A Comparative Study Of Poetry Translation In Two English Versions Of Hongloumeng From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

The relevance theory is one of the most influential Cognitive Pragmatics theories in the west these years. It centers on the relationship between communication and cognition, which is very deeply associated with translation, so the relevance theory has great explanatory power to translation. This thesis applies the Relevance Theory to the poems'translation based on logical entry, encyclopaedic entry and lexical entry which exists in the audience's cognitive environment and governs the translators'understanding process. With adoption of comparison and analysis, this thesis makes a comparative study on the two English versions of Honglongmeng, highlighting on the discrepancy of the two versions. Through case studies, the thesis discusses that logical entry, encyclopaedic entry and lexical entry restrain the translators when they work out the assumptions of the context. And the different solutions to such constraints, in turn, show the different translating strategies adopted by the two translators in the poetry translation of Hongloumeng. The Yangs'version adopted the literal translation method to convey traditional Chinese cultural characteristics. While taking readability and acceptability in consideration, Hawkes' version turned to free translation. In most of the examples, the literal translation of the Yangs'version is better than the free translation of Hawkes'version. Therefore, as far as poetry translation of Hongloumeng is concerned, literal translation should be regarded as the main method and free translation the subordinate one.