The Cross-cultural Defaults Compensation Analysis From Relevance Translation Theory Perspective

This dissertation studies compensation techniques for the cultural defaults translation inFortress Besieged in English within the framework of E.A. Gutt’s relevance translation theory.With the development of international communication, the cross-cultural study has becomeone of the most important fields in applied linguistic study. Literature works translation study hasattracted more and more interests of lingusts. Since the author and his intended readers are fromthe same language community sharing the common psychological representation and culturalknowledge, they usually omit the self-evident information so as to keep compliance with theeconomic principle of pragmatics and reach the communicative efficiency. Yet, for the target textreaders, cultural default occurs due to the absence of mutual-ostensive cultural backgroundknowledge shared by both the author and his intended readers, in which the omitted words areloaded with distinctive cultural characteristics of that society. People from different languagecommunities are unfamiliar with the cultural information defaulted, which often results inmisreading and incoherent understanding. In that case, it is of great significance for the translatorto perform appropriately the translation of cultural default faithfully and effectively.From the perspective of relevance translation theory, the essence of translation is a kind ofdual ostensive-inferential cross-cultural communication between two languages, that is, the sourcetext writer—the translator—the target text reader. In that process, the translator takes initiative toserve as both a receiver and a communicator. Language is the representation of the society and thereflection of the culture. The communicators of different languages are printed with their domesticsocial and cultural backgrounds. As a significant case of cross-cultural communication, translationis confronted with the challenge of dealing with the problems caused by cultural defaults. Theessence of relevance translation theory lies in communication and cognition. Therefore, this thesisattempts to take the relevance translation theory as the theoretical framework and conduct a trialanalysis on cultural default in the literary translation. All data are collected from one of theChinese classics Fortress Besieged; the novel is written by Mr Ch’ien Chung-shu, and the Englishversion is translated by Jeanne Kelly and Nathan K.For long, the English version has received a great deal of criticism. Yet the criticism mainlyfocuses on the traditional translation theory that aims at achieving equivalence between the sourcetext and the target text while ignoring the problems caused by the cultural default. In order to find the most effective method to compensate cultural default translation, thisthesis tentatively applies Relevance Translation Theory to translation practice while delving intocultural default translation in Fortress Besieged from the translator’s subjectivity and the targettext reader’s perspectives. This thesis tries to provide an optimal alternative for the compensationof cultural default translation so that the English version can be reassessed and at the same timeproper compensation techniques for cultural default translation will be provided. By looking intocultural default translation process, the author thinks it is the translator who attempts to seekoptimal relevance in the whole process of dual ostensive-inferential process by fully exploiting hissubjectivity. The translator chooses the available and adequate cognitive information which heassumes is of optimal relevance with the source text writer’s cognitive environment and that oftarget text reader’s. Based on that assumption, the translator makes adequate choices in the targetcognitive environment by employing flexible translation techniques to achieve a quite matchbetween the source text and the target text. With the goal of making the intentions of the writerand the translator meet with target text readers’ expectations; the translator will adapt respectivelyflexible compensation techniques for cultural default translation in accordance with the dynamiccognitive context, such as direct translation with annotation, contextual amplification, omission,adaptation etc. The translator has the necessity to overcome his cognitive limitation through theway of improving bilingual and multilingual awareness so as to improve the translation qualityand contribute to the cross-cultural communication.