A Relevance-theoretic Account Of Flexible Transference Of Culture Image In Brand Name Translation

Relevance theory (Sperber & Wilson, 1986/1995), originated from cognitive science, though not meant for translation, is a powerful theory in accounting for translation- "the most complex phenomenon in the evolution of the cosmos"(Richards 1953). Inspired by the basic framework of relevance theory in linguistic domain, Ernst-August Gutt (2000) puts forward a systematic insight of relevance theory into translation, finding that the relevance-theoretic approach to translation is adequate to provide a unified theoretic framework for the ontological and methodological studies of translation. The theoretic study of relevance theory within linguistics in our country has been proved fruitful and successful, however, it is a pity that the relevance-theoretic approach to translation has drawn little attention from the academic circles of translation within China until the last two years. This thesis, therefore, intends not only to provide an ontological and methodological study of the relevance-theoretic account of flexible transference of culture images in the translation of brand names as a specific case, but also to demonstrate that relevance theory is powerful in crystallizing the phenomena of translation in general. Due to the multi-layer meanings of brand names, their distinctive features of functions and culture bounded qualities, their translation and interpretation cause problems that are very difficult to be solved and accounted by traditional translation theories. Therefore, the thrust into this topic by applying relevance theory in brand name translation will not only reinforce the theoretic concept of relevance translation, but also provide more concrete translation methods of brand names in practice. This thesis is divided into six parts.Chapter One begins with the literature review of brand name translation followed by analyzing the weak points of traditional theories, namely Van's "faithfulness, expressiveness, elegance" and the notion of equivalence represented by Eugene Nida, in interpreting and instructing brand name translation. Based on this analysis, this chapter puts forward, as the purposes of this thesis, the idea of applying relevance theory to interpret and instruct the flexible transference ofculture images of brand names in translation.Chapter Two is the ontological study of this thesis. It first introduces the basic notions of relevance and relevance theory by way of retreating the history of these notions. Then the relationship between relevance theory and translation is examined. This chapter also conforms the relevance translation theory proposed by Gutt (2000) and holds that translation is an inferential communication process in which optimal relevance to the source text as well as the target cultural context is sought.Starting from the definition and features of brand name and its culture image, Chapter Three argues that culture images of brand names are so important that they are crucial in realizing the functions of brand names and thus special attention is supposed to be paid to in the translation of brand names.Based on relevance theory, Chapter Four expounds the translatability and the transferability of the culture images of brand names. It discusses the translatability of brand names and holds, by referring to J.C. Catford's theory of translatability, that translatability of brand names is relative and thus transferability of culture images is not absolute either. This idea is further authenticated by analyzing the cultural harmony and clash between cultures in translation. From the communicative point of view, translation of brand names is a process of searching for optimal relevance to the original text as well as the target cultural context. In addition, the dialectical relation between semantic relevance and functional relevance is discussed which results in the proposal that functional relevance should be given priority to semantic relevance in the transference of culture images of brand names. At last, as further confirmation of the above conclusion, the in...