On The C-E Translation Of Online Publicity Materials--from The Perspective Of Relevance-Adaptation Theory

Ever since the policy of reform and opening up adopted in1978, translation has played a more and more important role in China’s publicity. However, due to disparity in language and culture of Chinese and English, there are many problems in translation of publicity literature, which arouse attention from the academic circle. Among many MA theses and books on translation of publicity materials, skopostheorie, communication theory and functionalism are most popular, which emphasize the function and purpose of translation and the importance of target text and readers but without further references to concrete contextual ingredients. Therefore, the author studies the translation of publicity texts based on Yang Ping’s Relevance-Adaptation Model (2001), aiming to provide a theoretical framework suitable for publicity materials’ translation.Under this theoretical framework, the translator first as reader interprets the source text, then as reproducer produces target text. The whole translating process is not only an ostensive-inferential process seeking for optimal relevance with the original text, but also a dynamically-adjusting process finding optimal relevance between the source utterance and the target utterance. For the convenience of this study, the translating process will be discussed in two parts, namely, the source discourse comprehension process and the target discourse production process.During the source discourse comprehension process, the translator, according to the analysis of linguistic context, situational context and background context of the source cognitive environment, constructs contextual assumptions in his or her minds and obtains corresponding contextual effect, thus fully understanding the informative intention and communicative intention transmitted by the original author and seeking for optimal relevance in accordance with the author’s intended informative intention and communicative intention.During the target discourse production process, the translator, basing on the optimal relevance, continually makes negotiable linguistic choices from a variable range of possibilities to adapt to the communicative context and linguistic context of the target cognitive environment, conveying the informative intention and communicative intention desired by the original author and expecting the optimal relevance between the source discourse and the target translation for the purpose of successful cross-cultural and cross-language communication.In conclusion, this thesis will have the discussion in two aspects in terms of the application of Relevance-Adaptation Theory to publicity literature translation as following:First, in light of translation of publicity materials, this thesis employs Relevance Theory and Adaptation Theory to study the translating process. The theoretical framework based on Relevance Theory and Adaptation Theory not only offers persuasive theoretical support for adaptation but also provides concrete contextual ingredients for linguistic choices, thus presenting a clear train of thought for the translating process of publicity literature.Second, with regard to Relevance Theory and Adaptation Theory, this thesis proposes that, to correctly understand the source discourse, the translator should carefully analyze the linguistic context, situational context and background context of the original text, moreover, the target discourse production process is not just a dynamically-adjusting process but also an ostensive-inferential process seeking for relevance with the source utterance. For translation of publicity literature, Relevance conception guides the orientation and Adaptation thinking supplies concrete contextual correlates for making linguistic choices.Through comparison and analysis of online publicity materials examples, this thesis concludes that most of the publicity materials translation are high in quality, but some still need improvements because of the translator’s misunderstanding of the source text or ignorance of the cultural-lingual differences between Chinese and English. It is expected that this study could make some contributions to China’s publicity materials translation. But due to the author’s inadequacy in knowledge and experience, there must be certain inappropriateness in this thesis which needs further improvements.