Translation Strategies Of Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl (Excerpt) From The Perspective Of Relecance Theory

The autobiography Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, written by Harriet Jacobs (under the pseudonym of Linda Brent), is a masterpiece in African-American women’s literature. Against the backdrop of slavery in the United States, this novel depicts Linda’s fight for freedom. This black woman devoted all her efforts to gaining freedom. With the help of her relatives and friends, she outmaneuvered her cruel master Dr. Flint. She hid herself in the cramped garret of her grandmother’s house for seven years to escape persecutions of Dr. Flint. Eventually, Linda and his family were freed. During my translation of the novel, some problems emerged, the most serious of which concern the specific historical background, personality traits of the characters, and cross-cultural communication factors.The Relevance Theory on Translation holds that translation means elucidation of the source text. The translator should fully utilize all the elements in the cognitive context, and thoroughly explore the source text to elicit the real communicative intention embedded in the source information. In this context, optimal relevance may be achieved to produce the most faithful contextual effects. Meanwhile, the translator should consider the needs of the target readers, their cognitive ability as well as their reading purpose. Optimal relevance means that target readers are fully exposed to all possible contextual effects. If the above rationale stands, the translator should try to achieve optimal relevance by probing source text and context deeply and comprehensively and by taking into account target readers’ cognitive ability and narrative expectations.This thesis explores possible translation strategies, which may be significant for translating Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, under the guidance of the Relevance Theory on Translation. After analyzing practical examples arising from the translation practice, I have come up with three useful translation strategies:proper choice of word to reproduce the spirit as well as the letter of the source text; proper "domestication" of structure and phrasing; repainting the original characters faithfully and vividly for the benefit of target readers. When we translate foreign literary pieces, we should attach great importance to achieving optimal relevance so that target readers may engage the maximum contextual effects with ease. I hope these three translation strategies will be useful for similar translation elsewhere.