A Study Of Culture-specific Words Translation In Jiu Guo From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson advance Relevance Theory which argues thathuman cognition seeks to achieve maximal relevance while every act ofcommunication pursues optimal relevance. Later it was applied by Earnest Gutt, oneof Wilson’s students, to translation---one of the most complicated phenomena in theworld. Relevance Translation Theory holds that translation is a doubleostensive-inferential process, owning great explanatory power to translation. Manyscholars deliver articles to support the above viewpoint while some holding theopposite position consider the explanatory power of it has been exaggeratedespecially in explaining culture translation.This thesis studies the culture-specific words translation in Jiu Guo under theframework of Relevance Theory and tries to certify the explanatory power of therelevance theory for cultural translation. In analysis of translation, how HowardGoldblatt overcomes the cultural obstacles and fills the slots of cultural gaps isstudied. It also tries to find out whether the translations are optimally relevant or not,then further analyzes the translation methods used in the translation in order to givesome suggestions to culture-specific words translation. Finally, a general standard isadvanced for culture-specific words translation, that is, the translator should adopt themethod most conducive to achieving optimal relevance. The process of achievingoptimal relevance is to make the communicative intentions of the source author andthe expectations of the target readers meet by taking the cognitive ability andcognitive environment in various cultural backgrounds into consideration. The matchbetween translation methods and their conditions are also discussed.