A Study On Cognitive Environment And Thick Translation Based On Relevance Theory

Cognitive Pragmatics, which is a cognitive study of languages in communication, has always been put in the spotlight by linguists and falls into the category of cognitive linguistics. In fact, the Relevance Theory, proposed by Sperber and Wilson (1986, 1995) in their common monograph Relevance: Communication and Cognition, has been a most influential theory in the western academic world these years. Besides, some other related books have come out one after another, such as Translation and Relevance: Cognition and Context by Ernst August Gutt (1991), which further developed Relevance Theory in pragmatics, redefined context or cognitive environment and elaborated its guidance to translation practice. However, these masterpieces all lack researches on thick translation, so the thesis is right intended to primarily explore thick translation practice under the framework of Relevance Theory. In China, the related researches only lie in the early developmental phase and no monographs have come out to display significant findings.This thesis is intended to study thick translation under the guidance of Relevance Theory put forward by Sperber and Wilson in 1986. As a matter of fact, thick translation is indispensable to masterpiece translation in that the purpose of providing rich background information is to give the target reader a deeper insight into the source culture through maximally reconstructing the original cognitive environments for the audience. In other words, the translated text cannot be a good and complete piece if lacking necessary annotations. To be specific, thick translation is a translating strategy the translator adopts to produce as much contextual effect as possible and maximally reduce the processing effort for the target reader. The strategy can facilitate the communication between the original author and the target reader.Nonetheless, many translators prone to ignore this part in translation practice and consequently their high-quality translated works are imperfect to some extent. The author of the present thesis selects translation cases from Yan Fu's translation works as the database to expound the optimal combination of cognitive environment and thick translation from the perspective of cognition in Relevance Theory. In addition, the thesis points out in what circumstances the translator is supposed to add various forms of glosses and how to annotate the target text so as to reduce the processing efforts on the part of target readers. On this issue, the author makes personal comments on thick translation and suggests a few strategies to deal with the practice.