Translation Strategies Of Cultural Elements In Classical Chinese Poetry From Relevance Theory

Classical Chinese poetry, as a gem of Chinese traditional culture, has been enchanted and recited by us Chinese for thousands of years, which reveals its unique artistic charm. With the increase of cultural exchange between China and the West, scholars at home and abroad begin to be enthusiastic about translating classical Chinese poetry. In today's cultural globalization, the translation of classical Chinese poetry undoubtedly plays a significant role in spreading Chinese traditional culture. However, owing to the drastic difference in languages and cultures between China and the West, some expressions of special cultural elements such as the names of persons, the names of places, the names of plants, the names of animals, the names of Chinese festivals and the names of Chinese folk musical instruments, can not find equivalent words in English. It is a great challenge for translators to deal with these special cultural elements in the limited space of the poems. These special cultural elements contain unique Chinese cultural features, whose importance is self-evident. However, how to deal with special cultural elements in classical Chinese poetry in translation is a field that has seldom been explored. Therefore, it is not only necessary but quite important to find appropriate translation strategies to handle these cultural elements in classical Chinese poetry.Relevance Theory was first presented to describe the cognitive process of communication. It believes that, the purpose of communication is to get optimal relevance, which means the hearer expects to achieve the sufficient context effect with minimal processing effort. German scholar Ernst Gutt first applied Relevance Theory to translation, who pointed out that, translation is an inferential process related to the mechanism of the brain. According to Gutt, the ultimate goal of translation is its optimal relevance to the source text. Relevance is the result of optimal balance between contextual effect and processing effort. Based on this principle, the translator should give priority to optimal relevance in translation, and therefore, chooses the translation strategies that can help readers achieve optimal relevance in particular context. The paper studies the translation of 300 Gems of Classical Chinese Poetry translated by Xu Yuanchong in the framework of Relevance Theory. By analyzing the translation of cultural elements including the names of persons, the names of places, the names of plants, the names of animals, the names of Chinese festivals, the names of Chinese folk musical instruments, the author tries to prove that, in translating cultural elements in classical Chinese poetry, a translator should adopt the strategy that can help target readers achieve optimal relevance. These approaches contain transliteration with annotation, literal translation, omission, generalization and explicitation.The paper is divided into six chapters. The first chapter is introduction, in which the problem of the paper is put forward. The second chapter deals with the relevance theory and translation theories concerned on how to deal with cultural elements. The third chapter is the introduction of methods adopted in the paper. The forth chapter is results. The fifth chapter is discussion----an important one in the paper, which makes detailed analysis on how the names of persons, the names of places, the names of plants, the names of animals, the names of Chinese festivals and the names of Chinese folk musical instruments are handled. The last chapter is conclusion.