Cultural Default And Its Compensation In The International Publicity Translation - A Perspective Of Relevance Theory

The quality of international publicity translation is closely related to the publicityof national image. In recent years, the role which China has played in the internationalarena is quite different from its image which is recognized by the internationalcommunities. Different from common Chinese to English translation, internationalpublicity translation has a strong nature of politics. As a result, the translation errors init will be magnified. The obstacles in cross-cultural communication caused by culturaldefault in the international publicity translation are common problems which areeasily to be ignored. Therefore, the author thinks that it is of great necessity to explorethe translating methods and cultural compensation strategies of cultural default in theinternational publicity translation systematically and profoundly in order to improvethe quality of international publicity translation.According to relevance theory, translation is an act of communication betweentranslators and target audience rather than a text genre. Ernst-August Gutt hasthoroughly explained the relationship between the relevance theory and translation inthe book Translation and Relevance. He thinks that translation practice should obeytwo rules. One is that the translated version should be most relevant to thetarget-language audience or provide most contextual effect. The other one is that thetarget-language audience should make no unnecessary effort to understand theexpression of the translated version. Therefore, the relevance theory can guide how tosolve problems that hinder the cross-cultural communication activity. This thesis first reviews relevance theory and its development in the study oftranslation, and then defines about the international publicity translation and culturaldefault. Furthermore, it raises plenty of typical examples to explain how the translatorreproduce and reconstruct the information of the original text through making themost appropriate compensation for cultural default in the international publicitytranslation, which points out that relevance translation theory can guide the translatorto clear the obstacles caused by cultural default in cross-cultural communication.According to relevance-theoretic approach to translation, translation can be regardedas a communication process of cognitive inference. The translator must understandthe target-language reader’s cognitive context and ensure that the cultural informationof the original language has been successfully shifted to the context of thetarget-language readers through seeking optimal relevance. By doing this, theobstacles caused by cultural default can be cleared in the cross-culturalcommunication. In addition, the thesis discusses the translator should overcomehis/her own cognitive limitation. In the background of cultural globalization, thetranslator had better improve cross-cultural awareness to produce the best work and tospread Chinese cultural accurately and successfully.