[摘要]：

词汇是一个国家语言文化的基础，不同文化造成各民族所使用的语言在词汇方面的差异很大，于是词汇空缺不可避免的产生，并且成为跨文化交际中的主要障碍之一。不消除这一障碍，不同文化背景的人之间的交流就不会顺畅。本文从文化的精神和物质两个层面阐述了词汇空缺在各个领域内的体现，并讨论如何在翻译中采取不同的翻译方法来消除词汇空缺所带来的语言障碍，其目的在于更好地认识中西方文化差异中的词汇空缺这一语言现象

[关键词]：词汇空缺； 精神文化；物质文化；翻译方法

Abstract:

Vocabulary is the foundation of language, and it varies greatly in different cultures. Therefore, lexical gap comes out and becomes one of the major obstacles in cross-culture communication. If it were not handled properly, people who have different culture background would not communicate smoothly. This thesis aims to better recognize the phenomenon of lexical gap in cross-culture and analyzes the causes of lexical gap from material culture and spirit culture. It also tries to find out how to adopt different translation methods when we deal with lexical gap.

Key words: lexical gap; spirit culture; material culture; translation methods

1. Introduction
Language and culture are closely related to each other. Different languages reflect different cultures. English and Chinese are two languages that stand for two cultures; they differ from each other in many aspects. The differences often lead to a fact that some terms in one language do not have equivalents in another, which is called lexical gap. Lexical gap has become an obstacle between English and Chinese communication.
Research about lexical gap started from 1950s in foreign countries. The American linguist Hockett discovered lexical gap phenomenon and proposed random holes in patterns. In the 1970s, lexical gap phenomenon caused more scholars’ interest. The former Soviet Union theorists Barhudalov adopted equivalents vocabulary term in comparing the different language vocabulary. In the late 1980s, Russia psycholinguistics vacancy theoretic genres officially advanced the concept of lexical gap.