C-E Translation Of The Metaphors In The Death Of Xie Bomao

This thesis takes Lu Min’s short novel The Death of Xie Bomao as the source text.The novel tells a story of searching for the owner of the dead letters,implying the spiritual death of modern people nowadays.There are lots of metaphors in the Chinese version,which becomes a key knot for the foreign readers to get a correct understanding of the author’s intentions.The novel attempts to present the “darkness” of human nature through the metaphors,trying to give a vivid picture of the real life of the lower class.Based on the Relevance Theory,this thesis analyzes the metaphors of the source text,and suggests that all these metaphors can be translated by means of literal translation,retaining the image plus supplement,substitution of image,and free translation.Results show that the translator shall,to the best of his ability,take the method of preserving the original metaphors in dealing with the metaphor translation.The translator’s intention is to have the target language readers pay a certain reasoning effort to get the context effect,so as to expand the cognitive environment of the target audiences.When the target language culture and source language culture share some similarity,the literal translation method is used.When the target language readers may be unable to understand the images of the source language metaphors,but there is a similar expression in the target language,the substitution of image method is used.Due to the difference of cognitive environment between China and the West,the method of retaining the original image cannot be understood by the target audience,and the reasoning effort of the reader is much larger than the contextual effect obtained by the readers.In that case,the free translation method is used to convey the meaning of the metaphors and reduce the target audience’s reasoning efforts to obtain the optimal relevance.The case study emphasizes that the preservation of the original image and literal translation,by virtue of cultural similarity,can help the metaphor translation to achieve the optimal relevance.Due to the difference of cognitive environment and cultural background between China and the West,the translator,by means of the replacement of metaphorical image and free translation method,can reduce the target readers’ unnecessary reasoningefforts,so as to reach the optimal relevance.Under the principle of Relevance Theory,no matter what method is used,when both the target and the original readers have the same response to the same metaphorical content,that is,to have the optimal relevance,it is a feasible translation.This thesis mainly focuses on the translation methods of metaphors in the hope that the English translation could convey the same meaning of the original text,thus helping the English readers to get a more accurate understanding of Chinese people’s real life and to achieve a bi-cultural communication.