A Relevance-theoretic Approach To The Translation Of Chinese Neologisms

Recently, dramatic changes have taken place in China with the progress of modern science and technology, the improvement of political and economic situation and the development of education, sports, entertainment, environmental protection and many other social aspects. New objects, new phenomena and new ideas spring up one after another, greatly enriching the new words and expressions in Chinese language.Lexicon is considered as an active element in language use, and how to deal with these unceasingly-appeared neologisms becomes a vexing question in foreign publicity. Despite a great deal of pioneering work done by some scholars, Chinese neologisms translation is far from satisfaction. Insufficient understanding of source terms, Chinglish expressions, and ignorance of cultural gaps are quite common.This paper first combines the study of origins and features of Chinese neologisms with the study of numerous translated texts, based on which the paper picks out difficulties in Chinese neologisms translation and also summarizes the failures in the translation. Then the paper probes into the applicability of Relevance Theory in Chinese neologisms translation, intending to find theoretical guidance for the translation. At last, principles and specific strategies are generalized for the improvement of the quality of Chinese neologisms translation.Studies have found that Relevance Theory is a necessary and feasible approach in the study of Chinese neologisms translation: 1)Chinese neologisms translation is a dual ostensive-inferential process and in the process of Chinese neologisms translation, both the cognitive environment of the source language and the target language should be evaluated and compared for the pursuit of optimal relevance between the author’s communicative attention and the reader’s cognitive environment;2)it is better for translators to observe the following principles in Chinese neologisms translation: accurate comprehension and adequate expression, attention to culturaldifferences, and meeting with target text readers’ expectation;3)translators could make choices from the following strategies: transliteration, literal translation plus notes,blending, back translation, imitation and paraphrase according to different cognitive environment so as to make original author’s intention meet with target readers’ expectation.