A Relevance-Adaptation Model For Translation Studies

The traditional translation studies is conducted mainly from the perspective of structural or deconstructural linguistics or philosophy, which cannot explain translation phenomenon comprehensively with many deficiencies, since translation studies, as one kind of language use, is becoming interdisciplinary. It is a must to apply pragmatic perspective in translation studies. At present, some scholars as Fawcett (2000), Malmskuar (2001), He Ziran (2001), Gutt (2004), Liao Kaihong (2005) have discussed translation studies from such aspects of Pragmatics as presupposition, deixis and relevance, however, they cannot reveal the nature of translation studies from the perspective of Pragmatics.The current study makes an attempt to explore how Relevance affects the translator’s comprehension of the source text (ST) and how Adaptation bears on the choice-making in the reproduction of the source message in the target text (TT) from a cognitive pragmatic perspective. The primary objective is to construct a cognitive pragmatic-oriented model based on Relevance theory advanced by Sperber and Wilson (2001) and Verschueren’s Adaptation (2000) for the enhancement of harmony in translation, thus offering an effective guidance for translation practice and forming a unified theoretical framework for a better understanding of pragmatics of human language in its socio-cultural contexts. The major hypothesis is that translation, as a communicative activity, consists of two dynamic processes—the decoding-inferential process and the encoding-choice-making process in which three parties (writer, translator and target reader) are involved and the work translated is the product of the interaction of the three parties’ cognitive environments.Taking into consideration all the three parties (writer, translator, target reader) involved in the communicative event of translation, the thesis holds the view that the translator’s cognitive environment plays a key role in successful communication between writer and target reader. Based on a review of previous translation studies related, the present thesis argues that both of the Relevance-guided translation studies and the Adaptation-guided translation studies suffer from one-sidedness since the former is mainly concerned with the first dynamic process--interpretation of the ST while the latter mainly with the second dynamic process--production of the target text. They fail to pay sufficient attention to the interplay among the cognitive environments of the three participants. The emphasis on this interplay is due to the fact that translation concerns both ST interpretation and TT production. Negligence of either of them by the translator may lead to an inadequate communication and even a complete communication failure.To benefit from the previous studies, and, at the same time, to overcome their deficiencies, the thesis proposes a more comprehensive cognitive-pragmatic model for translation studies based on a combination of Relevance and Adaptation. Such a model regards translation in terms of multiple interactions in the two processes among the three parties who are different in cognition and cultural backgrounds. To prove the efficacy of this model, this thesis provides some authentic linguistic evidence collected from translation practice for illustration.Based on the linguistic evidence and illustration, the thesis arrives at the conclusion that the translator whose task is to produce a target language text that bears a close pragmatic resemblance to the source language text should be aware of the cognitive and cultural issues when translating because different cognitive environments and cultures influence people’s way of using and comprehending language; the proposed Relevance-Adaptation model, approaching translation studies from a cognitive pragmatics perspective and emphasizing on a dynamic contextual analysis, represents only a tentative attempt at offering a more unified theoretical guidance for future translation studies and practices.