Relevance Theory: An Approach To Pragmatic Equivalence

Most of the traditional translation studies are based on the code model and focus on the comparison of the lexical meanings, grammatical classes and rhetorical devices between the original and target text. According to pragmatics, however, the linguistic meaning recovered by decoding is just one of the inputs to the inference process, which yields the writer's intention and the meaning of text. Thus, translation studies should be based on the inferential model and pay close attention to the differences between the cognitive contexts of the original and target language reader.Pragmatic equivalence is the aim of translation practice. Relevance theory, the latest fruit of cognitive-pragmatics, points out an approach to achieve pragmatic equivalence and suggests that the translated text be evaluated primarily in terms of its communicative efficacy of optimal relevance. This paper attempts to enumerate the common mistakes in comprehension and expression stages respectively, analyze their cognitive causes, and advance some suggestions to guarantee the success of communication in the light of relevance theory. This paper mainly comprises five parts:A brief analysis is given in the introduction concerning the shortcomings of the two major perspectives in translation studies: the traditional philological perspective fails to develop into an objective and consistent system while the descriptive-classificatory linguistic perspective cannot construct an integrated translatology. In our opinion, pragmatics which studies how people comprehend and use language in context can shed much light on translation studies, since the essence of translation is a kind of communicative activity.Chapter one provides a clear definition of pragmatic equivalence and a brief introduction to relevance theory, and points out the merits and demerits of Gutt's application of relevance theory to translation studies. Chapter two begins with a concise analysis of the three main featuresof comprehension in translation and then proposes that stereotyped understanding of words, expressions and sentences without considering their context is the main cause of misunderstanding. According to relevance theory, each utterance is supposed to be adequately understood by correct decoding and inference with the help of the optimally relevant linguistic and extra-linguistic context.Chapter three puts forward that the qualified versions are those which can help the target language reader achieve adequate contextual effect without spending unnecessary processing effort. Translationese is the major problem affecting the quality of translations. Besides, translation is influenced by some individual and social factors, such as the translator's intention and the target language reader's attitude towards the source language and culture, especially when cultural elements are involved.A conclusion is drawn in the last part. It is believed that the combination of pragmatic equivalence principle with relevance theory can surely provide some illuminating explanations and -valid rules for translation activities.