Manifestation Patterns of Lexical Gaps

孫鳳敏 溫純祥

【Abstract】This thesis discusses the manifestation patterns of lexical gaps from three aspects, cultural zero equivalence, semantic gaps and grammatical gaps, aiming to foster peoples correct thinking habit.

【Key Words】manifestation patterns of lexical gaps;cultural zero equivalence;semantic gaps

1. Introduction.Lexical gaps exist in our daily life. This thesis will expatiate on manifestation patterns of lexical gaps, such as cultural zero equivalence, semantic gaps. As for semantic gaps, the paper only talks about connotation.

2. Cultural zero equivalence.Zero equivalence here the writer uses is an expression to convey the idea that a term in English or Chinese dose not have a counterpart in the other language, i.e. the total absence of a word in one language that denotes or connotes exactly the same meaning as does a word in the other words which cannot be understood, causes confusion and misunderstanding, thus bringing about cultural vacancy in the target language. In both English and Chinese, words related to religion, myths and special historic events are rare and bear their each own culture.

Some typical expressions are about typical Chinese or English history, political and social life. For example, xiucai is an peculiar expression in Chinese language and culture. According to Modern Chinese Dictionary, xiucai refers to one who has passed the imperial examination at the countrys level in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. Besides this meaning, its extensively used to refer to a scholar, skillful writer, or speech writer when it borders on the same sense as “egghead”.

On the other hand, some English expressions reflecting western social life and political system may be difficult to be understood for Chinese learners, because of no equivalent lexical items available in Chinese. For example, American Dream7 refers to an American social ideal that stresses egalitarianism, freedom and equal chance for people to share, even though they come from poor families, lower status but finally succeed if they work hard. This dream is popular with most American since the foundation of American.

3. Semantic gaps-Connotation.Semantic gaps resulted by the non-equivalents are manifested in denotation and connotation of the words. Here we only talk about connotation.

Talking about connotation is actually talking about the “real world” experience that one associates with an expression when one uses or hears it. Denotation is the literal meaning or definition of a word--the explicit, particular, defined meaning, which usually can be pinned down with reasonable precision. Perhaps it could be called the overt, intellectual meaning of a word. Dictionary definitions are denotative meanings; while connotation is the suggestive meaning of a word--all the values, judgments, and status implied by a word, the historical and associative accretion of "unspoken significance" behind the literal meaning.

Easterners and westerners share lots of things in common. However, connotations may be relatively instable and vary considerably due to the different geographic, political, cultural environments and different experiences. For this reason, words may arouse psychologically the same denotative associations in us and different connotative associations as well. Words may be termed culturally as loaded words, such as tea, Chinatown from Chinese, coffee from English; coup d etat from French, which appear in both English and Chinese.

4.Conclusion.From the above, manifestation patterns of lexical gaps are reflected in culture, semantics. People who learn English and Chinese should pay more attention to it so as to form the correct thinking habit. Later, the thesis will try to show some ways to eliminate lexical gaps.

References：

[1]DiPietro,RJ.1978. Language Structure in Contrast, Newbury house, Rowley, Mass.

[2]Hu Wenzhong.1998.The Introduction of Communication between Different Cultures. Beijing Foreign Language and Research Press.

[3]Hu Zhuanglin. 2001. A Course of Linguistics. Revised Edition. Beijing: The University of Beijing Press.

[4]James, Carl. 1980. Contrastive Analysis, Longman Group Ltd.

[5]Procter, Paul.1987.Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. Longman Group Limited.