The Application Of Relevance Theory To The Study Fo C-E Metaphor Interpreting

Traditionally, metaphor is regarded as a figurative speech to express the similarity between two different things by comparing them indirectly. Similarities enable people to understand one thing with the help of another thing. Therefore, any similar things can be cognized by metaphors. Now that metaphors are omnipresent in our life, they are worthy of further research.Owing to the complexity of metaphors, interpreters are faced with great challenges when interpreting them. Moreover, metaphors are closely connected with culture, which further increases the coping difficulties. Therefore, metaphor interpreting involves not only language transfer, but also cultural context reconstruction. According to relevance theory, cultural context is part of the cognitive environment and only when metaphors are interpreted under cognitive environments can better communicative effects be achieved.Based on relevance theory, the present thesis has introduced an ostensive-inferential communicative model into metaphor interpreting studies to formulate an integrated solution, which will further help the author propose an operating procedure for metaphor interpreting. According to the procedure, metaphor interpreting will go through two processes: inferential process and ostensive process. From interpreters'perspective, they infer the informative and communicative intentions conveyed by the original speakers. Then they employ target language to transfer the ostensive intentions to hearers. During the two successive processes, interpreters have to analyze and compare cognitive environments of both languages with a view to achieving optimal relevance and improving the quality of metaphor interpreting.