The Translation Of Lexical Gap In Cultural Perspective

Translation is a kind of cross-cultural communication activity. The vocabulary vacancyexists due to the culture difference among different languages. Different cultures lead to theresult that the vocabulary of different languages varies so muc h. The vocabulary has beeninfluenced and restricted by a nation’s geographical environment, religious beliefs, customsand traditions, values and ideologies, so lexical gap occurs unavoidably when it comes to adifferent culture. However, lexical gap causes many troubles on the way of gettingequivalence in trans lation and also evokes the discussion of translatability. In order to solvethe prob lem of vocabulary vacancy, the author divides lexical gap into three categories,complete lexical gap, associative lexical gap, denotative lexical gap. Under the guidance ofNida`s functional equivalence, the author puts forward corresponding translation strategiesfor different kinds of lexical gap.This paper is divided into six parts: introduction, literature review, the functionalequivalence and its application, lexical gap and culture, three classifications of lexical gapsand their correspo nding translation strategies and conclus ion. The introd uction part describesthe significance and structure of this paper systematically so that readers can ha ve a generalidea of what this paper is about. Chapter One introduces different definitions of lexical gap,researches of lexical gap at home and abroad, the problem of translatability of lexical gap andthe necessity of translating lexical gap. It summaries the situation of the domestic and foreignresearch on lexical gap so that readers will have a clear picture of the current situation athome and abroad. Chapter Two explains the theoretic foundation of translating lexical gaps.The author cons ide rs the functional equivalence as the most appropriate trans lation theory tosolve the problem of lexical gap. Chapter Three focuses on the relationship between lexicalgap and culture and the reflection of lexical gap on translation. Chapter Four puts forwardsome different translation strategies to different situations when come across lexical gap,which is also the main part of this paper. The last part concludes the contents of this paperand points out limitations of the study on lexical gap as well as the research direction in thisfield in the future. Only by studying the reason why lexical gap occurs can we get familiar with the culturalconnotation it expresses and put forward some corresponding ways for translation, such asparaphrase, clarification, annotation, generalization and so o n.