The Research On Relevance Theory And Technical Translation Process

Frequent international exchanges in the field of science and technology require an efficient communicative tool. In the field of translation studies, literary translation techniques and theories are thriving. However, there is no widely accepted guiding theory for technical translation process. Relevance theory in pragmatics is very powerful in accounting for and guiding the technical translation process.Relevance theory is not intended for translation studies. However, as a science that explores general principles concerning human communication and cognition, it is a powerful way to account for translation as inter-cultural communication. Its application provides translation studies with a new perspective. Within the framework of relevance theory, translation is a double ostensive-inferential communication process, which involves three parties: the source text author, the translator, and the target text reader. Under the guidance of relevance theory, a translator has to draw inferences from the stimulus to get the optimal relevance according to the contextual information of the source text.This paper is a pragmatic exploration of the translation process in technical translation from the perspective of Relevance theory. It intends to explore how Relevance theory is applied to technical translation and how useful this theory is for technical translation. The significance of this study is that it gives an explanation of how the information-processing faculties of the translator's mind enable him to carry on technical translation in the stage of discourse interpretation and in the stage of discourse production in technical translation.It is pointed out that Relevance theory provides a new perspective and scientific method for technical translation analysis and can efficiently guide translation studies. However, we should not expect that Relevance theory is omnipotent and could solve all the problems encountered by translators because problems involved in translation are of various kinds and encompass many aspects.