A Translation Report Of Wilson Croker’s Life Of Samuel Johnson,LL.D.(Review)from The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

This translation report is based on a review of Croker’s Life of Samuel Johnson published in 1831 in the Edinburgh Review(1802-1929)by Thomas Babington Macaulay(1800-1859).The subject of the review is Croker’s edition of the Life,which was originally written by James Boswell(1740-1795)for his friend,Samuel Johnson(1709-1784).Behind the strong stylistic features and rich cultural connotations of this article lie the author’s "implicatures" — the inferences that must depend on the context.From the perspective of relevance theory,in order to have a successful communication,the translator needs to make the implicatures of the original author "ostensive" to the target readers.The translation of stylistic features(including syntactic properties and semantic representations)is less affected by the readers’ cognitive environment,so"direct translation" can be adopted in order to guide the target readers to explore and recover the implicatures by themselves through retaining communicative clues;but the translation of cultural connotations(including historical events,literary allusions,place names,slang,idioms and proverbs)is completely influenced by the readers’cognitive environment,so "indirect translation" with annotation,paraphrase and amplification as the translation techniques is needed,to compensate for the target readers’ lack of cognitive environment,making them enjoy the rich implicatures available to the original readers.