On Translation Of Cultural Elements In Two Versions Of Camel Xiangzi: From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

Translation not only involves in the conversion between languages but also in the transmission of cultures, a fact of which has been particularly embodied in the translation of literary works. The translation of cultural elements, whether in classic literary works or in modern works, has posed a great difficulty for translators and hence is worth the attention of translation studies. This thesis has chosen Camel Xiangzi, a modern Chinese literary work with rich cultural color, and two of its English versions as the object of the study, and focuses on the comparative study of the translation of the cultural elements.Camel Xiangzi is one of the masterpieces of Lao She who is a well-known writer in modern China. Given its rich local cultural color, a proper translation of it into English is really a challenging job. Up to now, there have been three versions and each version is not so similar, especially when it comes to the translation of cultural elements. Therefore a comparative study would be quite necessary.In this thesis, the author has chosen two translated versions of Camel Xiangzi, one by Shi Xiaojing and the other by Evan King. A comparative study is made on the translation of cultural elements from the perspective of Relevance Theory, specifically the relevance theoretical view on translation. For the convenience of study, the author divides the cultural elements in the original work into Material Culture and Linguistic Culture which have been further divided into food, clothing and housing for the first one and Chinese wise crack, dialect and idiom for the second respectively. And a comparative study has been made between the two versions.Relevance theoretical view on translation, put forward by Gutt on the basis of Relevance Theory, relates to a few important concepts such as the least processing efforts and the most effects﹑the context and the double identity of the translator, all of which have acted as major criteria for the comparative study.After a comparative study of the translation of these cultural elements, it's found that generally, Shi has done a better job in translating the cultural elements than King does with the following two reasons: first, Shi tends to adopt free translation to deal with the cultural elements not so familiar to foreign readers. Giving up the original images, she only conveys the deeper meanings of these elements, hence reducing the processing efforts needed by the target readers. On the other hand, King tends to adopt literal translation. His version requires greater processing efforts and sometimes leads to confusion and misunderstandings; second, Shi is Chinese herself, therefore her cultural background enables her to understand the cultural elements more easily than King does. According to Relevance theory on translation, a translator has double identity--- for the original writer, he is an audience; for the target readers, he acts as a communicator. On such basis, correct understanding of the original work becomes a precondition for correct translation. In this aspect, Shi has an advantage over King, as evidenced by the fact that it's King's own misunderstandings that have caused mistranslations in his versions.In the end the author proposes an opinion that although at present free translation is conducive to foreign readers to understand literary works, in the long run, literal translation with cultural images being kept would be better to spread Chinese culture to other countries.