A Study Of Metaphor Translation Guided By Relevance Theory

The study of metaphor has a long history,but it has long been regarded as a rhetorical device.The major contribution of cognitive linguistics to metaphor studies is that it sees metaphor as a significant way to perceive the world.People from different language environment may have different ways of thinking and find different relevance among the same objects,which brings the major difficulty in understanding metaphors.Meanwhile,metaphors are influenced by culture and language styles.Thus,how to maintain the original meaning and language style becomes the major difficulty in metaphor translation.According to the ostensive-inferential mode in Relevance Theory,relevance exists in both of the subjective and objective world,and also in the similarities and differences among context of authors,translators and readers.Relevance Theory provides guidance to cope with what is said and what is meant in a metaphor.Translators should grasp metaphors in accordance with the optimal relevance principle by integrating the source cognitive context and inferring the essence of metaphors as well as the author's informative intention.Then,translators should take the cognitive context and response of target language readers into consideration,so that readers can rebuild the relevance and grasp a correct understanding.In the light of Relevance Theory,this thesis aims to explore the specific strategies for metaphor translation by analyzing the examples from the translation practice of Being Mortal:Medicine and What Matters in the End,namely literal translation,translation with explanation,conversion in translation,and the transformation between the metaphorical and non-metaphorical expressions.In translating metaphors,translators should choose an appropriate translation strategy guided by the optimal relevance principle in order to transfer the deep meaning of the source metaphor and maintain the source language style to ensure successful cross-cultural and cross-language communication.