Cultural lacuna in the novel "The Dream of Red Mansions" and translation

Abstract

While translating Chinese literary discourse, translators inevitably encounter diversified “lacunae”. The research object is the Chinese classic novel, "The Dream of Red Mansions", which is traditionally considered a great cultural treasure of Chinese people. The cultural gap between translation and interpretation in this novel always draw researchers’ interest in translation studies of both theory and practice. The present study is devoted to fill the cultural gap in the translation of Cao Xueqin’s novel, The "Dream of Red Mansions". This study first presents the concept of “lacuna”, and then a comparative analysis of the source text and target text is conducted. Particularly, we are concerned with the ways transmit national and cultural realities in translation from Chinese to Russian. Meanwhile, the importance of linguistic and cultural knowledge in translating literary text is also mentioned.