An Analysis Of The Translation Of English Idioms From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

As idioms are the crystallization of language, they are widely used in almost all the languages. Idiom is a phrase or sentence whose meaning is not clear from the meaning of its individual words and which must be learnt as a whole unit. As they are created in the long history of human society, idioms are closely related to geographical environment, national economy, historical background and social conventions. Idioms are characterized by its vividness, concision and profound implied meanings. As idioms are culture-oriented expressions, it is necessary for English learners to have a good command of English idioms, which will contribute to a better understanding of English and the enrichment of cultural knowledge of English-speaking countries. What’s more, the appropriate use of idioms could add strength and color to the language itself. However, due to its features, it does incur tremendous difficulties for English learners. Nonnative speakers are often bewildered when they are confronted with idioms, as they may not get the metaphorical meaning of the idiom even if they understand every word in it. So it is never an easy task to translate English idioms accurately and explicitly.In recent years, numerous researches have been conducted and translation strategies are put forward to solve the problems in translating idioms. Particularly, with the rapid development of cognitive linguistics, many scholars have attempted to apply linguistic theories to translation. Among them, relevance theory, which was first proposed by Sperber&Wilson in1986, gives a good account for the nature of translation. According to relevance theory, communication is an ostensive-inferential process. The communicator should assess the cognitive environment and cognitive ability of the target receiver and then convey his intention with the most relevant information. Then the audience tried to get his intention by combining the information offered by the utterance with contextual assumptions. It is Ernst-August Gutt who first applied the relevance theory to translation. From the viewpoint of Gutt, translation is a kind of interlingual interpretive communication as well as an inferential process that is closely related to human brain. Translation is a dynamic inferential process based on the analysis of the context with relevance as guidance. Meanwhile, both the interpretation of the original text and choice of target language are performed in the light of relevance theory. After Gutt’s theory is widely accepted, many scholars take actions to study the translation from, the perspective of relevance theory and endeavor to find the best guidance for translation and provide practical strategies to the translation practice.On the other hand, Friends as the most famous American sitcoms, has gained numerous audience all over the world for its sense of humor, witty conversation and fascinating plots. As it is the vivid reflection of Americans’daily life, various kinds of idioms can be found in it, which will cause great trouble for the translators of Friends. Therefore, analyzing the translation of idioms in Friends from the perspective of relevance theory has both theoretical significance and practical implications. The author conducts a case study of Friends in the thesis to explain how relevance theory can account for the translation of English idioms.The thesis is divided into six chapters, which starts from the introduction elaborating on the research background, the significance and objectives of the research, the methodology as well as the structure of the thesis. Then the major part begins from the introduction to idioms, including its definitions rendered by dictionaries and scholars, its features of semantic unity, structural stability and conventionality, its scope containing idiomatic phrases, proverbs and slang expressions, as well as its origins. Then its function is explained from two aspects. Also, the previous studies of English idiom translation in China are elaborated at the last part of the chapter. In the third chapter, the theoretical framework of relevance theory is introduced in detail, including previous studies on relevance theory, and core concepts of relevance theory. Context and cognitive environment, ostensive and inferential communication and relevance and optimal relevance as the most important concepts in relevance theory are revealed here. Then the author pays attention to the translation of English idioms based on relevance theory. In this chapter, five major problems are discussed here:first of all, the combination of relevance theory and translation can’t be ignored which the author analyzes from three aspects. Then the translatability, process and problems of translating English idioms from the perspective of relevance theory are expounded successively. In the end of the chapter, some guidelines for translating English idioms are provided. In the fifth chapter, application of relevance theory to the translation of the idioms in Friends is studied comprehensively. At first, four translation strategies are summarized from the examples in Friends, which are literal translation, liberal translation, loan translation and omission translation, and then the author cites the examples to prove how the relevance theory is utilized in the translated text of idioms in Friends. The last chapter is the conclusion of the research which includes major findings, practical implications, limitations and suggestions for future research.