A Contrastive Study Of Two English Versions Of Lun Yu From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory Of Translation

From the late nineteenth Century to the present, there are more than forty English versions of Lun Yu. Among those, Ku Hungming’s version and D.C.Lau’s version are highly acclaimed and profoundly influential. This research looks into the differences between the two versions and finds the causes. Relevance Theory of Translation may explain why one work may have different versions.According to Relevance Theory of Translation, the translators need to infer the author’s informative intention and combine his own communicative intention of the original work, make assumptions about the target readers’cognitive environment and finally produce a version which achieves manifestness and optimal relevance between them. This paper conducts a contrastive study of Ku Hungming’s and D.C.Lau’s English versions of Lun Yu under the framework of this theory. Due to different backgrounds, different translating intentions and the target readers’different cognitive abilities, needs and expectations, the translators adopt different translation strategies in their versions.This paper finds that Ku Hungming wanted to improve the image of China through his version. His intended readers were not familiar with Chinese culture and prejudiced against China. D.C.Lau wanted to make the Chinese culture better known to the outside world. His intended readers were more familiar with China and wanted to learn more about Chinese culture. Through a contrastive study of the two English versions at both the linguistic and cultural levels, Ku Hungming intended to adopt indirect translation while D.C.Lau intended to use direct translation. Both of them are suitable for the translation of Lun Yu. Different choices may cause different cognitive effect and fit different target readers in different contexts. That is why the versions are different and coexist.