On Principles Of Compensation For Cultural Default In Literary Translation

Cultural default is the omission of the cultural background knowledge shared by the original author and his intended readers.It can hardly be comprehended by target readers in a different language and cultural environment due to its distinctive cultural characteristics.Therefore,translators are supposed to make compensation for cultural default.Compensation for cultural default is conducive to translating Chinese literary works,which plays an important role in promoting Chinese culture to go global.Therefore,compensation for cultural default is worth studying.Based on studying the concepts of cultural default,translation compensation,and conducting a review on the relevant studies,the researcher proposes three compensation principles for cultural default,namely,the principle of relevance,the principle of conciseness,and the principle of reserving otherness.The principle of relevance should be given top priority.The compensated information should be related to the source text,reflecting its logic and coherence;the principle of conciseness requires the compensated information to be concise and easy to understand,improving the readability of the target text;the principle of reserving otherness requires the translation to convey the meaning of the source text and retain the uniqueness of the original culture,further to enable readers to perceive the original culture.The three principles are independent and also interrelated.Translators need to make them achieve an ideal state of integration according to different contexts.The novel Tuina written by Bi Feiyu enabled him to win many literary awards since it was published in 2008,which aroused widespread public attention.The English-translated version Massage by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun came into publication in 2014 by Penguin Random House and has gained wide acceptance.Since only a handful of academic studies conducted on the English-translated version and almost no research focuses on its compensation for cultural default,the researcher takes the original novel and its English-translated version as a case study,and the research questions are as follows:(1)Have the translators Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun realized the cultural default of the source text and make compensation for it in the target text?(2)What principles do the translators mainly considered when making compensation?The findings of the research are as follows:(1)The translators have realized the cultural default of the original text.To eliminate the"vacuum of sense" caused by cultural default,the translators have made translation compensation.(2)In the process of compensation,the translators mainly considered the principle of relevance,the principle of conciseness,and the principle of reserving otherness,taking the cognitive ability and reading habits of the target readers into full consideration.This thesis further proves that the study on translation compensation plays a significant role in cross-cultural communication.It is hoped that these principles of compensation for cultural default can provide a reference for literary translation and promoting Chinese culture to go global.