On Explicitation And Implicitation In English Versions Of Laozi From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

Explicitation and implicitation are frequently-used strategies during the translation process. they havebecame one of the crucial factors affecting whether the translation version can be successful in TL especiallyin the translation of Chinese classics. From the perspective of relevance theory, this thesis explores thedistribution of explicitation and implicitation in two different translation versions and interprets the reasonswhy they occur and their effects in TL, taking Waley and Lin Yutang’s translation versions of Chinese classic,Laozi, as cases.Firstly, this thesis adopts systematic sampling to collect data in two English versions, after analyzingcontrastively the two different versions. Secondly, according to the category of explicitation advanced byKlaudy, explicitation data can be divided into obligatory explicitation, optional explicitation and pragmaticexplicitation; based on the classification on encoding meaning of Blakemore, the implicitation data in thisthesis can be fell into conceptual meaning and procedural meaning. Thirdly, how the explicitation andimplicitation are distributed will be discussed on the basis of the data. Finally, the features of distributionand reasons for explicitation and implicitation will be explored based on the relevance theory.This thesis is divided into six chapters: Chapter1is introduction, including the background, significanceand purpose; Chapter2is literature review which explores the current research about the Laozi’s Englishtranslation versions and presents the studies on explicitation and implicitation in translation, especially inthe translation of Chinese classics. Chapter3recommends the theoretical framework which illustrates themain points of the relevance theory and the relevance translation theory as well as the concepts and featuresof explicitation and implicitation. Chapter4focuses on the research design, which involves two researchquestions, research methods and standards for collecting data. Chapter5discusses the distribution of theexplicitation and implicitation in different versions and explores the reason why explicitation andimplicitation occur. Chapter6mainly refers to the conclusion and limitations, which further states thefunction of explicitation and implicitation in the translation of Chinese classics and points out the limitationsof this thesis and direction of future study.To be specific, some conclusions have been drawn as follows:Firstly, what is common in the two different versions is that explicitation is more largely used thanimplicitation. The reason is that Laozi’s refined language and rich connotation pose the certain difficultiesfor TL readers to understand the spirit and thought of Laozi. Thus, translators must explicate the implicit information in the SL text to gain the optimal relevance between SL author’s communicative intension andTL readers’ expectation, even to transfer the thought of Laozi.Secondly, for one thing, obligatory explicitation is to make the translation of Laozi more native andinfluent for English readers and to make Laozi’s intension known by English readers precisely; optionalexplicitation in translation versions is to help English readers obtain sufficient contextual effect with lessprocessing effort to understand Laozi’s intension, even to make communication successful; translators adoptpragmatic explicitation for it can keep cognitive environment of Laozi in correspondence with that ofEnglish readers and meet the expectation of English readers. For another thing, during theostensive-inferential process, it is impossible for translators to transfer all the information in Laozi to Englishreaders. Moreover, to explicate the communicative intension of Laozi to English readers, translators do notconfine the version to convey some information intension, thus, implicitation of words with conceptualmeaning and procedural meaning occur successively, which give English readers certain room to imagine,meanwhile, add poetic effect.As discussed above, both translators adopt explicitation more to express the content of Laozi, whichoffers successful and instructive experience for translation of other Chinese classics.