An Analysis Of The Translation Of The Cultural Elements In Chinese Classical Poems From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

China has been known for its profound culture and its history. The Chinese poetry, as a typical Chinese literary style, carries the striking features of the Chinese culture. In the ancient times, the Chinese poets employed compounded words, regular structures to express their profound emotions or ambitions. Nowadays, more and more foreigners are becoming interested with the Chinese culture and the Chinese poems. However, the impediments of the translation of the Chinese poems cause the foreigners can not exactly understand the meaning of the Chinese poems and the Chinese culture conveyed in them. The translation of the Chinese poems plays a great role in spreading the Chinese culture to the world. The author carries on a research on the relevance theory and its application to the translation of the Chinese classical poetry, in hope of adding some attributions to this research field.The author precedes a tentative study in this thesis on the translation of the cultural elements in the Chinese poems from the perspective of the relevance theory. At first the author gives a brief introduction to the Chinese classical poems, including the features of the Chinese ancient poems, the categorization, and the importance of the cultural elements in the Chinese ancient poems. The author also analyzes the previous study of the cultural elements translation in the Chinese poems at home and abroad. Then the author in the next chapter mainly talks about the theoretical works of this thesis. The relevance theory is discussed in this chapter in details. Then in the next part the author analyzes several authoritative scholars, in order to find the applicability of the relevance theory to the translation of the cultural elements in the Chinese poems, by using some specific translation strategies.This thesis has five chapters in all.Chapter one is the introductory part. It gives a brief representation of the research background as well as the necessity of this thesis. The brief theoretical base and methodology are dealt with in the following part. The Chinese poems are a representative literary style of the Chinese literature; however it is difficult to translate them into English because of their particular literary features. For relevance theory is closely related with the communication and cognition, it offers a solid foundation for the translation of the Chinese poems. This thesis intends to find out the application of the relevance theory and its results in this process.In chapter two the author surveys the classical Chinese poetry specifically, including the characteristics and categorization of the Chinese poems. The fixed format, imagery, and rhythmicity are the three distinctive features of the Chinese poems. The important role of the cultural elements in the Chinese poems is illustrated in the following part and analysis of the previous study in this field comes afterward.Chapter three the author looks into the theoretical framework of this thesis. Relevance theory is concerned with the cognition and the context. Gutt claims that translation is a double ostensive-inferential cognitive process and the translator plays a dual role in translating Chinese poems. The translator should take into consideration the cognitive environment of the target readers.Chapter four is the main body of this thesis. The author focuses on the application of the relevance theory to the translation of the cultural elements in the Chinese poems. The author should seek optimal relevance between the bilateral languages and cultures, realizing a mutual manifestiveness in the communicative process. Because there is a large gap and great differences between the Chinese language and the English, and the Chinese and English culture, it is hard to translate the Chinese poems into English. The author analyzes several poems translated by several authoritative scholars in China. Some translation strategies are employed in the translation process, including literal translation, annotation, paraphrase, substitution, and omission. The cultural elements in the Chinese classical poems play a very important role in presenting the Chinese culture, thus, to deal with them successfully is the key to the translation of the Chinese poems fully.Chapter five is the summary part and the author concludes the findings and limitations of this thesis. Some suggestions for the future research in this field are also presented by the author.