Cultural Synonymy: A Cross-Linguistic Perspective on Comprehending Sacred Spaces

This study explores how people with different cultural backgrounds comprehend diverse sacred spaces all over the world, from a cross-linguistic perspective. The challenges surrounding intelligibility relate to spatial resemblance, complexity of religion, as well many obscure proper names. With lexicalization relevant religious concepts, “cultural synonyms” are generated. Through surveying vocabulary within domain “TEMPLE” an exemplification, synonymy Chinese lexicon in demonstrating spiritual intricacy has been elucidated. Based on theory “multi-competence”, reasonable hypothesis cross-culturally understanding space is proposed: Multicompetent individuals can have other comprehensions about when compared monolinguals either native or target language; A monolingual cross-cultural experiencer without knowledge regional language depends translation apprehend space, which may result confusion; Deficient translations also interfere multicompetent individuals, while their linguistic awareness allows them more chances differentiating synonyms and accordingly clarification any misguided perceptions.