The Application Of Relevance Theory In Business English Translation

With rapid development of science and technology and the globalization of economy, business English (BE) is becoming more and more important and the wide international communication results in a great demand for knowledge of business English and its translation accordingly. Since business English belongs to English for Specific Purpose (ESP), it has its own linguistic features and pragmatic functions, therefore, the criteria of BE translation also should be well targeted. The fact that traditional criteria are not entirely suitable for BE translation requires us to make a survey of BE translation from a new perspective.In 1991, Gutt proposed that relevance theory provides translation with a unified theoretical framework, within which translation is a double ostensive-inferential communicating process, which involves three parties: the source text author, the translator, and the target text reader. Under the guidance of relevance theory, the translator has to accept and reject the information from the original, actually an act of translator's own accord, and on the basis of it, he will adopt the appropriate strategies for translation inclusive of the approach to make effective information compensation for the target language readers in a different cognitive context. Besides, the translator has to draw inferences from the stimulus to get comprehension of the intensions, find out the optimal relevance according to the contextual information of the source text, combine the intentions with the cognitive environment of the target reader, and decide what to interpret and how to interpret with an appropriate approach. Therefore, relevance theory in pragmatics is very powerful in accounting for and guiding the practice of BE translation. With abundant examples, this thesis attempts to prove the adaptability of relevance-theory in BE translation at three levels of lexicon, syntax and discourse.This thesis also aims to assist related business people to adopt relevance theory so as to effectively improve the quality of BE translation. With this study, it is also expected to be useful and helpful to business English teachers and workers of related foreign trade corporations.