A Report On The E-C Translation Of World War Ⅱ Battlefield Europe （Excerpts） ——Cultural Default And Translation Compensation In The Translation Of Historical Texts

This report is based on the E-C translation of a historical text entitled World War Ⅱ Battlefield Europe（excerpts.hereinafter,Battlefield Europe）,which introduces decisive battles in Europe during World War Ⅱ,fateful decisions those historical figures made,and the reasons behind this crucial world war.As the place where World War Ⅱ began,Europe is of great significance to this period of history.Thus,Battlefield Europe is chosen as the original text for this translation report.Translation of historical texts serves the mission of cross-cultural communication.However,cultural default,which is the omission of the shared cultural background knowledge between the author and the intended readers,affects the cross-cultural communication and causes difficulties for the target readers.In this sense,translators need to fill the cultural gap and find effective methods to compensate for those cultural defaults.According to the communicative translation theory and cultural compensation principles put forward by some previous studies,this report puts forth four methods to compensate for cultural defaults in historical texts: cultural annotation,cultural amplification,cultural paraphrase and cultural substitution.Cultural annotation means that the translator fills the cultural gap through annotation,which can be adopted when a lot of information is needed to compensate the cultural defaults.Cultural amplification means that the translator adds a little bit of background information within the text,which can be adopted when it takes no more than two sentences to compensate the cultural default.Cultural paraphrase means that the translator explains the expressions caused cultural defaults within the text,which can be adopted when the cultural defaults can’t be compensated by just adding information.Cultural substitution means that the translator substitutes the expressions caused cultural defaults with their equivalents in the target language,which should have similar meanings and cultural implications.Those four cultural compensation methods have their advantages and disadvantages.The translator should take into consideration the specific conditions and choose appropriate compensation methods,so as to bridge the cultural gap.