A Study Of Culture Images Translation In The Border Town Based On The Relevance Theory

Relevance theory is powerful in accounting for translation. The communication will be successful if the reader can choose from his cognitive environments with the appropriate, writer-intended assumptions. The goal of communication is not the maximal relevance, but the optimal relevance, that is, an expectation on the part of the hearer and his attempt at interpretation will yield adequate contextual effects at minimal processing effort. A translation is successful when it achieves optimal relevance on target readers.The Border Town (《边城》) is an excellent novel in modem Chinese literature. It spread its popularity since its birth both at home and abroad for its deep context, strong local color, vivid descriptions about Chinese culture and quite a number of culture images. The culture images contained in the novel makes its translation a painstaking work for the translators, and the translation of culture images is of vital importance in the translation of the whole novel.From the perspective of relevance theory, this thesis attempts to analyze the English translations of culture images in Gladys Yang's The Border Town, and a case study on the translation strategies will be carried on enlightened by the optimal relevance and its methodologies named "direct translation" and "indirect translation". A reasonable and constructive estimation of Gladys Yang's The Border Town will be achieved. During this process, a case study will be carried on, and some limitations of Gladys Yang's translation will be presented.In transferring culture information, the translator should combine the culture information in the source language with target readers' expectation to achieve optimal relevance and ensure the success of culture communication.