On Punning And The Translation Of Puns In English Advertisements

Relevance Theory, proposed by Sperber and Wilson in 1986, has received great attention ever since its birth. Sperber and Wilson think that verbal communication is ostensive-inferential in nature. Gutt, a student of Wilson, applies Relevance Theory to translation and sets up a new framework for translation, whose main tenet is that translation is interlingual interpretive use. Therefore, according to Gutt, the aim of translation is to make the translated resemble the original closely enough in relevant respects. In a sense, the advertiser-intended interpretation of an advertisement to a large degree depends on whether and how optimal relevance is achieved. This thesis mainly focuses on pun translation in advertisements. By examining the existing studies in the field, the author points out that there is a principle that guides the translator in choosing strategies for pun translation, i.e. optimal relevance. Drawing on existing studies in the field, the author offers five strategies in the translation of puns in advertisements, i.e. preservation, creation, compensation, explication and omission. The author argues that each of the five strategies is not always applied on its own, and sometimes two or more stratrgies are jointly employed in advertisement translation in accordance with the principle of optimal relevance depending on the situation.In data analysis, the author describes how the translator chooses strategies guided by the principle of optimal relevance in translation of puns in advertisements. After discussing some problems such as textual fidelity and translational efficacy, the advertiser's intentions and the reader's expectations, and context dependence and communicability of puns, the author points out that problems in translation of puns are not always language-based ones; such aspects as language, context and interpersonal communication, etc. also have some bearing on translation. Guided by the principle of optimal relevance, the translator can have a better understanding of the different aspects of the problems and can deal more appropriately with them in translation. The author points out that as far as relevance is concerned, apart from the linguistic constraints, the reader's cognitive environment, the functions of advertisements, the advertiser's intentions and the reader's expectations, etc. have to be taken into full account by the translator before he/she chooses the potential strategies. Meanwhile, the two intrinsic aspects of relevance, i.e. contextual effects and processing effort, should not be ignored, and the translator has to make sure that the reader gets adequate contextual effects and no unnecessary processing effort is expected of him or her. So optimal relevance is achieved through striking a balance between these factors when the translator decides which strategies he/she has to choose in order to achieve the goal of successful translation.