On Cultural Default And Compensation In Chinese Proverb Translation Based On Cultural Schema Theory

With the developing national strength and international influence of China, people in the rest of the world are showing unprecedented interest to Chinese culture and in learning Chinese. Under such an international circumstance, it’s necessary to carry out the study of compensation for cultural default in Chinese proverbs in the TT. It’s hoped that through the window of Chinese proverbs, TT readers can have a taste of the "original version" of Chinese culture and expressions in western cultures can be enriched and rewarded.In this thesis, the author has carried out a qualitative analysis on cultural default in literary works, especially in Chinese proverbs. Cultural schema has provided a theoretical foundation for the compensation of cultural default. New information makes sense and can be understood because it is associated with prior cultural background knowledge. According to the corresponding situations of cultural schemata in the TT readers’ cognitive domain, the translator can help them activate, extend, change, or newly build cultural schemata in the TT, so as to assist them accurately understand the TT.The author proposes that a translator must cultivate his cross-cultural awareness, his bilingual and bi-cultural competencies, so that he can have the ability to compensate cultural default in translation. It’s suggested that priority should be given to cultural background information compensation in Chinese proverbs translation, and compensations of others should give way. Literal translation should be used as the primary compensation methods, other methods as supplements, together with Cultural Schema theory to translate some Chinese proverbs in a novel way. The author disapproves of the idea of using borrowing translation and replacement translation methods to compensate for cultural default in Chinese proverbs while ignoring the cultural factors both in Chinese and English proverbs. In this way, the exotic elements of Chinese culture can be preserved to the maximum extent.