A Relevance-Theoretic Account Of Translation

This thesis aims to offer an objective account of translation from three aspects: the nature of translation, the role of the translator and the purpose of the translated.In view of the limitations of prescriptive translation studies (PTS), which has been conducted by translation theorists for too long in China as well as in the West, descriptive translation studies (DTS) takes a resolutely different line, seeking not to set rules or evaluate translations, but to observe, describe and explain various translation phenomena. Although relevance theory was originally proposed as a communicative theory of cognitive pragmatics, it serves as a strong base upon which DTS could be built, as it provides an unified and coherent theoretic framework and embodies the shift of translation studies from prescriptivism to descriptivism. In the light of relevance theory, all translations are simply 'interlingual interpretive use' of language, and the success of a translation depends on how well it meets the basic criterion for all human communications, that is, consistency with the principle of relevance.This thesis is made up of five chapters. Chapter 1 is the introductory part that expresses the necessity to do DTS and the purpose of the thesis. Chapter 2 takes a historical review of the translation studies and makes comparative study of DTS and PTS to highlight the importance of DTS. Chapter 3 is devoted to the introduction of some essential concepts of relevance theory, which are relevant to this study. Chapter 4 focuses on the application of relevance theory to translation. Chapter 5 is the conclusion of the thesis.