On the Cultural Default in Literary Translation.docVIP

On the Cultural Default in Literary Translation 　　【Abstract】Cultural default means the absence of relevant cultural background. This essay intends to address the issue from the underlying mechanism that explains the existence of this phenomenon. To strengthen its communicative value， the essay then continues to review several ways to treat cultural default as far as translation is called into question. The discussion leads to the conclusion that the cultural turn in translation studies brings more essential factors into consideration as reflected in translators’ decision-making process. 　　【Key words】cultural default； literary translation； compensation； translator 　　Introduction 　　In recent years there has been an upsurge of interest in translation studies as to how translation can be related to culture， especially in the attempts to redefine its nature from a new light. Mary Snell Hornby “exhorts linguists to abandon their ‘scientific’ attitude and to move from ‘text’ as a putative ‘translation unit’， to culture- a momentous step that would go far beyond the move from the word as a ‘unit’ to the text” （Bassnett and Lefevere， 1990：4）. The “cultural turn” of translation studies then requires what is studied is the text embedded within its network of both source and target cultural signs. Such a change certainly poses more obstacles to translators as Nida concludes that a text which only reflects the many concepts and literary canons of a particular isolated culture often includes information which is extremely difficult to understand and to translate in a distinct language-culture （Nida， 2001：84）. 　　I. the Nature of Cultural Default 　　The theory of schema attaches great importance to shared background knowledge or pragmatic presupposition between the sender and receiver in the process of communication. For the sake of economy and effectiveness， shared information is usually unsaid. If the unsaid can be traced within the text， it is named the “contextual defa