| Since fictions to a large extent reflect the culture of a nation, the translator needs to deal with two cultures when translating them, namely, the source culture and the target culture. Sometimes the culture depicted in the source text even concerns a third culture that is also different from the target culture, and the relevant cultural information transmitted through the source language might be unfamiliar to the target reader. In that case, the translator needs to find ways to add cultural information about that culture so as to help readers of the target culture better understand the translated work.Previous scholars have done a lot of research concerning compensation and relevant strategies. However, they largely focused on cultural default caused by cultural difference between the source language and the target language without addressing probable unfamiliar information of a different culture depicted in the source text. What’s more, many of their extracted examples from others’ translations lack contextual consistency. Besides, most of the compensation strategies they put forward are overlapping with each other. In light of that, the present author categorized those strategies into two types: in-text annotation and footnotes, and suggested respective solutions to cultural defaults and third cultural information unfamiliar to target readers in the translation.The present author, based on her translation of The Orphan Master’s Son, tries to present unfamiliar cultural information to the target readers. Besides, there is some extratextual information unsaid in the source text yet important for the target readers to well understand the translated work. That is also what the present author wants to add to her translation. The ultimate goal is to minimize unfamiliar yet important information about the third culture in the fiction and to help the target readers fully appreciate it. In this way, the efficiency in cross-cultural communication can also be improved. |
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