A Research On The Reconstruction Of Cultural Images In Chinese Political Texts’ Translation From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

Translation is not only regarded as the transformation of two languages,but also the communication between two cultures.Therefore,it is obvious that culture plays a significant role in translation.Cultural image,as a special cultural symbol among China’s cultural elements,is endowed with its special form and rich symbolic meaning.The translation of cultural image has greatly promoted cultural transmission and communication among different nationalities.However,it is the ethnic and cultural characteristics of cultural image and cognitive differences between Chinese and western readers that make the translation of cultural image more difficult.Thus,how to reconstruct the implied meaning of cultural image is a problem which draws the translator’s considerable attention all the time.In 1986,Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson firstly put forward relevance theory in their book Relevance:Communication an.d Cognitio、,which was very popular in the field of pragmatics.Later,in 1991,Ernst-August Gutt combined such theory with the practice of translation successfully.Relevance theory has exerted a significant influence on translation and had a strong explanatory power in translation.It holds that translation can be regarded as an ostensive-inferential process and attaches the importance to the translator’s right inference of the original author’s communicative intentions.At the same time,the translator should be committed to creating a similar or even the same context for the target language readers as the source language readers so that the target language readers can achieve the biggest relevance through the least processing efforts.In other words,the translator needs to make every effort to realize the optimal relevance in the process of translation.The 19th CPC National CongressWork Report has made a comprehensive summary on the achievements our country has achieved in terms of economy,politics,culture and so on and made a plan for the future development.The 19th CPC National Congress Work Report is regarded as an important channel to have a good understanding of our country and takes an active part in spreading Chinese culture.However,the researches on the 19th CPC National Congress Work Report have mainly focused on the translation method systematically,leaving the studies on the cultural image’s translation and reconstruction untouched.This thesis will make analysis on the English version of the 19th CPC National Congress Work Report to discuss the reconstruction of cultural image by analyzing examples from the perspective of relevance theory.It primarily discusses two questions:Is there any feasibility in the application of relevance theory to the study of reconstruction of cultural image in its English translation?In what specific way does relevance theory as the guidance to realize the reconstruction of cultural image in the process of its English translation?Based on the two questions mentioned above,this thesis mainly adopts the methodology of case analysis.Firstly,we classify the cultural images in the 19th CPC National Congress Work Report.Then,we discuss the reconstruction of cultural image by analyzing examples from the perspective of relevance theory.The study shows that the translator will adopt such strategies as cultural implantation,cultural integration,cultural interpretation,cultural domestication and cultural filtration.to reconstruct cultural images in political text.According to this study,the reconstruction of cultural images in political text deserve considerable researches,and it is feasible to analyze them with relevance theory.Through the exploration of cultural images’reconstruction in political text under relevance theory,this thesis not only enriches the researches of cultural images,but also provides a new research view for political texts.