| As the international communicating frequently, the differences arising from language and social factors hinder the communication between different languages, and have a great influence on economic development and intercultural communication. More and more people focus their attention on the science of cross-cultural communication, while the lexical gap phenomenon seems to be simple, but in fact to be difficult. In this condition, the study of lexical gaps has attracted lots of attention. The traditional researches often find the root from the cultural, historical, custom and religious skin-deep elements, and neglect the social nature of linguistic sign——language is not only a sign system, but also a social phenomenon, containing a deep social element. With the guidance of the semiotic and sociosemiotic theory, the paper attempts to find the root of lexical gaps.With the guidance of semiotic and sociosemiotic theory, the paper firstly introduces the three essential lexical meanings—"designative meaning", "linguistic meaning", and "pragmatic meaning", discuss and analyze the root of the lexical meaning and functional differences between English and Chinese, and further points out the deep root is the language environment and social structure. Then with introduction of text, situation, code, social context and son on, it elucidates that without the social environment the language is not meaningful at all. Secondly, the paper points out that the translator is the medium between the SL writer and the TL reader. The SL writer encodes the SL signs to express his/her meaning, after reading the SL text and understanding the writer's meanings and intention, the translator decodes the SL text and encodes the information by TL , the translation will be read by the TL reader . The writer, translator, reader, SL culture, ST, TL culture, TT is all signs and can be objects. If the translator misconstrues the TL culture very well, he may mistranslate the information of the SL culture; the TL reader can not understand the meaning of the SL writer. This is another element cause lexical gaps.Lastly, the conclusion is drawn as follows: language is a social phenomenon; every language has its own social environment—the social context shapes the language sing system . The lexical gaps phenomenon is caused by the differences of social context between SL and TL, i.e. the non-equivalence of meaning and function. In the process of translation, the translator not only needs to achieve the meaning and functional equivalences, but also grasps the social nature of the SL writer and TL reader, selects the proper translation strategy and expression methods. When transforming the information conveyed in SL, the translator has to consider both the internal context of the language and the external social context. There is no doubt that equivalence is our lighthouse in both translation practice and theory. However, we must accept that equivalence is always relative and full equivalence is almost impossible. What the translator should do is to try our best to promote our translation ability, make the TL readers be close to the SL writer's purpose, fill up the gaps and make the intercultural communication successful. |
