A Study Of Translation Compensation Strategies For Cultural Default From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

Language, both a tool of daily communication and the carrier of culture, canfurther reflect the rich connotation of culture in literary works. Language is thebridge of cross-cultural communication, and we can link different languages throughtranslation to realize the communication between different cultures. Therefore,translation is both the conversional process of different languages and thecommunicative process of different cultures. Cultural default is a ubiquitousphenomenon in literary works, referring to the author’s omitting the shared culturalbackground knowledge while communicating with the target readers. Culturaldefault can increase the communicative efficiency and the aesthetic effect of thework. But, from the point of translation, cultural default is a cross-cultural problemthat the translator should solve, for cultural default, readers will meet with thedifficulties in discourse comprehension. To reduce the barriers in the target readers’reading and give them cultural connotation of the original text and enjoyment of theaesthetic value, the translator should use effective translation compensationstrategies to fill up the vacuum of sense caused by cultural default.This study is based on the Relevance Theory put forward by Dan Sperber andDeirdre Wilson, who indicate that language is a kind of ostensive-inferentialcognitive progress, in which the act of ostensive communication communicates apresumption of its own optimal relevance. Gutt advanced the relevance-theoreticaccount of translation which regards translation as a kind of verbal communicativebehavior and it includes the double ostensive-inferential process among the author,the translator and the readers. The translator should both comprehend the contextualassumptions through inference and understand the readers’ cognitive context to helpreaders use proper processing effort to achieve the contextual effects. The success oftranslation depends on the contextual effect which is provided by the translation andthe optimal-relevance between the translation and the readers. Therefore, thetranslator has the responsibility of inferring the informative intention and representing it clearly for target readers.From the point of relevance theory, this study focuses on cultural default andtranslation compensation strategies in Goldblatt’s translated version of Mo Yan’s RedSorghum. It makes a detailed analysis of the examples in Chinese and Englishversions of Red Sorghum from the perspectives of annotation, contextual application,paraphrase and adaptation.The findings of this study are summed up as follows: to solve the problem ofcultural default, the translator should build relevance based on both the author’scognitive context and readers’ cognitive context. Only in this way, can he apply theeffective translation compensation strategies to help readers understand the meaningof the text and achieve the aesthetic enjoyment.