On Translation Of Chinese Culture-loaded Words Into English In The Relevance-theoretic Account

With the evolving trend of economic globalization and cultural pluralism, cultural transfer has aroused extensive concern in the translation field. As Chinese culture-loaded words objectively reflect the time-honored history and the magnificent culture of China, they serve as a crucial cultural carrier to introduce Chinese culture to the world. However, characterized by their uniqueness in culture and complexity in meaning, the adequate translation of these words poses a formidable challenge to translators. Therefore, this thesis is designed to account for the translation of Chinese culture-loaded words into English from the relevance-theoretic perspective, employing the translated Chinese novel Big Breasts and Wide Hips by Howard Goldblatt as a case study.Relevance Theory, first proposed by Sperber and Wilson in 1986, is a basic pragmatic theory which probes into the general principles of human communication and cognition. Though not meant for translation studies initially, this theory possesses an immense explanatory power in accounting for translation. Gutt was the pioneer to introduce Relevance Theory to translation studies. In his doctoral thesis Translation and Relevance:Cognitive and Context in 1991, the notion of relevance-theoretic translation provides a justified and unified theoretical account for the ontological and methodological studies of translation so as to cast new light on translation studies. In the framework of Relevance Theory, translation is viewed as a dynamic ostensive-inferential process, the goal of which is to achieve optimal relevance between the source text and the target text reader's cognitive environment. In other words, the target text reader is always searching for adequate contextual effects at minimal processing effort in the process of interpretation.This thesis provides an in-depth analysis on the identity and the translatability of Chinese culture-loaded words in the relevance-theoretic account. Based on the notion of optimal relevance, the major strategies and methods for translating Chinese culture-loaded words into English are explored and examined. Through the analysis of the application of Relevance Theory in the translation of these words in Big Breasts and Wide Hips, this thesis aims at testifying the explanatory power of Relevance Theory on the one hand, and providing a fresh and different perspective for translating Chinese culture-loaded words into English on the other hand. Finally, the author ventures a guiding principle governing the translation of these words:the translator should choose the translation strategy and the concrete method which are in line with the pursuit of optimal relevance in the particular context so as to make the original author's intention and the target audience's expectation meet.