A Relevance Theoretical Account For Audiovisual Translation: Desperate Housewives As A Case

In recent years, the world is becoming more and more globalized and thecross-cultural communication is frequent. TV series, as a media of culturetransmission, had become an important media in cross culturalcommunication. TV series is a special form of culture and art. Whether thetarget audiences can appreciate the TV series better or not, it all depends onthe audiovisual translation. If the subtitles are translated to convey its originalcustoms and emotion completely, the audiences will have the same contextualeffect as the original audiences. Audiovisual translation is not only thetransformation of language, but also includes some cultural restrictions.What’s more, TV series subtitle that is restrained by time and space isdifferent from other forms of translation. All these factors make audiovisualtranslation more difficult. Based on relevance theory proposed by Sperber andWilson, this paper aims to provide some theoretical guidance and translationstrategies to audiovisual translation. It analyzes and studies the audiovisualtranslation of the popular American TV series Desperate Housewives in orderto prove the explanatory power of relevance theory in audiovisual translation.This thesis utilizes an analytical and descriptive approach to discussaudiovisual translation under the framework of relevance theory. Through these studies to relevance theory, audiovisual translation can be seen as anostensive-inferential communication model. In this model, audiovisualtranslation will go through two processes: inferential process and ostensiveprocess. The translator has to infer the informative and communicativeintentions conveyed by the original speakers, and then he or she shouldtransfer it to the target audiences. During these two processes, the author hasto analyze the two different cognitive environments so as to achieve optimalrelevance. In the end, in light of relevance theory, the author concludes someaudiovisual translation principles and works out some translating strategies onthe basis of relevance theory.