THE PROBLEM OF LACUNA FOR TRANSLATORS: PRAGMATIC, SEMANTIC AND STYLISTIC CHALLENGES

Abstract

This article examines the phenomenon of lacuna in translation and analyses the pragmatic, semantic, and stylistic difficulties they create for translators. Lacuna are understood as meaning gaps arising from asymmetries between linguistic systems and cultural realities, which often prevent the existence of direct equivalents in the target language. Such gaps complicate the translator’s task of adequately conveying the author’s communicative intention, cultural nuances, and stylistic features. The study explores the main causes and types of lacuna, describes their linguistic and cultural characteristics, and discusses their impact on the process and outcome of translation. Special attention is given to pragmatic lacuna associated with culture-specific references and implicit meanings, semantic lacuna connected with unshared concepts and lexical gaps, and stylistic lacuna that arise when reproducing tone, register, and expressive means. Through illustrative examples, the paper demonstrates how different compensation, explicitation, and functional adaptation strategies can be employed to reduce the negative effect of lacuna and to preserve communicative equivalence. The findings underscore the importance of developing translators’ linguo-cultural competence and their ability to interpret and mediate between different cultural worlds rather than merely substituting linguistic forms.