because different nations have different religious faith, political system, art history and so on, so they have "Vacuum Zone". we call this Culture vacancy phenomenon.
for example, here in China, we have a well-known proverb. it goes like this: One boy is a boy, two boys half a boy, three boys no boys. it is really not that easy to express it in a vivid way, for china is a nation that believes in Buddhism. Buddhism influences chinese people deeply. while England and other western countries believe in Christianism, so they are unfamiliar with the word "monk", and they also have no idea about the allusion of monks. when we do the translation, if we only pay attention to the meaning, we can use the existed phrase One boy's a boy;two boys are half a boy;three boys are no boy,or Too many cooks spoil the broth. if we pay attention to the form, we can translate it as this One monk, two buckets; two monks, one bucke; three monks, no bucked, no water——more hands,less work。Equivalent translation can express something in a short way, and we can understand easily. if we use "boy" or "cook " to take place of the vehicle "monk", we will lose some key words, such as "to bring water" and "to drink water", and in such way, we put some western culture into translation. word-for-word translation, the form is close to original text, but maybe it can not express the meaning clearly, and the translated text can be tediously long. as to how the choose the way to translate, different people have different ideas. if we want to introduce our chinese culture to westerners who want to know more about china, and we can choose word-for-word translation added some description. if our aim is to please ordinary wenterners, we had better adopt Equivalent translation.
for there is Culture vacancy phenomenon, we can see various expressions in different languages. in the book Language and Culture, there is a vivid example. if there are so many people in a swimming pool, and the water is very dirty, a chinese may describe it as to cook the dumplings in sesame paste. but as a foreigner, he has no idea of sesame paste and dumplings, so he will not feel funny at such description. if a foreigner want to describe a crowded scene, he will say “It was packed like sardines". and for our chinese, if we do not know sardine, we can not appreciate it either. this is called "the biggest challenge in translation" by Wang Zuoliang. something we can understand easily without any explanation in a culture, but in another culture, we will try our best to explain. as to the the traditional Chinese calendar, Chinese era, and Eight Diagrams , if we do not add some detailed explanation, it is really hard for foreigners to understand.(终于翻译完了,希望能帮到你。。。o(∩_∩)o )
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