The Explanatory Power Of Relevance Theory For Metaphor Translation

This thesis analyzes the translation of metaphor in the German and English versions of Life and Death are Wearing Me Out from the perspective of the Relevance theory. The English version is translated by Howard Goldblatt, an American Sinologist, and the German version by Martina Hasse, also a Sinologist and freelance translator. We come across metaphors very often, either in daily life or literary works. In the Metaphors—We Live By, Lakoff and Johnson, both cognitive linguists, argue that metaphor is a process of mapping a familiar and easy-to-understand source domain into an unfamiliar and abstract target domain. Around that time, cognitive pragmatic scholars Sperber and Wilson came up with the Relevance theory, which could explain metaphors from a new angle. Bound by cultural differences, contexts vary greatly from one language to another, meanwhile the Chinese context culture is particularly dense and multifaceted, which poses a challenge as to how to translate metaphors in the original text into different languages.This thesis analyzes four strategies adopted by the two translators in the translation of metaphors in the German and English version, i.e. retaining metaphors; retaining metaphors with supplementary explanations; replacing the image of the metaphor as well as paraphrasing. Based on the optimal relevance standard, the thesis tries to find out whether the translation of metaphor stays true to the first round of communication and creates optimal relevance for the readers, proving that the Relevance theory is powerful in explaining metaphor translation. Translators need to decide which method to employ according to the principle of optimal relevance.