A Contrastive Study Of Metaphor Translation In Two English Versions Of Xi Xiang Ji From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

In1980s, the research of metaphor turned from the traditional rhetorical level to the cognitive level. The cognitive linguists Lakoff and Johnson explained the essential working mechanism of metaphor, and proposed the conceptual metaphor theory. They thought metaphor is a process of mapping a familiar and easy-understood source domain onto an unfamiliar, more abstract or hard-understood target domain. At the same era, the cognitive pragmatic experts Sperber and Wilson proposed the relevance theory, and explained the essence of communication. They proposed that metaphor is a kind of communication, and explained the comprehensive process of metaphor in communication from the aspect of pragmatics. They thought communication is a cognitive activity, which is an ostensive-inferential process under the control of the relevance theory. During the process of communication, the understanding of metaphor is a process of pursuing the optimal relevance between the cognitive context of the source domain and that of the target domain by readers. At the same time, the relevance translation theory expert Gutt thought that translation is a communicative activity, which is two ostensive-inferential processes involving the original author, the translator and the target reader. It not only involves decoding, but also inferring based on the dynamic context. The success of translation is determined by whether the translation can reach the optimal relevance.China is a country with high context culture. Chinese language is implicit, especially the language in ancient Chinese literary works. As one of the classics in the Chinese ancient dramas, the language in Xi Xiang Ji, which was written by Wang Shifu in Yuan dynasty, is elegance, condensed and full of rhetoric and allusions, especially abundant metaphors in it. However, few scholars have put their feet on this area.This thesis collects181sentences containing conceptual metaphors in Xi Xiang Ji, and classifies them into five categories after the analysis of the original text on the basis of Lakoff&Johnson’s conceptual metaphor theory. They are plant metaphors, animal metaphors, inanimate object metaphors, color metaphors and spatial metaphors. According to the relevance theory proposed by Sperber&Wison, the thesis makes a contrastive analysis of68sentences translations between two English versions in order to explore the translation of metaphors in the Chinese classic dramas. The thesis chooses Xu Yuanchong’s version in2008and Stephen West&Wilt L. Idema’s version in1995. Through the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the metaphor translations in the two English versions, this thesis discovers that in general both Xu and S&W apply the direct translation and the indirect translation together. Their differences lie in that the former, which in order to pursue "three beauties","three Zhi" and "three Hua" in the translation, kept a balance between the two categories of translation strategies, especially had an even usage of literal translation and explanation, while the later, aimed to pursue the complete transmission of Chinese culture, were prone to adopt the direct translation, among which the literal translation strategy takes over half of the total. According to the contrastive analysis of the two English versions from the perspective of relevance theory, Xu’s translation can achieve the optimal relevance among the target readers in most cases, but sacrifices the original culture and metaphor images. While S&W mainly adopted literal translation and literal translation plus annotation, which can not achieve the optimal relevance among the target readers in most cases, but can maintain the original culture and metaphor images to great extent. The thesis suggests that free translation plus annotation can remedy the disadvantages of literal translation and free translation when dealing with high culture-loaded metaphors.The whole thesis consists of six chapters:Chapter One serves as an introductory part. It presents the research purpose, research significance and research questions of the thesis.Chapter Two is the literature review. It mainly consists of three sections:the first section is the review of the relevance theory; the second section is the review of metaphor; the third section is the review of the translation of Xi Xiang Ji.Chapter Three is the data collection and research methodology.Chapter Four is the main body of this thesis which analyzes five categories of conceptual metaphors, and makes a contrastive analysis of the metaphor translations of the two English versions of Xi Xiang Ji:Xu Yuanchong’s version and Stephen West&Wilt L. Idema’s version. There are five parts in this chapter:the plant metaphors part, the animal metaphors part, the inanimate object metaphors part, the color metaphors part, and the spatial metaphors part. In each section, there is a detailed classification of each kind of metaphor according to the unique characteristics of each metaphor image. This chapter will have a thorough analysis about each metaphor category, and will make a contrastive discussion of its two corresponding English versions from the perspective of relevance theory.Chapter Five summarizes the methods employed by the translators when dealing with metaphors, and concludes the similarities and differences of the methods used in two English versions and discussed the reasons. This chapter also sums up the difficulties of translating metaphors and the solutions.Chapter Six is the conclusion which states the major findings and the implications and limitations of this study.To sum up, the thesis discusses that how to analyze and translate the conceptual metaphors in the Chinese classic drama Xi Xiang Ji from the perspective of relevance theory, so as to provide some research methods for the Chinese classic drama translation in the future.