A Relevance-theoretic Account Of Soft News Transediting

Transediting, as a practical translation technique, has attracted much attention inthe academia. Many research attempts have been made to explore the issue of soft newstranslation. But they are still desired in terms of theoretic frameworks, research areasand specific translation methods. Beginning with the characteristics of soft news and itscommunicative function, and following Sperber and Wilson’s Relevance Theory andGutt’s Relevance Theory of Translation, this paper is intended to present an integratedstudy of soft news transediting, with much emphasis on some practical methods. Byanalyzing the examples from the latest authorative magazine China Today, this papertestifies the explanatory power and applicability of the Relevance Theory, andillustrates that the ultimate purpose of soft news transediting is to achieve the sourcelanguage text’s contextual effect and the optimal relevance in the target language worldso as to help the target readers understand the source text and realize the purpose ofinternational communication. Such findings may compensate for the drawbacks of thepre-existing studies and promote the development of soft news transediting research.