A Report On The C-E Translation Of Chinese Ancient Books In Light Of Relevance Theory

As China becomes stronger in the international communities, the whole world begins to attach more importance to Chinese history, culture and thoughts in the past and at present. Chinese classics are a good window for foreign people to know more about China. The Collation of Collected Works from the Ice-Drinker’s Studio written by Liang Qichao is one of the Chinese classics, which illustrates the advanced ideas put forward by a group of people with noble aspirations. This work is a mirror of Chinese society in late Qing dynasty, which is of great reference values for people who pursue studying Chinese culture and thoughts. Therefore, it is our priority to find out the proper translation of this work.The translation materials in this paper are selected from The Collation of Collected Works from the Ice-Drinker’s Studio, which centers on the politics and the people. The author of this paper mainly studies the translation procedures and translation strategies from the perspective of Relevance Theory.This paper consists of five parts. The first part is an introduction of the whole thesis, which points out the research background, including a brief introduction of the translation materials and research purpose as well as the literature review that respectively concludes the studies of the translation of Chinese classics from the perspective of Relevance Theory and the studies of the Collation of Collected Works from the Ice-Drinker’s Studio. The second part is the introduction of the theory, which explains the concept of Relevance Translation Theory. The third and the fourth part is the main body of this paper, which analyzes the inference behaviors of the translator in two translation procedures under the guidance of the Relevance Theory. At the same time, a concept of the’translation communicative validity’is introduced, with which the author concludes a translation strategy for this material--that is Domestication should be placed first and Foreignization second. Then the author further studies the translation of the special expressions and through which concludes a general translation methods. The last chapter is the conclusion, which illustrates that Relevance Theory provides an effective support for the translation and the ultimate goal of this translation is to realize the optimal relevance and enhance the translation communicative validity.At the end of the thesis, the author points out the innovation of this paper. Firstly, most of the previous studies of the translation of Chinese classics are from the perspective of multi-culturally compensation, and in this paper, the author studies the translation from Relevance Theory and focuses on realizing the communicative validity. Besides, through acquiring the feedback of the translation from foreign people, the author can make an assessment of this translation report and it also helps the translator adjust the translation strategies to improve the translation.