A Study Of Cultural Vacancy Between Sino-west "Dragon" And "Phoenix" In Intercultural Communication

Culture is a phenomenon exclusive to human society. And the differences brought about bythe unique living environment and historical developments of each nation make possible thevarious kinds of distinct culture in the human society. Since language and culture is closelyrelated to each other, the differences in culture also make an appearance in the language system.With the ever deepening development of intercultural communication between China andwestern countries, intercultural communication becomes more and more frequent and brings agrowing number of cultural conflicts. One of such conflicts is cultural vacancy. Cultural vacancyrefers to the national differences that exist in one certain culture system but may be absent ormay be easy to arouse misunderstanding in other culture systems. To deal with cultural vacancyappropriately and try to reflect the national differences hidden behind such cultural differenceswill not only help the communicators know more about each other’s national culture but also willmake contributions to the successful intercultural communication.Long and feng in China have long been regarded as the auspicious signs. These twoauspicious images represent part of Chinese traditional culture and play an important role inChinese culture. However, in the course of intercultural communication, the current translationof Chinese long and feng cannot completely reflect the abundant meaning of long and feng andthereby will affect the spreading of the true connotation of Chinese long and feng, which willbring about misunderstandings and hinder the successful intercultural communication.On the basis of the former studies about cultural vacancy and Chinese long and feng, thethesis tries to study the cultural vacancy existed in the different understanding between Chineselong and feng and western dragon and phoenix so as to facilitate the spreading of Chinese longand feng.The whole thesis is divided into five chapters: Chapter one makes a brief introduction of theresearch background, significance and the whole structure of the thesis. Chapter Two introducescultural vacancy and the relation between cultural vacancy and intercultural communication.Chapter three puts emphasis on the discussion of the differences between Chinese long and fengand western dragon and phoenix. Chapter four analyses the potential problems existed in thecurrent translation of Chinese long and feng and the relative strategies to solve these problems are discussed. in analyzing the translation strategies, the author stresses the way of transliterationas a way to bridging the cultural vacancy between Chinese long and feng and western dragonand phoenix. And on the same time, the author also points out the way of transliteration is not auniversal way. Other translation strategies should also be considered in accordance with thedifferent specific translation purposes. Chapter Five makes a conclusion of the whole thesis andalso mentions the limitations of this thesis.