The Translation Of Chinese Xiehouyu Under The Theory Of Relevance

Xiehouyu, a form of Chinese idioms with strong cultural traits, is produced by the Chinese laboring people during their life experience and work throughout thousands of years. Xiehouyu, which is made up of two parts, mainly employs two rhetorical skills, metaphor and pun, to achieve humorous, vivid and satirical effects. As a strongly culture-loaded expression, Xiehouyu finds few equivalents in English, which poses an obstacle for the translators in Chinese—English translation. In Chapter I of the thesis, the writer introduces the definition, origins, characteristics and classifications of Xiehouyu. Due to different perspectives, so far, no consensus has been achieved on the classification of Xiehouyu. For a better analysis of Xiehouyu translation and development of the thesis, the writer prefers to divide the Chinese Xiehouyu into two categories from the perspective of rhetoric. In Chapter II, the writer summarizes the previous and present research in the field since 1920s and conducts a brief comment on these researches and lastly put forward the notion of the translatability of Xiehouyu.Based on the analysis and summarization, in Chapter III, the writer introduces the theory of relevance put forward by Sperber and Wilson, and their student, Gutt who put forward the relevance translation theory based on the concepts of cognition and context. According to relevance translation theory, translation is an ostensive-inferential process, and the principle of translation is to provide enough contextual effects for the target readers so the readers can achieve the optimal relevance with least effort. The optimal relevance is the target of the translators as well as the principle for translation research. Enlightened by the relevance translation theory, the translator should endeavor to convey the parts which have sufficient relevance with the target readers, that is, the parts which can produce sufficient contextual effects. And meanwhile, the expression should be coincident with the writer's original intention and spare the readers from unnecessary processing efforts. Based on the analysis of relevance theory and relevance translation theory, and enlightened by Gutt's translation strategy, direct translation and indirect translation, in Chapter IV, the writer reckons that there has not been a fixed and universally applicable methods for the translation of Xiehouyu and proposes several practical techniques for the translation of Xiehouyu, such as literal translation, literal translation with footnotes, omission translation, loan translation, and the combination of literal translation and liberal translation, etc. On the basis of different types and characteristics of Xiehouyu, these techniques should be applied flexibly and jointly.