On English Translation Of Allusions Of Hongloumeng From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory And Cultural Schema Theory

As a glittering pearl in the field of literature,the allusion is an indispensable part of a nation's cultural inheritance. Hongloumeng, one of the greatest classical Chinese novels, unfolds a vast and vivid panorama of social history. Abundantly employed in Hongloumeng, allusions play an important role in portraying characters and deepening the themes of some poems. However, allusion translation has always been deemed one of the tough problems in literary translation due to multifarious factors involved in the interpretation of the allusion.With communication and cognition as its core, relevance theory lays emphasis on the role that cognitive environment plays in the audience's inference of the communicative intention of the communicator. Relevance theory argues that the success of communication mainly depends on the audience's selection of the communicator-envisaged contextual assumption. In the light of relevance theory, translation is a double ostensive-inferential process; the correct assessment of the cognitive environment of the original writer and target readers is the key to successful translation. Since cognitive environment is stored in form of schema in one's mind, it is necessary to introduce another psychological notion"schema"to make a careful and thorough research on cognitive environment. Schema theory maintains that new knowledge can be processed only when it is connected with the existing knowledge framework. The decoding and encoding of new knowledge is dependant on the existing knowledge framework. Thus, a competent translator will decode the original text by activating their existing knowledge framework.The thesis aims to make a contrastive study of the translation of allusions in the two versions of Hongloumeng, one by Yang Hsian-Yi and Glads Yang and the other by David Hawkes. It explores the process of allusion translation of the two versions and analyzes the merits and demerits of the translation strategies adopted in the two versions from the perspective of relevance theory and cultural schema theory.Through the contrastive analysis of numerous examples of translated allusions, the author holds that allusion translation of Hongloumeng is also a double ostensive-inferential process. At the stage of interpreting the original allusion, the original writer as the communicator makes his informative intention manifest to the translator as the audience. Based on an appropriate understanding of the cultural schema of the original writer and the principle of relevance, the translator can understand the communicative intention of the original text and then obtain the optimal relevance of the original text. In the process of transferring the original text, the translator as the communicator is expected to transfer the optimal relevance of the original text to target readers as the audience. The translator should take into full account whether target readers possess the relevant cultural schema in their cognitive environment. On the basis of this, he can help target readers achieve the optimal relevance of the original allusion in their cognitive environment by adopting flexible translation strategies. If the translator understands the cultural schema of the original writer incorrectly, he will have difficulty in obtaining the optimal relevance of the original allusion; if he has an inappropriate evaluation of cognitive environment the of target readers, he can not match the communicative intention of the original allusion with target readers'expectations. The Yangs and Hawkes respectively adopt various translation techniques. As to the same allusion, different translators sometimes adopt different translation techniques. All the translators have their respective strengths and deficiencies in translating these allusions. Therefore, within the framework of relevance theory and cultural schema theory, cultural schema is of great significance to the translator's obtaining the optimal relevance of the original allusion. The translator's correct estimate of the cognitive environment of the original writer and target readers, so to speak, is vital to successful allusion translation. One of the important criteria for judging allusion translation is the transference of the optimal relevance of the original allusion. The plausible translation strategies for allusions should effectively convey their communicative intention and yield optimal relevance in target readers'cognitive environment. The flexible and variable translation strategies should be centered on achieving optimal relevance of allusions.