A Report On English-Chinese Translation Of Cultural Default In Child Of Light-A Biography Of Robert Stone (Excerpt) From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

Based on the author’s translation practice project,the source text of this translation practice report is excerpted from the first chapter of the Child of Light-A Biography of Robert Stone by Madison Smartt Bell.Through the translation of this biography,domestic readers will know more about the growth experience of the native American writer,which provides a reference for the researchers who study Robert Stone in China and promotes intercultural communication.Under the guidance of relevance theory,this report takes the translation activity as a dynamic dual ostensive-inferential communication and puts achieving optimal relevance as the goal of translation.Three strategies are adopted to deal with cultural defaults,namely matching communicative intentions with informative intentions,enriching contextual assumptions,and manifesting contextual implications.Based on Eugene Nida’s classification of cultural factors,four categories of cultural defaults are listed in this report,including linguistic cultural default,material cultural default,social cultural default,and religious cultural default.In the translation of linguistic cultural default,the translator applies paraphrase,annotation,and generalization to manifest the contextual implication,which is helpful to highlight the communicative function of linguistic culture.In terms of material cultural default,the translator,focusing on the practical function of material culture,tries to match its communicative intentions with informative intentions through applying substitution with amplification and literal translation with amplification.Social culture provides local people with social norms.As for the translation of social cultural default,transliteration with amplification,paraphrase,and literal translation with amplification are used in most cases with the purpose of enriching contextual assumptions for target readers.Religious culture can comfort people’s hearts and give them faith.In the translation of religious culture,the translator applies literal translation and transliteration with amplification to match the communicative intention with the informative intention.Under the guidance of relevance theory,to better bridge the cultural gap between the East and West,various translation techniques are adopted to deal with the four categories of cultural default according to their respective characteristics.Therefore,the target reader could obtain optimal relevance.