On The Translation Of Culture-loaded Words In Bian Cheng Based On Relevance Theory

Inspired by Grice’s Conversational Implicature, Sperber and Wilson proposed relevance theory, in which communication is a cognitive process that requires ostensive-inferential thought. The theory maintains that human cognition always coincides with the largest relevance and every ostensive communication is supposed to have optimal relevance, which means, human cognition is supposed to have maximum relevance while language communication have optimal relevance. With the development of this theory, it can be used to explain the translation of culture-loaded words.Owning to their unique cultural connotations, culture-loaded words are difficult to translate which greatly challenge translators if target readers lack corresponding cognitive environment. Translators should first infer from the context and correctly transform the information to readers. From Nida’s point of view, in the process of translation, the cultural factors can be divided into five categories: social culture; religious culture; material culture; ecological culture and custom culture. This paper deals with relevance theory and introduces translation of culture-loaded words. Based on the above five categories, this paper chooses two English versions of Bian Cheng to analyze its culture-loaded words from relevance-theoretic perspective. The conclusion is that both Gladys Yang’s and Jeffrey C. Kinkley’s versions have maximum relevance. Kinkley applied more direct translation to achieve optimal relevance, and he added corresponding notes and words besides translating the communicative clues; while Gladys is inclined to use indirect translation in her version.