A Report On E-C Translation Of Lyrics Guided By Relevance Theory

With the development of economic globalization and network technology,more and more English songs have entered the public’s vision and been widely favored by young people.However,due to cultural differences and geographical barriers,people have difficulties in understanding the lyrics during their appreciation of the English music,which makes it difficult for them to reach the true soul of English songs and the ideal resonance.Lyrics translation belongs to applied translation like film subtitles translation,but it did not get enough attention as the latter.Expressiveness,popularity and timeliness are the main characteristics of lyrics translation.Developed from pragmatics,the relevance theory holds that translation is double ostensive-inferential process,which means the translator should find the optimal relevance in the cognitive context of the source language and target language,so as to meet the communicative intention of the original author and the expectation of the target reader,and the reader does not need making unnecessary processing efforts.It is exactly in line with the lyrics translation needs.Through translation practice,the result shows that relevance theory can effectively guide the lyrics translation.This report consists of four chapters.The first chapter is the general introduction of research backgrounds and significance,the source texts,translation process and the framework of the report.The second part gives an overview of relevance theory,introduces several key concepts,and emphasizes the feasibility of relevance theory in lyrics translation practice based on the characteristics of lyrics translation texts.The third part is the main part of the report.Based on the contextual viewpoint of relevance theory and the ostensive inference model,it concludes the manifesting strategy based on the author’s communicative intention and the domesticating strategy based on the target reader’s expectation,and analyzes the strategies with various cases from translation practice.The last chapter is conclusion,covering major findings,limitations and suggestions for further study.