Cultural Default and Its Translation Compensation Strategies from the Perspective of Relevance Theory — A Case Study of the Yao Naiqiang’ Version of the Scarlett Letter

This paper takes the Chinese version of the Scarlett Letter by Yao Naiqiang, whose version has long been acclaimed as an authoritative translated text in China, as a case study to explore the translator’s strategy of compensating cultural default. By comparing the examples of cultural default element in the Scarlett Letter with Yao’s translation version, the paper analyzes what compensation strategies of Yao has employed and how does he manage to deal with the cultural default based on the relevance theory. This paper finds that the translator has mainly adopted such translation strategies as literal translation, contextual amplification, adaptation, as well as emission to compensate the cultural default in the Chinese version. This paper offers a good comprehension to the relevance theory and provides some effective compensation strategies for cultural default to gap the cultural misunderstandings and promote the cultural exchanges between countries.