Font Size: a A A

A Relevance-theoretic Approach To The Translation Of Culturally-loaded Words In Shanhaijing

Posted on:2019-11-11Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:H LiFull Text:PDF
GTID:2405330545966456Subject:Foreign Language and Literature
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
Relevance theory exerts a far-reaching influence on many fields,especial in the field of translation studies.Relevance theory makes a reasonable explanation to the understanding and reasoning of discourses.By preventing misunderstandings from the very beginning,relevance theory plays an important guiding role in culture interpretation and translation of Chinese mythological culture.Shanhaijing is the authoritative and representative treasure of ancient Chinese mythology,the culturally-loaded words of which reflect the style and features of ancient Chinese mythology as well as the cultural information carried by the Chinese language.However,translation of culturally-loaded words has always been an important and difficult point in culture translation.And the richness and complexity of cultural images in Shanhaijing will further increase the difficulty.Therefore,in order to further promote the going-global of Chinese mythological culture,it is the important to conduct studies on the translation of the culturally-loaded words in Shanhaijing.This paper takes two translated versions of Shanhaijing,the ancient Chinese mythological treasure,translated by Chinese translator Wang Hong and western translator Anne Birrell respectively,as the research object.Namely,the translated version of Sanhaijing,one of the series of translated versions of Chinese cultural classics,published,for the first time in Chinese history,by Library of Chinese Classics,a major Chinese culture popularization project to the world and the translated version of Shanhaijing,published by the most renowned publishing house in the field of world classics in English by Penguin Classics.Through contrastive study on Wang Hong's and Anne Birrell's translation of culturally-loaded words in Shanhaijing,this paper aims at approaching cultural translation problems occurred during the process of Chinese mythological classics translation from the perspective of relevance theory.According to relevance theory,the comprehension of the culturally-loaded words in Shanhaijing is a process of verbal communication.Based on full understanding of the original text,successful translation requires the translator to conduct two rounds of ostensive and inferential behavior in order to maintain equal inferential distance between the original text and the source language reader with the distance between the translated text and the target language reader.In this way,the target language reader will obtain adequate contextual effect of the original text and achieve optimal relevance with the least cognitive processing effort.According to Eugene Nida's classification of cultural factors,the culturally-loaded words in Shanhaijing are divided into ecological,material,social,religious and linguistic culturally-loaded words.Under the guidance of relevance theory,in order to deliver the informative and communicative intention of the original text and realize optimal relevance,this paper points out the merits and puts forward the suggestions for improvement of Wang Hong's translated version and Anne Birrell's translated version.At last,by case study and contrastive study,translation strategies of culturally-loaded words in Shanhaijing are summarized in a hope to present a glimpse of inspiration and supplement to the study on Shanhaijing and the translation of ancient Chinese mythological classics as well as a humble contribution to the great cause of Chinese culture going-global.
Keywords/Search Tags:relevance theory, Shanhaijing, culturally-loaded words
PDF Full Text Request
Related items