On Translation Of Shaanxi Dialect Under The Relevance Theory

Translation is a cross-language activity. Translation, especially the dialect translation, in literary works has always been a difficulty for translators, because of the differences between two languages in many ways, such as phonetic, semantic and syntactic aspects. As an indispensable part of literary works, dialect plays an important role in creating background of the story, strengthening the sense of reality and depicting the images of characters. However, the studies of dialect translation in China are few. This thesis attempts to make a research on the translation of Shaanxi dialect by applying Relevance Theory as the theoretic framework. Relevance Theory is a pragmatic theory first put forward by Sperber and Wilson in 1986 and it is applied to the field of translation by E.A. Gutt. He views translation as a dual ostensive-inferential process, which offers a new perspective for scholars to solve translation problemsBased on Relevance Theory, this thesis takes Turbulence and Old Land New Tales as the cases and makes a deep analysis on dialect translation. It discusses the dialect translation from three levels: cultural, semantic and stylistic levels. Under each level, the thesis concentrates on how to convey the communicator’s intention that the translator gets from the original to the target language readers and achieve relevance in target reader’s cognition. Furthermore, the author tries to propose some translation methods under each level in order to improve the translation.The conclusions of this thesis are: first of all, dialect translation is a dual ostensive-inferential process. Secondly, because dialect has unique characteristics and special cultural connotation, the first ostensive-inferential process of dialect translation is significant because it affects whether a translator could convey the original intention to the target readers accurately. Thirdly, under different levels, the translation methods are different. Direct translation is suitable for dialect translation at cultural and stylistic levels. Colloquialism and standard language translations are often used at semantic level. In addition, in order to achieve optimal relevance in target readers’ cognitions, using amplification and annotation are necessary in the translation.