C-E Translation Of Two-Part Allegorical Sayings With The Enlightenment Of Relevance Translation Theory

Chinese two-part allegorical saying, created by Chinese people in daily life, is one of the most important parts of Chinese culture. It is quite popular among the Chinese people of all strata and widely used in both daily conversations and literary works. However, for a long time, the translation of Chinese two-part allegorical sayings has been a complex and thorny problem because of the uniqueness of them. Therefore, translating Chinese two-part allegorical sayings into English and helping foreigners understand their meanings is not only the need of cultural pluralism and globalization, but also the need to help Chinese culture go into the world.Language is one of the most important parts of culture. It is well known that when two different languages encounter, actually, it is the meeting of two different cultures. Therefore, the abundance in cultural content of two-part allegorical sayings makes the translating of them especially challenging and tough. According to the rhetorical devices, Chinese two-part allegorical sayings are divided into figurative and punny ones. Metaphor and puns which quite bother target audience are two rhetorical devices most frequently applied in them. Because of the language barriers and the cultural differences between the target and the original languages, it is difficult for target audience to get adequate cognitive context to understand the original correctly. Thus, for translating well, the translator has to overcome the two obstacles.The relevance translation theory is of great help to the translation of Chinese two-part allegorical sayings. Gutt argues that a translation would be a receptor language text that interpretively resembles the original. In this theory, translator's task is to give target audience optimal relevance which enables them to find the communicator's intention without unnecessary effort so that they can comprehend the utterance correctly and easily. Thus, achieving relevance is the basic step while optimal relevance is the important step when translating. Direct translation and indirect translation proposed by Gutt are used in translation. No matter which one is used, both of them are decided by the target audience's knowledge of the original language cognitive context. In a word, the translator needs to choose the most applicable approach according to original language ability of target audience, so as to access sufficient cognitive environment,which provides adequate information to audience in achieving optimal relevance.