On The Translation Of Fuzzy Language From The Perspective Of The Relevance Theory

As one of the basic properties of natural language,fuzziness is a universal phenomenon in human language.The research of fuzzy language involves all aspects of daily conversations;people will consciously or unconsciously use this phenomenon in communication.In most literary works,Relevance Theory is used to analyze translation strategies and pragmatic effects,which neglect the act of translation itself.A translation is good or bad depends on not only the choice of translation strategies and expressions of pragmatic effects but also expressive effect of words.Translation is not an easy task,so it is an extremely difficult thing to translate fuzzy language because of the fuzziness of fuzzy words which increases difficulty of comprehending original text.Therefore,finding appropriate target language to describe fuzzy language is more difficult.According to Sperber & Wilson's relevance theory,in order to ensure a smooth and effective conversation,both sides of a conversation should produce the greatest possible contextual effects with the smallest possible effort;adequate contextual effects for no unjustifiable effort.Therefore,there is an appropriate optimal relevance in each communication which can avoid ambiguous and obscure.To sum up,the research aims at fuzzy language in Teahouse from the perspective of relevance theory with theoretical and practical significance.From the aspect of theoretical significance: firstly,it helps to further know and comprehend fuzzy language,including its definitions and classifications;secondly,it helps to further know and comprehend relevance theory and its powerful explanatory for literary works.From the aspect of practical significance: on the one hand,it provides a relative new angle,relevance theory,for readers to comprehensively understand characters' personality,plots' development and choice of original writer's language and readers' efficiency of reading books can be enhanced;on the other hand,it helps translators to deal with fuzzy language accurately with the help of relevance theory so as to strengthen the expressive effect of fuzzy language.Through the study,the writer intends to answer the following questions:(1)What kinds of fuzzy languages in the Teahouse?(2)How do all these fuzzy languages affect the translation of Teahouse from the perspective of Relevance Theory?Therefore,this thesis,based on texts of two English versions of Lao She's drama Teahouse as linguistic corpus,that's the work of Ying Ruocheng and John Howard-Gibbon,relevance theory as theoretical framework,analyzes fuzzy language of the two translated versions as well as their effects.Through the following research method: textual analysis which analyzes words,grammatical structures and language of original edition and translations to dig the implicit information of the text;descriptive which analyzes the understanding of the fuzzy words in the English versions of the book;comparative analysis which compares the translation of fuzzy words in the two English versions of Teahouse.According to relative materials,the thesis is to illustrate the important role of manifesting personality traits and the story line and ultimately achieve the goal of understanding and application of fuzzy language.Through research,the thesis draws the following findings: relevance theory can be used to guide the processing of fuzzy language,although the vagueness of fuzzy language and the different language environments determine that the fuzzy language can produce different expressive effects and affect the accuracy of translation,translators can flexibly translate on the basis of comprehensive understanding of cognitive environment and relevance so as to achieve the best expressive effect of language.According to the classification of fuzzy language of Wu Tieping,He Ziran and Channell,fuzzy languages in Teahouse mainly embody in the following four aspects: Hedges,continuum fuzziness,number fuzziness and subjective fuzziness.Translations of all these fuzzy language result in the difference of expressive effect,some fuzzy language strengthens,some rarely affects and some weakens the overall expressive effect;the optimal relevance of fuzzy language from the perspective of Relevance Theory in target language could strengthen expressive effect,at the same time,expressive effect also influences by language itself,including unity,coherence,emphasis and strength which are put forward according to English rhetoric.Therefore,expressions satisfy those two conditions can play a positive role in expressive effect.When understanding the translation of fuzzy language from the perspective of Relevance Theory,translators need to pay much attention to the understanding of the original text,which could affect the translations that embody expressive effect.