Towards Relevance Translation: Advantages And Limitations

Relevance Theory, which was proposed by D. Sperber and D. Wilson in the book Relevance: Communication and Cognition (1986), has a comparative influence on Western linguistic field in recent years. It was even regarded as the essentials of cognitive pragmatics (He Zi-ran and Ran Yong-ping). According to Relevance Theory, human verbal communication is considered as an ostensive-inferential cognitive process in terms of human brain's cognitive characteristics in information processing. This thesis aims at inquiring into the general law of translation from the perspective of Relevance Theory and confirming the advantages of Relevance translation by contrasting it with some traditional translation theories. Another goal of this thesis is to discuss the main limitations of Relevance translation: 1) Relevance translation pays little attention to the fact that the translator's psychological factors, such as emotions, beliefs, etc. would affect his interpretation; 2) Relevance translation fails to ensure fidelity in literary translation. Finally, a slim outline of an integrated model of literary translating, which theoretically draws on Relevance translation and concepts of image gestalt, will be proposed in this thesis.