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Study Of The English Translation Of Thechinese Idioms In The Scholars Based On The Relevance Theory

Posted on:2017-02-18Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:J FengFull Text:PDF
GTID:2295330485484414Subject:Foreign Language and Literature
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In recent years, the applying of the linguistic theory to the translation studies becomes an important research trend in academic field. The relevance theory, subjected to pragmatic field, has provided a new and a different perspective on the research of translation. The German scholar Gutt, has applied the relevance theory to the research of translation and gained much attention. He proposes that translation is an interpretive use of language, and translation is seeking the resemblance in explicatures and implicatures between Source Text (ST) and Target Text (TT). Translation is roughly divided by him as direct translation and indirect translation. The direct translation seeks to reserve the communicative clues arising from the ST, while the indirect translation seeks to reserve the resemblance in cognitive effect.The Scholars, authored by Wu Ching-tzu, is one of the classic ancient Chinese novels of realistic. The novel is specialized in frequent use of vernacular Chinese idioms. The number of English versions of this book is taking the lead among other translated versions. The only complete English version, also alleged to be the most classic one, is accomplished by Yang Hsien-yi and his British wife Gladys Yang, the great masters in the translation field. The author of this thesis conducts a tentative study on the translation strategies of the idioms in The Scholars employed by the Yangs in a relevance-theoretical account. This thesis is trying to explore the explaining power of relevance theory to the translation strategies of the idioms and the guidance to them. Apart from this exploration, this thesis is trying to find the possible features of the translation of the idioms in The Scholars by the Yangs.According to relevance theory, the utterance consists in explicatures and implicatures. As an utterance, the meaning of the Chinese idiom also consists of explicatures and implicatures. Therefore, in the translation of the idioms in The Scholars, the translator has to recover the explicatures and implicatures of the idioms of ST in TT. According to the notion of translation proposed by Gutt, the translation of idioms is divided as direct translation and indirect translation. The sub-categories of the direct translation are supposed to include the literal translation, literal translation plus note, and correspondence translation. As to literal translation, it is found that the communicative clues arising from the ST and explicatures of the idioms in ST could be retained so that the poetic effect of the idioms could be better reserved. But the literal translation of idioms is not WORD for WORD translation. Sometimes the literal meaning is in an uncompleted logical form which needs to be fulfilled to become a full explicature and some pragmatic means could be used to help to recover the explicatures of idiom of ST according to the context. The sub-categories of the indirect translation are supposed to include the liberal translation, literal translation and liberal translation, and omission of translation. As to the liberal translation, the translator should choose to explicate the idiomatic meaning or the non-fixed meaning of the idioms in ST, which is constrained by the context and principle of relevance. What is more, this selection should also reflect the author’s informative intention and communicative intention. In the process of liberal translation, it is found that some weak implicatures arising from ST and as well as the poetic effect engendered by those implicatures are destined to miss.Through the detailed analysis of the translation strategies of some idioms in The Scholars, the author finds that to recover the explicatures and implicatures of ST in TT, the translator should pay a great attention to the context and comply with the principle of relevance to retain the poetic effect of ST in TT. And as for the features of the translation of the Idioms in The Scholars by the Yangs, it is found that liberal translation accounts for 47% of all the translation strategies while literal translation accounts for 37%, which shows the Yangs are more inclined to liberal translation in the translation of idioms in The Scholars. This statistics indicate that the popular view among a great many scholars that the Yangs are inclined to use literal translation is not accurate enough. In the end, as the study is carried out with the purpose of making due contributions to translation studies, especially to the translation of Chinese idioms, the author hopes that the thesis might be constructive to the understanding and appreciation of Chinese idioms and provide a new perspective for people engaged in this field.
Keywords/Search Tags:The English Translation of Chinese Idioms in The Scholars, Relevarce Theory, Explicatures, Implicatures, The Principle of Relevance
PDF Full Text Request
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