On English Translation Of Chinese Idioms-Xiehouyu-From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

This thesis seeks to account for the English translation of Chinese Xiehouyu from the relevance-theoretic perspective. According to relevance theory advanced by Sperber & Wilson, human communication is an ostensive-inferential progress in which the central factor that makes communication succeed is the pursuit of optimal relevance on the part of both the communicator and the addressee. Relevance is dependent on the interplay of two factors: contextual effect and processing effort. Other things being equal, the more contextual effects an utterance achieves, the more relevant it will be, and the greater the processing effort, the lower the relevance. Sperber and Wilson put the relationship among the three in the following formula: Relevance = Contextual Effect/Processing Efforts. Based on relevance theory, Gutt regards translation as a dynamic process, an act of ostensive-inferential interlingual verbal interpretation. Translation is a two-round process of communication, in which the translator, as the audience of the original on the one hand and the communicator of the translation on the other hand, will interpret the intention of the original and convey to the audience both explicatures and implicatures to the optimally relevant extent that he judges. Relevance translation theory sheds light on a wide range of translation phenomena in theory and practice as well, and probes into the communicative nature of translation.As one category of Chinese idioms, Xiehouyu—a culture-specific phenomenon. possess unique Chinese national and cultural features, which probably turns out to be one of the most difficult problem for the translators to solve in their practice. Some people even claim that Xiehouyu are untranslatable. Xiehouyu are characterized by the figurative use of language and play on words, that is, metaphors and puns, to achieve irony and humorous effects rhetorically. Since metaphors and puns are easy to be interpreted under the framework of relevance theory like plain expressions, Xiehouyu can be interpreted from the perspective of relevance theory as well.The author takes optimal relevance as the principle in Xiehouyu translation, on which concrete techniques are proposed including literal translation, literal translation with notes, substitution, omission, addition and generalization.