A Study Of Loss Of Cultural Image In Metaphor Translation In Fortress Besieged From Perspective Of Relevance Theory

This dissertation studies the loss of cultural images in the metaphor translation in Fortress Besieged within the framework of Sperber & Wilson's relevance theory.As the crystallization of wisdoms of different nations, cultural images contain many unique cultural connotations which are difficult to be translated into foreign languages, thus the loss of cultural images can often be seen in many literature translations. Since relevance theory can settle many long-lasting disputes in the field of translation and shows a strong interpretive force on pragmatic fuzziness, discourse coherence, translation standard, translation actions, translation of metaphors, ironies, humors, etc; but cultural images is a special cultural phenomenon and translating them from one language to another, the loss of cultural images is inevitable. As it were, relevance theory does have certain guiding significance on the translation of cultural images; however, it still has obvious limitations in its interpretive force in this aspect. Viewing the advantages and disadvantages of relevance theory's interpretive force on translation in an objective and dialectical way, this dissertation studies the loss of cultural images in metaphor translation in Fortress Besieged from the perspective of relevance theory, meanwhile, points out the limitations of relevance theory's interpretive force in this aspect.Relevance theory holds that the nature of translation is an interpretive use of language and. as any other communicative activities, aims at achieving optimal relevance in the target text, so as to make the target readers obtain maximum contextual effect with minimum effort.Based on the relevance theory, the process of translation includes two rounds of communication, in which the translator plays a dual role of both an audience and communicator. In the first round, the translator acts as an audience who should put himself in the position of the original writer, provide the correct contextual assumption and understand the original works in the right way, that is, the translator should make out the optimal relevance as in the original text. In the second round, the translator should act as a communicator who should convey the full understanding of the original text to the target readers in a way that the optimal relevance will be achieved. According to relevance theory, when translating cultural images, the translator should form his own communicative intention at first; then reconstruct the cultural image of the original text under the cognitive environment of the target readers in the way that can make both the original readers and target readers have the same response toward the same cultural image, so that the optimal relevance is achieved. However, it is just an ideal of relevance theory in the practice of cultural images translation, although the translators have already tried their best to make the source text achieve optimal relevance in the target text as far as possible, the loss of cultural image still appears, for completely reconstructing one cultural image from one culture to another is just a vision that can only be pursued but hardly realized by the translators; and the limitations of relevance theory's interpretive force on the translation of cultural images are obviously showed here.The examples of cultural images come from a well-known Chinese novel Wei Cheng and its English version Fortress Besieged. This study shows that the translators have tried their best to keep the cultural images unchanged of the original to the target text in the hope of introducing Chinese culture to the target readers as well as offering a chance for the target readers to make processing effort and obtain optimal relevance by themselves as far as possible, however, Wei Cheng, written by a brilliant Chinese scholar, Qian Zhongshu, is a novel of varied contents, clear background, incisive dictions, humorous language and deep cultural connotations; so it is not difficult to imagine the great difficulties in translating this novel into English, just because of these mentioned factors, there are so many cultural images are lost in the English version. Most cultural images in Wei Cheng are presented in metaphors, thus the loss of cultural images is frequently seen in metaphor translations; therefore, the present dissertation points out the loss of cultural images in many metaphor translations in this version, and meanwhile tries to give some suggestions to compensate the loss of cultural image in the hope of making the translation more relevant or closes to the optimal relevance as far as possible in the target text, so that the original writer's communicative intention will be better transmitted to the target readers.