A Probe Into Translation Strategies From Relevance Perspective-Direct Translation And Indirect Translation

This thesis focuses on Gutt's notion of relevance-theoretic account of translation. Through the examination of a number of cases of literary translation, it aims to clarify some of the misunderstandings about relevance theory and prove how this theory can provide an adequate interpretation of translation as cross-cultural and interlingual communication.Translation is interlingual communication, and the application of communication theory to translation has been widely practiced. Out of the inadequacy of both the traditional code model and inferential model arises new communication theory. With the change of views on communication, opinions on translation are also subject to development. The proposal of relevance theory put forth by Sperber & Wilson has introduced new angles of pragmatics and cognition into the study of communication. And based on RT theory, Ernst-August Gutt has established a translation theory framework which has brought a brandly new perspective to translation studies. The publication of Gutt's Translation and Relevance: Cognition and Context has created sensation in the translation circle. However, in China, there are some misunderstandings about Gutt's theory in the academic papers. (Zhang Chunbai, 2003) For instance, some scholars like Wang Jianguo (2003), assumes wrongly that relevance-theoretic account of translation proposed by Gutt is for free translation, which requires translators to explicate what is originally implicit in the source text in order to achieve high relevance to the target text. This thesis holds that such fallacy in those papers results from the misunderstanding of two important notions—direct translation and indirect translation developed by Gutt. In order to clarify this mentioned fallacy, through the analysis of the whole translation process from relevance perspective, this thesis aims to lay emphasis on the notions of direct translation and indirect translation, so as to guarantee a desirable and correct understanding of Gutt's translation theory.On the basis of the theoretic explanation, the thesis also offers the practical example—Lin Yutang's translation of Six Chapters of a Floating Life, through which it further discusses the notions of direct translation and indirect translation which may find their unification within the framework of relevance theory. Finally this thesis concludes that relevance theory is compatible with translation, and"relevance theory offers the most powerful explanation with regard to translation up to now."(Zhao Yanchun, 2003)...