Relevance Theory, Metaphor And Translation

Metaphors are commonly used not only in literary works, but also in our daily life. It is said that there is at least one metaphor in every three sentences in our daily communications. Some people even claim that four metaphors are used per minute in everyday conversations. Thus one person may use more than 21 million metaphors during his whole life. That's why more and more people show great interest in metaphors. They also draw special attention from translators and translation theorists.In the first part, by way of introduction, this thesis briefly discusses the definition of metaphor proposed by different scholars.In the second part, a survey is made on the development of theoretical studies of metaphors home and abroad, including comparison/substitution of metaphors, interactive study of metaphors, and cognitive and pragmatic study of metaphors. Among all these, relevance theory, proposed by Sperber and Wilson in 1986, appears to be most significant.Then, in the third part, this paper gives a detailed account of relevance theory and shows its significance to understanding metaphors.The fourth part focuses on the translation of metaphors. First, a brief review is made of the study of metaphor translation in both broad and home. Then, it illustrates how metaphors are rendered in the light of relevance theory in translating advertisements.Finally, in the fifth part, the author states that the study of metaphor translation from the perspective of relevance theory in this thesis is quite limited and needs further investigation.