Applying Relevance Theory In Translating English News Into Chinese

With the globalization of the economy and the explosion of information, news has become a more and more important media for the transmission of information and has become increasingly indispensable to people's life. And news translation is the effective way for the Chinese to know the information of the outside world. The past translation theories are not always satisfactory for the explanation of news translation, while relevance theory provides a new perspective.This thesis is a tentative endeavor to study English-Chinese news translation from the perspective of relevance theory. Through analyzing some news samples in English and their Chinese versions, the author tries to find out the applicability of relevance theory to news translation and provides some specific strategies in practical news translation.This thesis is divided into five chapters.Chapter One is an introduction. It represents the purpose of this thesis and its field of study.Chapter Two introduces some ideas of news, such as definitions of news and news features. News, as a distinctive style, has its own features. It should be timely and objective. English news and Chinese news have the common features and also have the different features.Chapter Three explains some important concepts of relevance theory and provides the theoretical bases for its application to translation. Relevance theory was proposed by Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson. It is a pragmatic theory on communication from the cognitive point. According to this theory, communication is an ostensive-inferential process that consists of communicator's informative and communicative intention. There are some important concepts in relevance theory, such as the context, the mutual manifestness, the notion of relevance and the principles of relevance. Obeying the two principles of relevance, in communication, the communicator and the audience will achieve optimal relevance.Ernest-August Gutt is the first one who applies relevance theory to translation. Within the framework of relevance theory, translation can be regarded as a dual ostensive-inferential process and an interlingual interpretive use. Gutt also puts forward two translational approaches---indirect translation and direct translation.Chapter Four puts forward some translational strategies for the translation of English news. Through the analysis of news translation strategies, we further the study of news translation under the guidance of relevance theory.Chapter Five is a conclusion. Relevance theory provides a new aspect for the study of translation. Relevance translation theory, advanced by Gutt, offers a unified theoretical framework for translation studies. This thesis is to study news translation from the perspective of relevance theory and to suggest some translation strategies.