Thick Translation From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

In the essay thick translation, Anthony Appiah put forward a term in translation—thick translation. Thick translation is a way to use annotations and accompanying glosses to locate the text in a rich cultural and linguistic context. He comments that it (thick translation) is very worth doing. The necessity and value of thick translation are explained in his essay. Thick translation is a phenomenon pervasively exists in all kinds of translation works, literary translation,.scientific translation, etc."thick translation" is a new term, however, the phenomenon exists long before its invention—more than one hundred years ago, in China, Yan Fu's translation of "Evolution and Ethics" was already prominent with thick translation. Although Appiah put forward the new term, and stressed its importance in cultural communication, the causes of thick translation, necessity, negative effects of overuse of thick translation and the aesthetic value of the original work haven't been studied thoroughly both at home and abroad. The present thesis attempts to find a way to solve and give answers to these questions.In relevance theory, some concepts and principles are crucial in explaining the phenomenon of thick translation. They are:cognitive environments, degree of relevance and principle of relevance, which form the theoretical basis of the thesis.Hong Lou Meng is a magnum opus in Chinese literature, with rich cultural connotations. Cultural elements are the essence of Hong Lou Meng, which is also the embodiment of the great Chinese culture. In translation, if these cultural elements are cut apart from the novel, or filtered in the translated text, it is obvious to see that the artistic value of the novel will be decreased to a great extent. Preserving the cultural elements of the original novel is both to be faithful to the original novel and to be respectful to Chinese culture. Through analyzing the two English versions of Hong Lou Meng—A Dream of Red Mansions by Yang Xianyi &Gladys Yang, and The Story of the Stone by British sinologist David Hawkes, the author finds that in the two versions, the phenomenon of thick translation is obvious but different in various ways. Most thick translations in Yang's version are concerned with culture, while David Hawkes'thick translation are mainly concerned with background of the novel, such as the life experience of the author, creating background of the novel, and etc. The author of this thesis thinks that the causes of these differences are three fold, first the different cognitive environments of the target readers and original writer and readers, second the different cultural orientation of the translators, and third, the translator's subjectivities. In cross cultural translation, thick translation is necessary. However, over use of thick translation may bring some negative effects. First, over interpretation will make the relevance degree stronger than the original, and also unfaithful to the original. Second, too much thick translation may cause the readers great difficulty in learning unnecessary information provided by the translator; misunderstandings may occur due to too much unnecessary information provided. What is more, over use of thick translation to some extent may even cause cultural narcissism. As a result, unnecessary over use of thick translation should be avoided.