Analysis Of The English Version Thunderstorm Under Relevance-Adaptation Model

Translation is a kind of communication which is achieved by encoding and decoding information.Different studies have been carried out to explore models of communication such as code model,the Conversational Implicature Theory,Adaptation Theory and Relevance Theory.Among the models,Relevance Theory and Adaptation Theory contribute much more than others.Although they contribute a lot to the pragmatic research of communication,each theory alone can not give a very convincing and satisfactory explanation for the process of communication,therefore,Relevance-Adaptation Model is regarded and accepted as a more comprehensive model of communication.Based on the review of different models of communication,Relevance-Adaptation Model lays the foundation of the theoretical framework of this paper. Relevance-Adaptation model claims the process of language use involves two aspects: language production and interpretation,and the success of this model achieves adequacy in terms of description and explanation that Relevance Theory and Adaptation Theory is short of respectively.Relevance-Adaptation model is a cross-cultural and translator-centered theoretical model.In this model,translating is both a relevance-seeking, ostensive-inferential process and a dynamically-adjusting process.In the translating process,the translator stands at the center of cross-cultural communication between the original author and the target audience.This thesis intends to approach the dynamics of the translating process.It intends to give an account of how the information-processing faculties in the translator's mind enable him to carry on cross-cultural communication with the original author and his target audience.The domain of this research is the translator's mental faculty and the primary purpose of this study is to use Relevance-Adaptation Model to account for aspects of translating process on Thunderstorm.The whole translating process consists of Discourse-Interpreting Communicative Process(DICP),and Discourse-Producing Communicative Process(DPCP).The former process means a cross-cultural mental interaction between the translator and the author.The latter process means a dynamically-adjustable process from the translator to his target audience.In DICR a cross-cultural mental dialogue between the translator and the original author or utterances is a relevance-seeking,ostensive-inferential process.This process is carried on according to the source lexical information,logical information,and encyclopedic information.DPCP is a dynamically-adjusting process from the translator to his intended receptor audience.His use of target language to convey the author's intention is a continuous choice-making process characterized by relevancy,intermediateness, variableness,mediation and adjustability.Thunderstorm,as a very famous Chinese work,presents some unique features of Chinese language and culture.To study Wang Zuoliang's translation version of Thunderstorm with the guidance of Relevance-Adaptation Model,it is easy to find out some authentic and unauthentic translation examples.The analysis of the authentic and unauthentic translation will be as the testimonies of the theory's rationality and validity to translation.Even though Relevance-Adaptation model had been employed to analyze some other literary works,analysis and interpretation of Thunderstorm under this model will further present how the translator's mental faculty works so as to better understand cross-cultural communication.This study can also help realize the essence of human communication,revealing their intuition of language use and improve linguistic and pragmatic performance,especially in translating skills.