of the country and enlarging our vocabulary, we can get rid of this obstacle. And the most important key point is to cultivate intercultural awareness-connecting intercultural awareness with foreign language teaching and connecting culture teaching with literature teaching. All in all, cultivation of intercultural awareness is the most fundamental way to bridge lexical gaps.