A Study On Translating English Lyric Into Chinese From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

A growing number of people like to listen to foreign songs, especially Englishsongs. It helps us understand the culture of the western countries and be aware of thecultural diversity of the world. As for the songs, their content is expressed by theirlyrics. Therefore, only understanding the meaning of the lyrics can the foreign culturebe well appreciated which can’t be achieved by only listening to the melody of thesong. That is to say that the lyrics translation is necessary.In this thesis, the Relevance Theory is applied to guide the translation process ofEnglish lyrics. Pursuing optimal relevance is the principle of the translation.Meanwhile, quantitative method is adopted to analyze the specific examples and somespecific and feasible translation strategies are proposed for the sake of makingcontribution to the song translation to promote the cross-cultural communication. Thefirst part is introduction which mainly introduces the research background,significance of the study, methodology and the structure of the thesis. The quantitativeanalysis is applied to analyze some selected different types of English lyrics. Based onthe analysis of each English lyric about the proportion of each translation strategyadopted in the E-C translation of the English lyric, it will discuss which translationstrategy is mainly adopted. The second part is to introduce the definition of song,and the characteristics of Chinese and English lyrics respectively, and the differencesbetween them. It is very necessary to be familiar with those differences in the processof translation which enables the translator to translate the English lyric into a propertarget language version according to the language habit of target language reader. Thethird part elaborates the theoretical framework of the thesis, Relevance Theory whichcontains the development of Relevance Theory, and the definition of relevance. Someimportant concepts of Relevance Theory, its feasibility in the translation of Englishlyrics will also be discussed in this part. People need to achieve the optimal relevancein the communication. The translator is supposed to make the intention of the author manifest to the target reader. Therefore, proper ways of expression should be adoptedin the translation in order to let the target reader don’t need unnecessary processingeffort to achieve the optimal relevance for the sake of successful communication. Thefourth part mainly introduces the factors affecting the translation process of Englishlyric, the principles of translation and translation strategies. Because of the differentcultural background, the process of translating English lyric into Chinese is hard toavoid being affected by some cultural background factors. And the translator’spersonal quality of music is also very important in the translation process. Thus, thediscussion of these factors is very helpful for the successful translation. Under theprinciple of pursuing optimal relevance, the process of translation is analyzed andsome specific and practical translation strategies are come up with. The fifth part isconclusion which mainly about the major findings and limitations of the research.Some suggestions for the further research are put forward in the end.