Research On Cultural Default And Compensation Strategies In Huangdi Neijing Under The Perspective Of Relevance-Adaptation Theory

Cultural default and its compensation strategies in the former 34 chapters of three English versions of Huangdi Neijing (translated by Iliza Veith, Wu Liansheng, Wuqi and Li Zhaoguo) were collected. Their advantages and disadvantages were analyzed respectively under theory of relevance-adaptation in order to find the most suitable compensation strategies of cultural default.Cultural default was first put forward by Wang Dongfeng at Journal of Foreign Language in 1997. It refers to omission of shared background cultural knowledge by authors during the communication with intended readers. As this linguistic phenomenon commonly existed in the text, the quality of English translation of cultural default affects the quality of the whole English text.Relevance-adaptation theory was first proposed by Yangping in China. This theory refers that translation not only is the process of ostensive inference, but also the process of dynamic adaptation. Translation consists of "two texts (source text and target text)", "three participants (writer, translator and target-language reader)" and two processes of utterance comprehension and utterance production. During the process of utterance comprehension, the translator dynamically adapts to culture of source language based on relevance degree, in order to achieve the optimal relevance. During the process of utterance production, the translator achieves the optimal relevance after knowing the relevance degree and knowledge structure of target-language. All those are to achieve the lowest culture default of the source culture.Cultural default (306) and its English compensation strategies in the former 34 chapters of above three English versions of Huangdi Neijing (translated by Iliza Veith, Wu Liansheng, Wuqi and Li Zhaoguo) were analyzed with the relevance-adaptation theory on qualitative and quantitative basis. The results are listed as follows:1. The compensation strategies of Iliza Veith version are seven kinds, namely literal translation, literal translation with notes, transliteration (with notes), free translation, rigid translation, deletion translation and creative translation. Wu Liansheng, Wuqi and Li Zhaoguo use the former six compensation strategies.2. According to the degree of relevance, cultural default in Huangdi Neijing can be divided into static cultural default and dynamic cultural default, and they both can be divided into relative and absolute. Depend on analysis of specific examples, compensation strategies of cultural default are gained, namely initial method, deletion method, creative method, exposition method and substitution method. In conclusion, compensation strategies of absolute static cultural default is mainly initial method, combined with other translation methods; That of relevance static cultural default applies exposition method and substitution method; That of absolute dynamic cultural default mainly uses substitution method, combined with creative method; That of relative dynamic default mainly applies exposition method.