A Relevance Theory Perspective: Translator As Relevance Optimizer

This paper is an attempt to explore the role that the translator plays in translating the literary text on the basis of the relevance theory. The relevance theory claims that communication is an ostensive-inferential process. Communication fails in case that the audience fails to infer the implicature of the speaker's utterance. And this paper points out that the translation fails in case that the translator is not able to interpret and express the implicit information of the original. Thus the translator as a negotiator is supposed to optimize the relevance of the original text or writer and the target readers: The translator produces the text that yields sufficient contextual effect and meanwhile whose readers do not have to spend unnecessary effort processing it. The paper explores the instances concerning the study of the following questions in translation theory: (1) the indeterminacy, open-endedness and the fuzziness characteristics of the text or meaning; (2) content and form, and (3) reader's expectation.Starting with exploring the nature of the implicature, we find out its three characteristics: the strength of communication, communicating a range of ideas and responsibility. The combination of these characteristics can lead to poetic richness and beauty. And these three characteristics account for the indeterminacy, openendness and fuzziness nature of meaning or text respectively. The paper makes the claim that the translator should spare no effort interpreting the implicit information of the original so as to represent its poetic effect, rather than explicate the original arbitrarily, and thus deprive the readers of their imagination.Secondly, we discuss the relationship between form and content. The literary writer is apt to employ the techniques that deviate from the informative language forms to show the literariness in his work. And the translator tends to use the informative text to achieve the communication purpose. We argue, however, that the contradiction between the content andform is not insoluble, the translator can always find some way to make up the sacrifice of form that occurs in translating, and thus makes the intended meaning of the original relevant to the audience.Thirdly, readers' expectation is also an important factor that contributes to the success of the translation. The paper comments on Nida's translation theory. And reader's expectation varies with history and culture. Using different translation strategies reflects the attitude toward the cultural other. In the context of globalization, the translator is supposed to represent the foreignness by using the faithful or literal or foreignized strategy of translation, and thus the dialogue is initiated between the texts and cultures.The study has based the above subjects arising in translation theory and practice on the framework of relevance theory. And the results show that the aspects surveyed in this thesis are explicable in terms of the relevance theory.