文化缺省即同一文化背景的人在交际过程中对共有的文化背景知识的省略。中国古典文学作品所述知识因为时空跨度巨大,很可能在现代文化体系中变形或消解,造成文化缺省。因此,文学作品的翻译不可避免地要面对如何跨越文化缺省的问题。本文以杨宪益、戴乃迭的英译《儒林外史》为例,归纳两位译者针对因科举制度词汇产生的文化缺省的几种常用翻译策略,即直译、释义、直译+释义、省略。这些翻译策略有助于推介源语文化,促进中国文化的传播。 Cultural default is the omission of knowledge of the common cultural background in the process of communication among people of the same cultural background. The knowledge of Chinese classical literature because of the huge span of time and space may be deformed or digested in the modern cultural system, resulting in cultural default. Therefore, the translation of literary works inevitably faces the problem of how to cross the cultural default. This article takes Yang Xianyi and Dai Naidian’s English translation of the Scholars as an example to summarize several common translation strategies of the two translators in terms of cultural default resulting from the vocabulary of the imperial examination system, namely, literal translation, paraphrase, literal translation + paraphrase, omission . These translation strategies help promote the culture of the source language and promote the dissemination of Chinese culture.