A Comparative Study On Default Translation In Hongloumeng

Translation is a communicative act carried out between two cognitive systems with Relevance Theory (RT) as a guide by means of the medium of language that involves the cognition of the original writer, the translator and the target language reader. According to Zhao Yanchun (2003, 05) default is the filtered information which has no influence on the contextual effect, it is communicative strategy related to cognition in a work creation. Whether adopt default in translation completely depends on the purpose of the translator and the extent of translatability. It demands the translator's responsibility to reduce the inter-lingual difference through certain strategies. Relevance theory manifests defaults and corresponding translation for it takes communication as a dynamic cognitive process.On the level of textual comparison, the phenomena of default translation take important position and scholars throughout the world make their efforts in this aspect. However, there have been no complete and thorough comparisons between two different English versions of a work.The purpose of this thesis is to explore the following problems by combining RT with comparative study on translating texts: For what purpose default is used in translation? And to what extent the relevance are achieved?Using the concept of "relevance" as an evaluating criterion, this dissertation begins with the introduction of the basic concepts in RT and the comparative study on default translation in Hongloumeng, with the aim of getting systematic recognition on this problem and comparing the reconstruction strategies of default translation in Hongloumeng. This paper includes five chapters.In the Introduction the author introduces the research achievements on RT inside and outside China, current research gap, originality of this paper as well. Since default basically involves cognitive psychology in communication, and RT is a communicative theory concerning cognition, RT naturally can explain default and its application in literature translation.