A Relevance-Theoretic Approach To Style Translation

Relevance Theory, systematically initiated by Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson in their coauthored work Relevance:Communication and Cognition, provides a fresh perspective for the study of verbal communication. In Relevance Theory, verbal communication is regarded as an ostensive-inferential process with the purpose of optimal relevance. In the framework of Relevance Theory, translation is a dual ostensive-inferential process involving writers and translators, translators and readers. The translator shoulders the double duties of encoder and decoder with the ultimate objective of the delivery of optimal relevance. Thus the way of its delivery leads to different translation styles.Disparities of cognitive style, linguistic capability, individuality and social environment would definitely forge distinct choices of the realization and delivery of optimal relevance. Therefore, the same source text always has various translation styles. Based on Relevance Theory, the thesis discusses the realization of translation styles in the aspects of implicatures and communication clues. The thesis briefly introduces the major beliefs of RT and its application in translation, explores style translation from the perspective of RT, and then intensively illustrates the analysis framework of translation theory in the aspects of implicatures and communication clues. Based on this framework, it conducts a comparison between translation styles of the two English versions of San Guo Yan Yi, and then draws a conclusion.After the systematic and objective analysis of the two English versions, the thesis finds that, Roberts is ST-oriented, trying to retain the original cultures with his accurate and deliberate translation. He also attempts to further extend the target reader's cognitive context by addition of notes, maps and pictures. He generally renders the optimal relevance in an eclectic way. Taylor is CT-oriented, with concise spoken language for the relevance to target readers'known context. However, the style of the whole version is not consistent, with a lot of unfamiliar and obscure parts untreated. The purpose of the whole comparative analysis is not to judge the quality, but to relatively systematically prove the view of Sperber and Wilson that stylistic differences are just differences in the way relevance is achieved.