Chapter Two Introduction to Cultural Default andTranslation Compensation Theory
2.1 Definition of Cultural Default
Cultural default was first proposed by a well-known domestic scholar WangDongfeng (1997). He defined it as follows in the article Cultural Default andCoherent Reconstruction in Translation, “Without affecting the effect ofcommunication, in order to achieve the expected purpose of communication andimprove the efficiency of communication, both parties will usually omit the samecultural background knowledge shared by both parties.” In short, both parties from thesame cultural background will omit self-evident information when communicatingwith each other. For example, in Chinese, if you use the phrase “the dog bites LvDongbin” to describe a person, Chinese will understand the implication of it all atonce. It means that the person does not know the good will of someone who does afavor to him or her. In fact, this short sentence implies a mythical story in ancientChina. Lv Dongbin, one of the Eight Immortals, was ordered to arrest the Deified Dog.He caught the dog and put it in a cage. However, he was worried that the Deified Dogmight be injured, so he set it free. But as soon as the dog was out of the cage, it gaveLv Dongbin a bite. This story has evolved into an allegorical saying, dog bites LuDongbin—being ungrateful. People with a Chinese cultural background are familiarwith this story, and naturally they can understand the main point after saying the firsthalf of the sentence. However, people who are unfamiliar with Chinese culturalbackground will be at a loss without any explanation. That is cultural default.
2.2 Classification of Cultural Default in Ashoka the Great
From the perspective of Nida, the cultural factors involved in translation can bedivided into five categories: ecological culture, language culture, religious culture,material culture and social culture. The book Ashoka The Great not only involvesecological culture such as mountains, rivers, animals and plants, material culture suchas architecture, clothing and utensils, religious culture such as religious belief andphilosophy, but also social culture such as office systems and time epoch. The authorwill classify the cultural default phenomenon in Ashoka the Great accordingly.
2.2.1 Cultural defaults caused by differences in ecological culture
Ecological culture refers to people’s understanding of the natural environment inwhich they live in, including mountains, rivers, animals, plants etc. There are manyancient Indian mountains, rivers, flora and fauna names, such as the Bhagavati River,varuna-tree, Shakuni-bird, Palashka-tree, the areca palms, the Bodhi tree,kovidara-tree, etc in Ashoka the Great. For example, the Bodhi tree means a kind ofplant in India. According to the Buddhist stories, the Buddha has attained theenlightenment under the Bodhi tree. Thus the Bodhi tree is a symbol of wisdom in theeyes of Buddhists. Without this background knowledge, target readers can not get theidea of how important and sacred the Bodhi tree is.
Chapter Three Case Analysis...........................15
3.1 Replacement............................15
3.2 Transliteration Plus Amplification.............................18
3.3 Transliteration Plus Footnotes.........................................21
Conclusion......................... 32
Chapter Thr
