Translation Of Hyperbole From The Socio-semiotic Perspective

Hyperbole is figure of speech in rhetoric, and plays an important role in literature works and communicative texts in history. Hyperbole, as a precious pearl in human language, is a representative of how powerful language is, embracing features of human language in different cultures and highlighting the role of culture in languagesSociosemiotics includes sign systems into social environment in its studies. Language, as a sign system, could never be isolated from its social background and cultural basis. To quote Nida, perhaps the most pervasive and crucial contribution to an understanding of translating is to be found in semiotics, the discipline which treats all the systems of signs used by human societies.Translation has played a very important part in history. The great influence it exerts on the formation or transformation and development of every culture is undeniable. Therefore translation has been given more and more attention and academic focus. After passing period of philological, structuralist, and postmodern de-constructional turns, translation studies began to merge with sociosemiotics since 1960s and have been rapidly and promisingly developing with great potentials.In this thesis, the abovementioned hyperbole, sociosemiotics and translation studies have been systematically integrated. Starting with"language is a sign system in social environment", important theories in semiotics, sociosemiotics and sociosemiotic approach to translation are introduced first. Then from sociosemiotic perspective, culture is integrated into translation process. With triadic relation of sign, a model proposed by Pierce, a four-triangle model is formed, indicating four sets of triadic relations during translation of hyperbole. Based on full examples and complete analysis, the influence of culture is proved and clarified during translation of hyperbole. Then, Morris'division of meanings of language as a sign phenomenon is adopted, so is the central issue of translation studies---equivalence. To combine these two concepts, translation equivalence of hyperbole can be realized on different levels, including grammatical, designative and pragmatic levels.