A Comparative Study Of The Translations Of Song Shi From The Perspective Of The Relevance-adaptation Theory

Nowadays,with the increasing of China's international influence,the “Taking Chinese culture to the global stage” has been put forward on the agenda.In Chinese culture,the Classical Chinese poetry is an older and more advanced art form which entails the cultural quintessence of the five-thousand-year history.In the review of the translation and research of Classical Chinese poetry,it is found that the translation and study of Song Shi should be enriched in urgent.Besides,few studies concentrate on the translation of Song Shi and try to investigate comparatively the translations of Song Shi from the pragmatic perspective of the relevance-adaptation theory.However,such studies are valuable and needed.Only through the comparative analysis of the previous translations,could the current situation of the translation of Song Shi become clear so as to point out the direction for its improvement and perfection in the future.Relevance-adaptation theory provides a new direction for the translation of classical works.Under the guidance of this theory,this thesis firstly divides Song Shi into eight types according to emotion and artistic conception,and then selects eight typical Song poems based on other characteristics of Song Shi,so as to make the selected Song Shi more representative and the conclusions more rigorous;After that,a comparative study is made on the two existing translations of each poem.After the comparative analysis,this thesis generalizes the strategies and methods for the translation of different types of verses,and summarizes the noteworthy details.Finally,the thesis concludes that from the pragmatic perspective of the relevance-adaptation theory,translators should make clear that translating Song Shi has the pragmatic purposes of enlightenment,empathy and cultural transmission,and they should aim to achieve pragmatic equivalence.Moreover,the translation of Song poems can be regarded as two communication processes,and the link between them is theoptimal relevance of the poems or the intention of the poets.First of all,in the discourse-interpreting communicative process,translators should try to collect relevant materials of the Song poem to enrich the three-information in their cognitive contexts so as to approach the only optimal relevance and should not base their translation on their subjective understanding.Secondly,in the discourse-producing communicative process,the translator should first take the target reader as the foundation of the dynamic context,and then choose appropriate translation methods,linguistic form and stance-taking to make adaptation to the context so as to fully convey the poet's intention,achieving the pragmatic equivalence between the verses and the renderings.Hopefully,the study could provide a reference to the retranslation and studies of Song Shi in the future so as to contribute to the Taking Chinese culture to the global stage.