On Reproduction In Interpreting From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

In modern society, the development of economy and international exchanges give rise to a growing need for interpretation. Interpretation is a cross-language, cross-cultural, and cross-social communication activity. It aims to help people who speak different languages to overcome language barriers and serves as a bridge in intercultural communication. Given the fact that interpreting is an extremely complicated communication process involving both identified and unidentified factors, further study on interpreting is indeed of high importance and significance, which leads to the inspiration of this graduation thesis. The huge differences between Chinese and English cause the necessity of information reproduction in interpretation. In present works, there are just some discussions, but without further research and studies based on the relative theories. Based upon existing researches about interpreting, this thesis mainly discusses the information reproduction in the process of interpreting from the perspective of relevance theory.This thesis makes an explanation of interpretation process and studies on the practice of interpretation in the light of relevance theory. Interpreting, from the angle of relevance theory, is a dynamic contextual communication aiming at achieving optimal relevance for smooth exchange. During the process of interpreting, interpreters will inevitably encounter the problem of language choices in line with different contextual factors in order to transfer original message accurately and conduct successful communication. According to relevance theory, the interpreter should make a comprehensive preparation and grasp enough contextual knowledge in his mind to eliminate the obstacles in interpreting process and to improve the comprehension and the quality of source language. Hence, this thesis studies the information processing of interpretation from the point view of cognitive psychology and relevance theory, which make a new perspective to interpretation study. By the analysis, the author attempts to help the readers clearly understanding the interpretation process.The thesis is organized in three chapters excluding introduction and conclusion.The introduction is a general survey of the whole thesis. It begins with the intention of the research and its theoretic basis.Chapter Two is a brief introduction of Relevance Theory put forward by Sperber and Wilson. It introduces a few essential concepts of Relevance Theory, such as relevance, reproduction, optimal relevance and the like.Chapter Three is a tentative study of interpretation in line with Relevance Theory. A brand new classification of context is introduced in the process of comprehension, and in the process of reproduction, the interpreter should consider the target receiver’s cognitive environment so as to achieve optimal relevance.Chapter Four introduces some information-processing models and some reproduction strategies at the structural level and at the word and phrase level,such as paraphrasing, restructuring of adverbials, restructuring of compound sentences, restructuring of voices, explanation, amplification, deletion, repetition, transformation of figure of speech, and anticipation and the like.Chapter Five will conclude the study by briefly summarizing the whole study, discussing the implications of the findings of the study, pointing out the limitations of the study and making some suggestions for future research.