A Study Of Cultural Translation From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

This thesis discusses cultural translation from the perspective of Relevance Theory, based on which, the author proposes a Relevance-Theoretic Approach to the cultural translating process. It is cross-cultural and translator-centered. In this Model, translating is both a relevance-seeking, ostensive-inferential and a dynamically-adjusting process. In the process, the translator stands at the center of cross-cultural communication between the original author and the target audience. The translator searches for relevance in the source cognitive environment and makes dynamic adjustment in the target cognitive environment. To achieve optimal relevance, the translator should adopt different pragmatic strategies.The translator's mental operation is in dynamic state before he finds the optimal relevance to the author's communicative intention and makes appropriate linguistic choices. In the course of translating, the translator develops his Subjectivity when he interprets the original utterances. The translating process consists of two subconscious process: Discourse-Interpretative Process and Discourse-Producing Process. In the Discourse-Interpretative Process of translation, a cross-cultural mental communication occurs between the translator and the original author. It is a relevance-seeking, ostensive-inferential process. In this process, he makes every effort to process correctly the optimal relevance to the author's communicative intention. The Discourse-Producing Process is a dynamically-adjusting process from the translator to his intended receptor audience. Guided by optimal relevance, the translator consciously makes linguistic choices to convey the author's intentions to his readers. Meanwhile, the translator has to take into consideration the social-cultural context, the linguistic context, his intentions as well as the aesthetic expectations and acceptability level of the receptor audience.Domestication and foreignization are appropriate strategies for achieving different purposes. The translator's linguistic choices and pragmatic translation strategies must focus on conveying the author's intentions in achieving the similar contextual effects of the author's informative intention to satisfy the aesthetic expectations and acceptability level of the audience. They are two compatible and complementary means serving one purpose, that is, successful translation with optimal relevance.