简要分析文化空缺及其翻译策略

简要分析文化空缺及其翻译策略

A Brief Analysis of Cultural Vacancy and The Corresponding Translation Strategies

学 院： 外语学院 专业/班级：英语0703班 学 号： 学生姓名： 指导教师：

2011年6月

Contents

摘要. .......................................................................................................................... 3 Abstract ...................................................................................................................... 4 Chapter One Introduction ....................................................................................... 5 Chapter Two Brief Analysis of Common Cultural Vacancy. .................................. 7 2.1 The Definition of Cultural Vacancy. .................................................................... 7 2.2 Reasons of Cultural Vacancy ............................................................................... 8 2.2.1 Linguistic Defferences. ..................................................................................... 8 2.2.2 The Sources of Chinese and Western Culture .................................................. 9 2.2.3 National Attribute in Culture.. ........................................................................ 12 2.2.4 Geographical Attribute in Culture .................................................................. 12 2.2.5 Historical Attribute in Culture. ........................................................................ 11 2.3 Common Representations of Cultural Vacancy .................................................. 11 2.3.1 The Vacant Cultural Words .............................................................................. 11 2.3.2 The Introduction of Zero Equivalence ............................................................. 11 Chapter Three The Corresponding Translation Strategies ..................................... 11 3.1 Domestication and Foreignization. ..................................................................... 11 3.2 Common Translation Strategies ......................................................................... 19 3.2.1 Transliteration. ................................................................................................ 14 3.2.2 Literlity and Compensation. ........................................................................... 14 3.2.3 Loan Translation ............................................................................................. 15 3.2.4 The Conclusion of Strategies .......................................................................... 15 Chapter Four Conclusion ...................................................................................... 15 Bibliography ............................................................................................................ 15 Acknowledgements ................................................................................................. 27

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摘要

伴随着全球化的发展，国际间的文化交流也日益频繁，翻译事业也随之繁荣。翻译是联系两种不同文化的最常见的桥梁。翻译是各方力图传播自身文明，推广自身价值观的最重要的能力。然而，无可避免的是，在国际舞台上活跃的各种文化间的冲突也展现出来，而且，这种冲突并不能通过向一种文明妥协而得以解决。

不同的背景早就不同的文化，每一个民族都拥有自己的风俗习惯，而这些并不能在其它文化中找到完全对等之物，因此，文化差异与文化空缺无法避免。

文化空缺这一概念首先由美国语言学家霍凯特在对比两种语言的语法模式中发现，提出了“偶然的缺口”，意即在文化交际过程中的“寻衅之物”。文化空缺是指在一个民族的文化传统和现实生活中所存在的思想观念、规制礼仪和言语行为等在另一文化环境中出现的缺省现象，是翻译中的主要障碍。

文化空缺由多种原因造成，主要是语言差异，文化渊源差异，文化的自然属性，地理属性和历史属性，其中文化渊源差异主要表现为宗教信仰上的差异，对人们价值观的影响十分深远。文化词的空缺是最常见的变现形式，而零等值也正是翻译中最大的困难。

归化与异化是翻译中两大基本原则，然而二者相互对立，我们应根据具体情况相应选择，常用的翻译策略是音译、直译、借译，还有加注等。

本文共分四大部分：

第一部分为引言，简要介绍文化空缺现象的出现，及文化与翻译的密切关系； 第二部分简要分析了常见的文化空缺现象，介绍了文化空缺的概念，源头，及常见的表象形式；

第三部分主要介绍面对文化空缺时，我们可以采用的常用翻译策略，以音译，直译等为主；

第四部分则对前文内容进行总结。

关键词：文化空缺；文化交流；零等值；翻译策略

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Abstract

In this globalized world, the communication between cultures is more and more frequent, so that the career of translation is flourishing. Translation is the most common bridge between two different cultures. Translation is central to the ability of all parties to spread their civilizations, to legitimize their version of events. Inevitably, the, conflicts among different cultures are played out in the international area and could no longer be resolved by appealing to local constituencies alone.

Different backgrounds shaped different cultures, and each nation has its own habits and customs, which could not be found thoroughly and equivalently in another one. The differences and vacancies can not be avoided. Cultural vacancy was first found by the American linguistician Hockett, and he brought forward the random hole in patterns when he was contrasting the grammatical patterns of two languages. Cultural vacancy, which reflects the heterogeneity of its language and culture, is the main barrier for cross-cultural communication. To bridge the cultural vacancy is the critical step for transference of information as well as main means for exchange and diffusion of national cultures. Based on the analysis of phenomena of Sino-western cultural vacancy, the paper attempts to explore the solution to fill cultural vacancy, and put forward some feasible tactics for translation.

There are so many reasons to bring about cultural vacancy, linguistic differences, the sources of Chinese and western culture, national attribute in culture, geographical attribute in culture, and historical attribute in culture.

The most common representation of cultural vacancy is the vacancy of cultural words, and zero equivalence is the main difficult in translation.

Domestication and the foreignization are the basic principles in translation, but the two principles are against each other. We should choose the adaptable one in accordance with the condition. Transliteration, literality and compensation, and loan translation are all common strategies. Beside them, there are also other methods.

A translator has to consider not only the two languages but the two cultures. to promote the spread and communication of cultures, we have to try our best to develop the translation, to know about various cultural differences and vacancy, to improve the translators’ and interpreters’ qualities.

Key words: Cultural vacancy; cultural communication; zero equivalence; translation

strategie

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Chapter One Introduction

The purpose of this thesis is to make a brief introduction of common cultural vacancy, including its source, common representations and some familiar translation strategies. In this conflict-ridden and globalized world, translation is central to the ability of all parties to spread their civilizations, to legitimize their version of events. Inevitably, the, conflicts among different cultures are played out in the international area and could no longer be resolved by appealing to local constituencies alone. Most of these conflicts stem from the cultural differences and cultural vacancies, and often produced a lot of misunderstandings in our daily life, even the further conflicts in politics, economic, and so on.

Culture is a comprehensive but complicated concept, and has a very close relationship with the language. As we all know， language is a kind of phenomenon of the social culture, the product of the development of the social culture, and also the representation of the social culture.

Translation is the most common bridge between two different cultures. It is a kind of very practical skill and the most common way to make the people know about cultures of other nations. Ji Xianlin said that if we compare Chinese culture to a river, and the river is sometimes short of water, but it never goes out, for there will be some fresh water entering in it much or little, some from the west, some form India and the vehicle is translation. So we can say translation is very important.

Every action has its own aim or target, and everyone could make some effect. Translation is also a kind of behavior, so it has its own goal. Translation could realize the goal to promote the communications between two groups with different cultures and languages. Translation has a kind of significant and meaningful influence; even someone has the idea “to translate or to die”.

“Wherever we happen to be in the world and whatever type of activity or profession we may be involved in, we now live and function in a climate of conflict that cuts across national boundaries and constantly forces itself on our consciousness.” (Baker, P16)

And many of theses conflicts come from the differences of cultures. Due to cultural differences in historical background, social customs, religious beliefs, ideology, each nation is peculiar about certain objects and concepts that cannot be found equivalences or corresponding expressions in other languages of a given culture.

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The differences between China and the English-speaking countries in history, social customs, religious practices and ideology bring forth many issues that need to be addressed. One of them is “Cultural Vacancy” resulting from cultural peculiarities. For example, “tofu” is a kind of Chinese traditional food, which you can not find in the west in history, so there was no such a word in western dictionaries before, which is a kind of cultural vacancy. while，it is also the main obstacle on our way to do the intercultural translation and communicate with the western nations.

Chinese believe in that the even number should be auspicious and could bring good luck to the people, so the figure of gifts people chose is often an even number: two bottles of wine, 4 boxes of dim sum and so on. While, the western people used to regard the odd figure as the propitious representation, and they always choose to present a box of candies and 3 fruits as the gifts to their friends. As we all know, the figure “13” is one of the western taboos and it is from the Bible. Because China and the Britain, the USA, and many other western countries embraced different religions, not most of Chinese could understand the negative meaning of the figure from the religion which they are not familiar with. There is no doubt that the figure “13” is a cultural vacancy in Chinese.

What and how should we do when we are meeting the cultural vacancy? To introduce the main methods to deal with the problem is also a main part in this paper. To tackle a problem, we first realize where it comes from. So to do with the cultural vacancy perfectly, we have to search out its original source and then the appropriate tactics. So that we could promote the communication and syncretism of languages, cultures, traditions, habits, civilizations, as well as the development of globalization.

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Chapter Two Brief Analysis of Common Cultural

Vacancy

American socialist Robertson has described in his Sociology: The culture in every society has its own features, contains its own combination of codes and values which you could not find in other societies. Americans eat oysters instead of snails; the French have snails instead of grasshoppers; the Zulu take the grasshoppers instead of fish; the Jew choose the fish instead of pork; the Hindu eat pork instead of beef; the Russian prefer the beef to the snakes; while, Chinese could accept the snakes…the American spend their lifetime in get wealth together; some people living in the forests of Congo in Africa share their own things with others all their lives; someone living in the islands in northwest Pacific Ocean will hold a grand ceremony periodically to distribute or ruin their stuff. Many peoples abide by a common principle that people should value the women’s chastity, while, there is an ethnic group living in Indonesia, whose law stipulates that the women should be pregnant before she married, or else, the girls will lose their rights to get married. Women in traditional Arabic society has to veil the whole bodies; American women could show her face, could wear bikini only; the women living in some African districts may denude her breast and the entire hip; the residents of one people in Philippines live naked all the day. There are so huge differences in society and culture, so we can say no only one principle could be suitable to the every corner of the world.

Different backgrounds shaped different cultures, and each nation has its own habits and customs, which could not be found thoroughly and equivalently in another one. The differences and vacancies can not be avoided.

Translation is almost as old as original authorship and has a history as honorable and as complex as that of any other branch of literature. In the process of translation, the most difficult problem to deal with is how to translate when the translator is meeting the cultural differences, especially the cultural vacancy. But, what is the exact “cultural vacancy”?

2.1 The Definition of Cultural Vacancy

Cultural vacancy was first found by the American linguistician Hockett, and he brought forward the random hole in patterns when he was contrasting the grammatical patterns of two languages. Then Russian specialists in art and culture named the national characters which block the mutual communication between cultures agnail, which means that it is defying in the process of intercultural communication.

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American cultural anthropologist, Hull, found that this nation lacks of the names of basic colors in other nations, so he chose the technical term, gap. At the end of 1980s, Soviet scholar Sorokin, etc, put forward the theory of vacancy when they were doing the dissertation about the utterance and the national cultural characteristics. Several years flying, scholars were going on exploring, analyzing and generalizing them, in order that the cultural vacancy could have its own theory.

Cultural vacancy, which reflects the heterogeneity of its language and culture, is the main barrier for cross-cultural communication. It is that the cultural traditions, ideology, norms, proprieties, behaviors in the real life in one culture are gapped in another. To bridge the cultural vacancy is the critical step for transference of information as well as main means for exchange and diffusion of national cultures. Based on the analysis of phenomena of Sino-western cultural vacancy, the paper attempts to explore the solution to fill cultural vacancy, and put forward some feasible tactics for translation.

2.2 Reasons of Cultural Vacancy

How can we best understand the relationship between the translations and their source texts? There is always a basic problem: translations are assumed to be somehow “the same” as the original, but they are always different. The problem does not come from only the linguistic differences between two languages, for example, the differences in the structures of sentences, but also the differences in the culture.

Cultural vacancy results from many reasons. Because culture has a lot of extremely complicated components, such as national character, perception, time and space concept, way of thinking, verbal and nonverbal code, value orientation, behavior norms and rules and social groupings and relationships, and so on.(Li Jianjun, P7)

So we could understand that there are so many reasons to bring about cultural vacancy, and one of them could make difficulties in the process of translation, even block it. In this paper, I will introduce a few main reasons.

2.2.1 Linguistic Differences

Under the influences of diverse cultures, the differences of English and Chinese are firstly displayed in the linguistics.

English and Chinese are affiliated in different language families. Chinese is a member of Sino-Tibetan family, and is a kind of hieroglyphic language; while,

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English belongs to the Indo-European family, and is a kind of inflexional language. In Chinese, the tone is a main way to identify the meaning of words, because the different tones always cause the diverse meaning. From the perspective of the structure of words, Chinese is ideographic, so we could know about the meaning as soon as we see a word sometimes, as is difficult to express in English; English is combined by the letters, without fixed configuration.

他们“品”字形地坐了下来。

译文1：They sat down to form a design like a Chinese character “pin”(or “品”).

译文2：They sat down facing each other. (Li Jianjun P36)

In the examples above, the second version did not use the Chinese pinyin, but chose the conversion of the way to express, in order to make the version convey the lively character in the source language, and to make the readers acknowledge and accept easily.

2.2.2 The Sources of Chinese and Western Culture

Culture is the sediment of historical experience and principles which are every national specialties. The eastern and western cultures have their own vivid characters because both of them have their own social environment to develop and historical backgrounds. The Chinese people lived in the regions near rivers, the Yellow River, the Yangtze River, the Pearl River, and so on, for a long time. They developed the agriculture near their fixed residence. With the time’s flying, the people built a system of culture and customs which featured the agricultural farming by way of the long-standing sediment.

The formation and development of Chinese culture have its own specific but incisive headstream, which is the Chinese traditional religions, Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism.

In Buddhism, the four saccas have the deepest influence in the Chinese belief and minds. The first one is Dukkha sacca, the noble truth of suffering, means that all the lifetime of creatures in the world should be full of agonies and annoyance. The second one is Samudaya sacca, the noble truth of the origin of suffering, means that the appetency is the root of the whole agonies. The third one is Nirodha sacca, the noble truth of extinction of suffering, means that giving the appetency up is the way to eliminate the agonies in the world. The last one is Magga sacca, the noble truth that leads to the extinction of suffering, means the way to the seventh heaven. The creeds

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of Buddhism promote uncreativeness, no everlasting existence, anatma and the interdependent, and so on, in order to make people believe the metempsychosis of the soul.

Taoism focuses much more on the cultivation of the body and the mind. It encourages people to follow the natural rule and take the world as you find it, to purge one’s mind of desires and ambition and be indifferent to the reputation and wealth, to be content with one’s lot and self-representation, to promote health and vitality, to cultivate morality and develop virtues, and to fight against dynamics with statics.

Confucianism is the most important to influence the formation of Chinese traditional system of culture and values, and it has penetrated the areas of politics, economy and social life. The central contribution of the Confucianism is the Three Key Principles and the Five Constant Virtues. The Three Key Principles are that the emperor dominates his official servants, father dominates his children, and husband dominates his wife. The Five Constant Virtues are that five cardinal hierarchical relationships, the emperor over the subject, the father over the son, the husband over the wife, the elder brother over the younger one, and friend and friend, as well as five common handling principles, benevolence, personal loyalty, courtesy or politeness or propriety, wisdom and faithfulness. At the same time, women were restricted by more regulation. For example, Three Obediences and Four Virtues for Women, which are obeying her father as a daughter, obeying her husband as a wife, obeying her sons in widowhood, morality, proper speech, modest manner and diligent work.

The Analects is the representative of the Confucianism and gives a number of discourses about the social order and relationships.

“父母在，不远游，游必有方。”

While your parents are alive, it is better not to travel far away. If you do travel, you should have a precise destination.

“入则孝，出则悌，谨而信，范爱众，而亲仁。行有余力，则以学文。”

A young man should serve his parents at home and be respectful to elders outside his home. He should be earnest and truthful, loving all, but become intimate with humaneness. After doing this, if he has energy to spare, he can study literature and the arts. (Li Jianjun, P 25)

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In the process of the historical development of Chinese culture, the unique value, which gives an ethic system, whose core is benevolence, polite and modest, and deference. And it has the following features: firstly, the unity of heaven and humanity demands that the people have to submit to the nature; secondly, the family ethics is very important, because the familial institution is a very important component of the social management all the time, and has formed the social parties which regard the family as the core, aim to maintain the benefits of the whole family, and are restricted by the familial rules and principles; thirdly, the Chinese pursuit the principles and strategies of the Middle Way.

The western culture is a kind of scientific culture. Its formation and development also have its own sources, and it was influenced by the Hebrew Culture, the Greek and Roman Culture, and the Christian Culture. The Christian is a very common religion in western countries, over eighty percent citizens believe in the Christian, which is also popular and socially pervasive. The main creeds of the Christian are Faith, Creed, Confession, and Love. Among them, Faith teaches people to believe that the God is existing for ever, and the disciples are all the God’s people and should obey his will; Creed teaches people to believe that the God has the omnipotent power; Confession teaches people should loudly confess or stand corrected to the God for their mistakes disobeyed the will of God; Love teaches people to give their pure love to the God who is accompanying you all the time, and to all the people near you, as well as yourselves. In western culture, the unique value shows the utilitarian system and regards freedom, equality and science as its core.

There are two main characters in the western culture. The one is that the western culture lays emphasis on the individuality. Firstly, in western society, everyone trusts that he has the separate identity. Secondly, the western culture focuses on the concept of privacy. In the western society, people think they have their own independent and private space, such as their ages, marriages, salaries and so on. Thirdly, in the western society, people believe that everyone is equal, and pays attention to personal and free choices, focuses on the self-actualization and personal grown. They attach importance to the individual achievement, and they think everyone has the opportunity to work hand, to realize his future target and to get his accomplishment. The other one is that in the western society, people believe that the objective fact and your ability to practice determine everything, which is a representative character of the western culture and science.

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The different religious backgrounds cause the cultural differences between the Chinese and the western. Firstly, the people have the different opinions of human initial inbeing, that the Chinese think the people are virtuous when they were born, while the western people think that man is born evil. Secondly, the Chinese culture belongs to the static culture and emphasizes to contest in harmony, while the western culture is part of the dynamic culture and emphasizes to harmonize in contest. Thirdly, the two kinds of cultures have different attitudes towards the future and the past. The Chinese think much of the past, the history and the experience. While the western people treasure the future and the potentialities. Fourthly, the people from different cultural regions have the dissimilar choices about the spirit and the fact. The spirit is given more attention in the Chinese culture, while the fact in the western culture. Fifthly, the Chinese and the western cultures give different priorities to the collectivity and the individuality. The Chinese culture stresses that dependence on the collectivity, while the western culture underlines the independence of the individuality.

Value is a learned organization of rules for making choices and for solving conflict and it is determined by the cultural environment. Because the distinct religious backgrounds and values, there is no doubt that the cultural vacancy must be inevitable.

2.2.3 National Attribute in Culture

Any cultures are closely connected with the national environment of the production and the realistic life. So the diverse national course of development, the environment of life, production, the existence and the attitude towards the life will generate the special products, behaviors, social criteria, customs and habits.

First, under the influences of the different courses of national environment, various customs are built. The custom of one nation is very strange to the people from another nation sometimes is hard to accept even.

Second, because of the different social education, people have dissimilar notions. For example, the leading culture in China is the virtue, while in west, the utilitarian.

2.2.4 Geographical Attribute in Culture

Different climate and geographical environment could create various products. People choose different tools to farm because they live in the different clime and on the different terrain, such as the plateau, the basin, the plain, the hill, the grassland, the desert, and different kinds of agriculture. So there are many objects in one culture, which we could not find in another one, and the difficulties from cultural vacancy in

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translation are appearing. Many Chinese products are not found in English, like litchi, zongzi, bamboo, tea, china. Of course, there are many tings gapped in Chinese, like bread, bun, cookie, breadstuff, breadstuffs and so on. Many foreigners named Chinese “豆腐” bean curd, which is unsuitable actually. Because tofu has many different kinds, such as the uncongealed tofu, the tofu cake, the dried soya cream, and the zymolytic tofu. In fact, the Japanese have told the name of tofu to the western people a long time ago.

Someone described “饺子” as the dumpling, but the two things are not equivalent completely. The word of dumpling has two explanations; one is small balls or strips of boiled or steamed dough, and the other one is dessert made by baking fruit wrapped in pastry. As we all know, the products described in the second explanation is gapped in Chinese culture. If we choose the first one, how could we translate the baozi?

2.2.5 Historical Attribute in Culture

All the cultures are the fruit of different nation accumulated in the process of self-development, and are associated with the development of ideologies of religious philosophy, the transition of social and economical systems. With the transition of the boundaries of territories, the innovation of systems, the occurrences of matters, the development of arts and literature, lots of cultural words with the colors of national history are created. In Chinese, “宰相”, “倭寇”, “汉奸”, “同志”, “焚书坑儒”, “鸿门宴”, in English, “knight”, “Enclosure Movement”, “Industrial Revolution”, “Prisoner Abuse Event”, all of them are the cultural words appearing during the special historical time.

The historical attribute in culture always leads to the cultural vacancy. For example, the Chinese “红卫兵” is the product of the Culture Revolution, which happened in a given historical period and it must be vacant in English. Someone translated “红卫兵” into “Red Guard”, which is not in accordance with the original meaning. Another one gave another version, “Radicals”, and I agreed with the latter.

2.3 Common Representations of Cultural Vacancy

Translation is a kind of way to get the information around. Translators aims to convey the information in source language by way of translation, tries their best to make the readers get the same message, realizes that aimed at different groups of readers, that some read the source language, and the others read the target language, the effect of versions is the same with the original text, as is the most idealized result

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but very tough to obtain in the intercultural translation. Because translation is a kind of action of cultural intercourse, even though the presentative show is just the communication between two languages, in fact, it is the blending of cultures. During the course of translation, the original text is the headstream of information, and the readers of version are the end of information. There is a deep gap between the receptors and the sources of information, which is called cultural vacancy.

2.3.1 The Vacant Cultural Words

Translation relies on the conversion of languages, and the word is the basic unit of language. So, the cultural vacancy is first reflected by cultural words.

The cultural vacancy must bring about the vacancy of cultural words in languages to express the cultural connotation. The vacant cultural words are the words which exist in only one national language, and contain distinctive senses. The vacant cultural words could be formed in the long river of history, also be created by the nation itself. These words in source language denote some cultural objects, phenomena, and actions, but the equivalence or similarities of them could not be found in the target language. For example, the word “hippie” first appeared in the 1960s in the USA, and it was vacant in Chinese, so we could not found its equivalent substitution.

There are a number of words whose connotations are lacked in other languages. Many examples always appear in our daily life, like “frankfurter” (法兰克福香肠), “beddo”(电子床), “shower”(阵雨), “天干地支”(Chinese era system), “清明”(Sacrificing Day), “梅雨”(plum rains), “秋老虎”(old wives’ summer), “三九”(the coldest winter days), “三伏”(the hottest summer days), and so on.

The culture could penetrate into every layer of the language. Each part of a language, like the vocabulary, the grammar and the context, could be influenced and restricted by the culture. There are two kinds of cultural words.

The first one is the full vacant cultural words. This kind of words could be existing in one language, but gapped completely in another one. I will display some examples: “麻将”(mah-jong), “秀才”(xiucai), “牌九”(paijiu), “琵琶”(pipa), “cigar”(雪茄), “soda”(苏打水), “sauna”(桑拿), “gene”(基因), “Utopia”(乌托邦). In Chinese customs of marriage, that a man married a woman could be called “讨老婆”, which is vacant in American culture. If we translate it as the literal meaning, “beg a wife”, we disobeyed the Chinese cultural connotation, because it does not mean to beg, but to the bridegroom marry the bride with a low cost, and most of the cost is

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paid by the bride.

Example1 烟台发展（股票）违法操作，最后赔了夫人又折兵。

The irregular manipulation of the stock of YanTai FaZhan leads to a double loss at last.

Example2 俞秀莲：这“俞”字写起来真像“剑”。（《卧虎藏龙》）

Version1: I never realized my name looks like “Sword”. Version2: My name “June” is much like “Jone”. (Li Jianjun, P68)

In the first example, “赔了夫人又折兵”is a Chinese idiom, from the sentence “周郎妙计安天下，赔了夫人又折兵。” in Romance of the Three Kingdoms written by Luo Guanzhong, and vacant in English. The Chinese characters in the second example are gapped in English. If we choose the first version, we would miss the real cultural connotation.

The second one is the partial vacant cultural words. We could find the equivalent or similar counterparts of cultural words in both source language and target language, but there are some differences in the cultural connotations, namely parts of their connotation are equivalent. From the perspective of social linguistics, the address forms cover plentiful social and cultural connotation. They are not only the symbols of power and solidarity, but also the representation of many factors, like culture, society, education, religion, belief, age and gender. The choice of address forms is limited by the social relationship and the condition of intercourse.

她从贫苦的姑家，又转到贫苦的姨家。（萧红：《王阿嫂的死》）

Version1: She had lived for a while with some impoverished paternal relatives, then had been bundled off to some maternal relatives who were, if anything, even worse off. ——translated by Howard Golblatt

Version2: She had lived for a while with her impoverished paternal Aunt, then had been bundled off to her maternal Aunt who were, if anything, even worse off. (Li Jianjun, P70)

Only in the second version, we could understand the information in source

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language better, and distinguish “姑”and “姨” when we translate the similar matters.

2.3.2 The Introduction of Zero Equivalence

Because the cultural information loaded by the language refers to every aspect of life, including politics, economics, systems, customs and so on, so that the phenomena of Zero Equivalence, Partial Equivalence, and Illusory Equivalence are coming. The Partial Equivalence means that the cultural connotation in one culture could be found in another culture, but only partial meaning is equivalent instead of the whole. For example, “孤儿” in Chinese has two meanings, one is the fatherless child, and the other is the child who has no farther nor mother; while in English, the “orphan” also has two meanings, one is a child who has lost both parents, the other is someone who lacks support or care or supervision. Only part of meaning of the two words is equivalent, which is called Partial Equivalence. Illusory Equivalence means that the different words which have the similar literal meanings create a kind of misleading appearance to make people believe that they have the equivalent connotation. For example, “sleep late” in English does not mean “晚睡”, but means “晚起床”. Both of the Partial Equivalence and the Illusory Equivalence are not the main representation of cultural vacancy, but the Zero Equivalence is.

The cultural Zero Equivalence means that the connotation existing in one culture has no equivalent counterpart in another culture. In English slang, the natural meaning of “in one’s birthday suit” is naked, which is different from the literal Chinese version “穿着生日服装”; the true meaning of “a pork barrel” in English is “政府为讨好选民而用于地方建设的拨款” instead of “猪肉桶”. The two expressions above are Zero Equivalence in Chinese. In like manner, “寻花问柳” in Chinese means that the lascivious men pursue girls, and “花” and “柳” are used to stand for the beautiful women. And the word, “寻花问柳”, always acts as the euphemism of “visit the brothel”, which is far away from the liberal meaning, “visited the budding groves”; “戴绿帽子” in Chinese means “be a cuckold”, which could not be substituted by “wear a green hat”. Both of them are also affiliated with the Zero Equivalence.

Along with the advancement of globalization and China’s increasing importance in the global arena day by day, the communication between China and other nations becomes more and more frequent, so translation has more and more important influence, and the solution of cultural vacancy become the key to promote the spread of various cultures, the communication among different nations, as well as the globalization all around the world. On the other hand, if we could not handle the

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translation well, all the grand and meaningful matters mentioned above would be blocked. Cultural vacancy is the main obstacle to translate, so it will bring about bad influences without precise resolutions.

With China’s WTO entry, business enterprises in China have to face more and more business negotiations with foreign enterprises, especially with American enterprises. In these negotiations, Chinese negotiators sometimes feel uncomfortable, puzzled, lost, and irritated, because of unfamiliar custom and behaviors demonstrated by American negotiators. Meanwhile, American negotiators confront the same problem. Cultural differences and cultural vacancy between China and America are the crucial cause which enlarged the indetermination of the bilateral business negotiation and difficulties of agreement. Therefore, understanding cultural vacancy and crossing over the cultural obstacles become the core point in business negotiations between China and America. That is only the influence of translation in business; we will face more serious conditions if we make some mistakes in translation about the political affairs.

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Chapter Three The Corresponding Translation

Strategies

Translation is not only the conversion of symbols from one language to another one, but also a pattern of cultural conversion. Any cooperation and contexts of every nation could be closely connected with the function of translation. Actually, translation has been acting as the role to promote the cultural communication since it was born. So translation is a kind of intercultural communicative action. Christinane Nord used the intercultural communication to replace the term of translation; Holze-Manttari even chose intercultural cooperation in place of translation; Andre Lefevere thought the translation as acculturation; and R.Daniel Shaw created the word of transculturation. At this time, the unitary translation is a method of intercultural communication indeed. Translation could help other media to communicate, further more, the translation could also finish the communicative task by itself. With the development of the society, people’s intercultural activities are increasing day by day. So, there is no doubt that the tasks which are undertaken by translation also become more and more, correspondingly, the contributions of intercultural communication is becoming more and more outstanding.

In a word, translation has such an important influence in the blending of different cultures, that we must not ignore it. In the process of intercultural communication, translation is the main way; as a result, we should give more focuses on translation to realize more perfect blending of different cultures, to promote that the people all around the world could acknowledge each other, to accelerate the globalization.

3.1 Domestication and Foreignization

The translation principles, the domestication and the foreignization were put forward by Lawrence Venuti, and he gave the definitions of both of them. Domestication is to adopt the transparent fluent style to minimize the strangeness of SL for the TL readers. For that the original image or flavor is most likely to be retained when the transparent fluent style is adopted and to make the version easy to be understood…within the cognition and cultural circle of the TL readers. And foreignization is to a certain extent, maintaining the foreigness of the source text and to break the linguistic norm of the target language.

Both of them are the basic principles in translation, but the two principles are against each other. Domestication is helpful to protect the purity of our own national culture, so it is often used in the process of cultural importation. While, foreignization

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could inspire the extension of our culture and enlarge the influences of our national culture, so it is usually adopted by the cultural exportation.

他一家子在这儿，他的房子、地在这儿，他跑？跑了和尚跑不了庙。（周立波：《暴风骤雨》）

Version1: Escape? But his home and property can’t escape, “The monk may run away, but the temple can’t run with him!”

Version2: His family are here. And his house and property are here too. He escapes, can his family and his house run away with him? (Li Jianjun, P118)

The first version chose the foreignization, and the second one used the domestication. The latter seemed more comfortable. Nowadays, even though the domestication is more popular than the foreignization, we should choose the adaptable one in accordance with the condition.

3.2 Common Translation Strategies

What is translation? Often, though not by any means always, it is rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the way that the author intended the text. Common sense tells us that this ought to be simple, as one ought to be able to say something as well in one language as in another. On the other hand, you may see it as complicated, artificial and fraudulent, since by using another language you are pretending to be someone you are not. Hence in many types of text (legal, administrative, dialect, local, cultural) the temptation is to transfer as many SL (Source Language) words to the TL (Target Language) as possible. The pity is, as Mounin wrote, that the translation cannot simply reproduce, or be, the original.

There can be no valid single comprehensive theory of translation, and no general agreement on the element of invariance, the ideal translation unit, the degree of translatability, and the concepts of equivalent-effect and congruence in translation, although all these questions are worth pursuing.

Cultural vacancy is a usual phenomenon in intercultural communication. It brings many barriers in our understanding and communication. While translation is an intercultural activity, how to deal with cultural vacancy in translation is always a big challenge to the translators. Because cultural vacancy can not find equivalents in the target language, translating it is different from other kinds of translation.

With the development of the globalization, all kinds of cultures are spreading in the world, and being digested by the people from every corner of this world. Cultural

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differences have been such a common phenomenon in our daily life, and also in translation. Facing these common differences, translators have some tactics to deal with them, foreignization or domestication. But what should we do when we are meeting the specific cultural vacancy? How could I successfully avoid the western taboos during the process of the translation? How could I finish the task of intercultural translation, realize the communication and the syncretism of the two different cultures, and live up to the expectation from readers?

3.2.1 Transliteration

Abundant characters in source language may be vacant or gapped in the target language, at that time, there is noting we could do but make use of transliteration, which aims to transplant these vacant objects into the target language. By this way, not only the foreigner tone in the original text could be saved, but also the newcomers could be brought in and be used to enrich the culture of the target language.

In English and Chinese, many cultural vacancy factors usually are person’s names, place names, technical terms, food names or other words represents specific things which are mostly used in those phrases of special things in an ethnic group. Those words can not find counterparts in target language. For example, the English words with national characteristics are translated into Chinese by way of transliteration: “humor” into “幽默”; “logic” into “逻辑”; “chocolate” into “巧克力”; “opium” into “鸦片”; “lymph” into “淋巴”; “brandy” into “白兰地”; “trust” into “托拉斯”; “pound” into “磅”; “whisky” into “威士忌”; “radar” into “雷达”.

“狗不理” is a kind of well-known and typical snacks in China, which develop in Tianjin city with centenary history. We could not translate it with the steamed bun with stuffing simply, because “狗不理” comes from China, develops in China, and there is no doubt that it does not exist in the western culture and it is the cultural vacancy, and the version according to the English could not express the Chinese traditional and cultural charm, as well as the story of “狗不理”. During the reign of Guangxu emperor in Qing Dynasty, there was a stall to sell the baozi, and the seller’s name is Gao Guiyou, and his infant name is Gouzi. The baozi which he braized was the most popular and the most welcome. Consumers could pick the baozi after their payment, and the seller did not notice other tings any more. Day after day, year after year, people always laughed at him that Gouzi was so absorbed that he would ignore any other things when he was selling his baozi. With the diffusion of this joke, “狗不理” became well-known, so that people forgot the name of the stall of Gouzi, and had

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deep impression on “狗不理” instead, which increasingly became the brand of the stall. Nowadays, “狗不理” baozi has opened many businesses in many Chinese cities that are famous for their tourism, even sell the delicious baozi to the overseas market.

In San Francisco in the USA, there was a Chinese restaurant. On the menu written in English, the “狗不理” baozi was listed in the part of breakfast and lunch, whose English name was “ Dog won’s leave”. The dog could not leave the baozi, so that it spent no time in paying attention to the host. Even though the English name could reflect the original Chinese meaning of “狗不理”, I do not think it was enough to fulfill the glamour completely. Baozi and jiaozi are both Chinese traditional and peculiar to our mother country, containing a number of Chinese cultural contents. The baozi must be gapped in the culture of the western diet, so the best way which we should choose is the transliteration. In fact, we have known about that “狗不理” do not have any connection with the dog, it is only one name of a kind of baozi’s brand. So, the transliteration is welcome at this time. And the English name of “狗不理” should be translated as Goubuli Baozi.

We could translate the Chinese terms with folk custom meanings into English by way of transliteration. Let us have a look at the following examples, “豆腐” for “tofu”; “馒头” for “mantow”; “饺子” for “jiaozi”; “叩头” for “kowtow”; “功夫” for “kongfu”; “炕” for “kang”; “唢呐” for “suona”; “五行” for “ wuxing”; “武术” for “wushu”.

English Judas kiss was from the Bible. Judas was one of the disciples of Jesus. According to the New Testament, Judas betrayed Jesus for thirty silver coins by way of giving Jesus a kiss in order that Jesus would be recognized by the Roman. So, we could find the definition of Judas kiss in the new English Chinese dictionary as “奸诈，口蜜腹剑，阴险的背叛”. To say the truth, this translation is not wrong, but sounds so insipid that it loses the cultural lasting appeal in the source language. Why not translate the Judas kiss into “犹大之吻” simply and directly to save the livid figures in the religious culture in the source language?

People considered that what he had played on that occasion was no more than a Judas kiss. “人们认为他在那种场合所表演的不过是犹大之吻。” There are also similar examples:

Achilles’ heel 阿基里斯的脚踵; Trojan horse 特洛伊木马 Hamburger 汉堡包（Bai Jingyu，P21）

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3.2.2 Literality and Compensation

Literality could usually save the maximum original content, figures and grammar structures and also preserve the national, regional and historical characters in the culture of source language. For instance, “Burn one’s boat” for “破釜沉舟”, “Walls have ears” for “隔墙有耳”, “zebra line” for “斑马线（人行横道）”, “dry red wine” for “干红”, “win-win situation” for “双赢局面”, “crocodile tears” for “鳄鱼的眼泪”.

Sometimes, we need to add some compensation to the literality, which has two aims, one is that the translator is trying his best to save the characters of the source language in the original text, and the other is to make the readers more familiar with the meaning of the translation. We always use it when we translate some Chinese idioms. “三个臭皮匠，顶个诸葛亮” could be translated into “Three cobblers with their wits combined equal Chukeh Liang, the mastermind.” “梁祝” could be translated into “Liang Shan-bo and Zhu Ying-tai, the Romeo and Juliet in China”. “东施效颦” could be translated into “Tung shih imitating Hsi Shih(His shih was a famous beauty in the ancient kingdom of Yuel, Tung shih was an ugly girl who tried to imitate herway)”. “Foggy bottom” could be translated into “雾谷（美国国务院）”. “John Bull” could be translated into “约翰牛（指英国人）”.

Literality and compensation could not only fill the cultural gap, but also make the readers be clear about the meaning at a glance and achieve the idealized communicative effects.

3.2.3 Loan Translation

Loan translation is to do the literal translation according to the structure and principles of word formation of the loanwords, and it is usually used in Partial Equivalence. We have many examples in our daily life, such as “超人” for “superman”, “超市” for “supermarket”, “千年虫” for “millennium bug”, “冷战” for “cold war”, “情商” for “emotional quotient”, “iron rice bowl” for “铁饭碗”, “fairly comfortable standard of living” for “小康水平”, “Confucianism” for “儒家思想”, “Chinese herbal medicine” for “中草药”. We could translate some set phrases by loan translation, like “teach fish to swim”(班门弄斧), “the pot calls the kettle black”(五十步笑百步), “kill the goose that lays the golden eggs”(竭泽而渔), “He that lives with cripples learns to limp”(近朱者赤，近墨者黑), “Everybody’s business is nobody’s business”(三个和尚无水喝).

3.2.4 The Conclusion of strategies

The theory of equivalence was put forward by American scholar Nida in the

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translation of Bible. He thought there are two kinds of equivalence in translation, the one is formal equivalence, and the other is called functional equivalence or dynamic equivalence. Formal equivalence focuses attention on the message itself, in both form and content. The functional equivalence focused on the effect of translation, or the answers from the readers. The relationship between receptor and message should be substantially the same as that which existed between the original receptors and the message. And the equivalence should be carried out by translators by means of the corresponding strategies.

Transliteration, literality and compensation, and loan translation are all common strategies, beside them, there are also other methods. We could also choose some words which have the similar culture meaning but different concepts to substitute the cultural words in source language, like “挥金如土” into “to spend money like water”, “精神文明” into “ cultural and ethical progress”, “一刀切” into “to impose uniformity”, “鱼米之乡” into “a land of honey and milk”. At the same time, the annotation is also welcome, for example, the Chinese “炒杂碎” could be translated into Chopsuey (a kind of food consisting of some sliced meat ).

At the same time, free translation is often very familiar. Many proper nouns in literal works own exceedingly generous connotation, which are too difficult to express and get elegant in translation. For example, the sentence “he was born in purple” could be translated into Chinese as “他生于显贵之家”. In Chinese famous work A Dream in Red Mansions, Jiao Baoyu and Lin Daiyu have a number of beautiful stories, as well as many others, so that we are left deep impressions on them. When these names are referred, we would recall their characters, but the western people could not receive the information. For instance, “她是个林黛玉似的女孩”, we have to translate the sentence with many additional description, “she is a girl who is extremely delicate and weak and excessively sentimental.”

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Chapter Four Conclusion

Culture is loading tremendous distinctive information of a nation and long-standing historical traditions. Each nation has its own characteristic cultural connotation to form vivid national language to express information, and the language is the carrier of the culture, and also the main way to express and spread the culture. One national language has so close relation that you could not separate them thoroughly. Language is also an important part of culture, which contains and influences the language, and reflects the characters of a nation. Language always takes specific cultural brand, and different nations give the language different meanings in view of the existing environments, customs, habits, social histories, religious cultures, as well as the various cognition of the objective world. But in the process of translation, because of the exist of the mutual cultural differences, namely the phenomenon of cultural vacancy, we always make a number of expression by mistake, leave some information out, distort some information, and so on, which make us lose the chance to express the specific connotation in the original text, so that we miss the true information in it.

Translating consist in producing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source-language message, first in the closest natural equivalent of the source-language. (Nida, P13)

According to Nida, the best translation does not sound like a translation. A qualified translator should pursuit the natural and closest equivalent meaning, in order to realize the assimilation of various cultures.

A translation is normally written and intended for a target language reader-even if the source language text was written for no reader at all, for nothing but its author’s pleasure. The translator has to assist his reader. In plain terms, it is usually more important for him to make or indicate the sense of a passage than to funk the issue by rendering “correctly”. He may have to explain or transpose allusions, supply reasons, emphasize contrasts. (Newmark, P128)

In the world, the spread of culture has never ceased for a moment. Each text is produced for a given purpose and should serve this purpose. And the translator’s task

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is to realize the conversion from the source language to the target language, and the communication between cultures. To deal with cultural vacancy well is significant to the cultural intercourse, as well as the cultural globalization.

In conclusion, a translator has to consider not only the two languages but the two cultures. Because of the vacancy in culture there will be some concepts in the source language whose accurate lexical equivalents are quite difficult to be found in the receptor language. This refers to the differences in geography, customs, beliefs, world outlooks, and various other factors. So, to promote the spread and communication of cultures, we have to try our best to develop the translation, to know about various cultural differences and vacancy, to improve the translators’ and interpreters’ qualities.

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Bibliography

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[3] Newmark, P. Approaches to Translation [M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2002.

[4] Newmark, P. A Textbook of Translation [M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2004.

[5] Nida, E. & Taber, C. The Theory and Practice of Translation [M]. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1982.

[6] Nord, C. Translating as a Purposeful Activity: Functionalist Approaches Explained [M]. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2002.

[7] Rubel, P. & Rosman, A. Translating Cultures [M]. New York: Oxford, 2003. [8] 白靖宇，文化与翻译 [M]．北京：中国社会出版社，2000. [9] 程裕祯，中国文化要略 [M]．北京：外语教学与研究出版社，2009. [10] 段义涛，中国文化英语80主题 [M]．北京：中国宇航出版社，2010. [11] 金惠康，跨文化交际翻译 [M]．北京：中国对外翻译出版公司，2003. [12] 李建军，文化翻议论 [M]. 上海：复旦大学出版社，2010.

[13] 刘世聪，汉英·英汉美文翻译与鉴赏[M]. 南京：译林出版社，2007. [14] 戎林海，跨越文化障碍 [M]．南京：东南大学出版社，2005. [15] 陶嘉炜，中国文化概要 [M]．北京：北京大学出版社，2009. [16] 汪福祥，伏力，英美文化与英汉翻译 [M]．北京：外文出版社，2008. [17] 小雪，贺炜，中国民俗 [M]．北京：中国华侨出版社，2002.

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Acknowledgements

I wish to take this precious opportunity to express my thanks to all the people who have given me so mush help in the process of my finishing my thesis.

First of all, I would like to express my profound gratitude to my supervisor Wang Yaguang, for his unfailing encouragement and insightful advice. He patiently read and revised my drafts several times and gave me most valuable suggestions, without which this paper would never be possible.

Secondly, I would like to express my sincere thanks to all the teachers in the English Department whose lectures, valuable comments, reference materials have been of great help for this thesis.

Thirdly, I am also greatly indebted to the professors and teachers at the Foreign Language Department of Shenyang University of Technology as well, who have instructed and helped me a lot in the past four years. I would also like to extend my sincere thanks to Mr. Sun. Thanks to their instructive guidance during the four years’ schooling.

Finally, I am really grateful to all those who have devoted much to reading this thesis and given me much valuable advices, which will benefit me in my later study. I should also thank all the classmates for their friendship which has made the four years more enjoyable.

Last but not least, my heartfelt gratitude goes to my mother and my father for their dearly love and constant encouragement in my thesis writing and in my life.

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