Relevance Theory And Translation

It is generally acknowledged that translation studies have got into the era of multidisciplinary research. With the introduction of related subjects into translation studies, people take to re-examining the nature of translation. This thesis is an attempt to look at translation process from the viewpoint of a communication theory: relevance theory.Relevance theory concerns the nature and process of human verbal communication. It is based on the following state of affairs: every piece of utterance can be interpreted against a huge range of contextual assumptions, warranting a wide range of interpretations. But not all the possible interpretations are equally accessible to the audience. The audience is guided by something to the communicator-intended interpretation. What guides the audience in interpretation and understanding is relevance. That is, the audience pays attention to what is relevant. Relevance is defined in terms of contextual effect and processing effort. Other things being equal, the greater the contextual effect achieved by processing an utterance, the greater the relevance of the utterance to the audience at that time; the greater the processing effort expended, the lower the relevance of the utterance to the audience at that time, as is shown in the formula: Relevance =Contextual Effect / Processing Effort. Relevance theory claims that human communication is characterized by the search for optimal relevance, that is, to achieve adequate contextual effect without pulling gratuitous processing effort. This is a psychological constrain on the communication partners. As communicators, whenever we convey something to the audience, we automatically communicate the presumption that what we are conveying is optimally relevant to him. As audience, we tend to expect that the utterance conveyed by the communicator is optimally relevant. The first accessible interpretation that satisfies the audience's expectation is the meaning intended by the communicator. Thus communication and understanding is achieved. This process is summarized as principle of relevance.Relevance theory is not aimed for translation, but its basic claim of principle of relevance may be applied to translation. Considered from the perspective of relevance...