On Cultural Default And The Translation In Fortress Besieged From The Perspective Of The Translator’s Subjectivity In The Relevance-Adaptation Theoretic Approach

The phenomena of cultural default are pervasive throughout Fortress Besieged, a novel written by Mr Ch’ien Chung-shu. In this regard, the English translation of the novel by Jeanne Kelly and Nathan K.Mao has received a great deal of criticism since its publication. But most of the criticism is based on the traditional translation theory that aims at the equivalence between the source text and the target text, only to ignore the most active factor in the translation activity-the translator.In order to find the most effective method in translating cultural default and reassess the English translation of Fortress Besieged, this thesis tentatively applies Relevance-Adaptation Theoretic Approach (RATA for short) to the translation practice while probing into the translation of the cultural default in the novel from the perspective of the translator’s subjectivity under the guidance of RATA. By looking into the translating process of the cultural default from the choice of source text, discourse-interpreting process and discourse-producing process, the Author summarizes different translation techniques and makes the following conclusions:(1) The translation of cultural default can be viewed as both an ostensive-inferential process seeking optimal relevance and a dynamical adaptation process in which the translator makes appropriate adjustments. In this translating process, the translator develops his/her subjectivity and mobilizes the available cognitive information to seek the optimal relevance in the source cognitive environment. And then he/she makes the linguistic choices in the target cognitive environment by employing flexible translation techniques. (2) Under the framework of RATA, both translators displayed their subjectivity in dealing with most of the cultural defaults in translating Fortress Besieged. Pitifully, some translation problems arise because the translators rigidly adhere to the original linguistic form and thus fail to find the optimal relevance or to make any adjustment. In nthis context, the translators’ subjectivity is restrained.