Metaphor Translation From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

Recently, the researches and studies on metaphor have expand into cognitive and pragmatic as well as translation fields. Metaphors are commonly used not only in literture workds but also daily life. More and more people show great interest in metaphors. The thesis analyzes the relative research theories and accomplishments abroad and at home, discusses the translation of metaphors from the perspective of relevance theory.Relevance theory is proposed by Sperber from Paris University and Wilson from London University. Relevance theory holds that human utterance communication process is a process of the pursuit of optimal relevance. The audidences have to pay effective efforts to achieve enough context effects. Relevance depends on the contextual effects and processing efforts,strong contextual effects and weak processing efforts mean strong relenvace. Gutt, as the student of Wilson published his work Translation and Relevance:Cognition and Context, thus propose the relevance translation theory. Relevance translation theory believe translation is a two-rounds cross-language communication activity.In the first round of translation communication, translator should communicate with the speaker or author from source language at first, and translator acts as the receptor, the author or speaker act as the communicator, then in the second roud of communication, translator should also communicate with the target language reader, and translator now become a communicator and the target language reader become receptor. Transtor plays a dual role in the translation activity. In both of the two rounds of communication, translator should pay the efforts to find out optimal relevance in the source language and get the correct understanding towards source language, then convey the understanding to the target reader by the method of optimal relevance too, optimal relevance is the guarantee of a successful communication, So the pursuit of optimal relevance become the guiding principle of translation.Based on the above theories, the author tries to discuss metaphor translation from the perspective of relevance theory. The thesis explains the importance of contexutal effects and ostensive-inferential communication to metaphor translation, and points out that translation ia a cognitve activitity of understanding different life experieces of different nations, and the thesis also make some research on this cognitve activity and the inferential communication.Then the author explains the production and comprehension of metaphor and apply the two important principels:implication inference and pursuit of optimal relevance into metaphor translation process. By analyzing some practical examples, the author summarizes three specifc strategies of metaphor translation(metaphor to metaphor, metaphor to simile and metaphor to non-metaphor)The author believes that translator should choose the right contextual information from his own cognitive environment, and figure out the metaphor in the source language, then form the translator's communication goal, that is the transmition of the metaphor information in the source language, and the judgement about the receptors' cognitve ability and environment. The translator's communication goal can help the translator choose the good and proper translation strategy. No matter what kind of method the translator choose, as long as the translator obey the relevance principles and make sure the target receptor and the source language communicator have the same reaction towards the same metaphorical information, the translation activiy is successful.The author points out that metaphor translation is not only an issue of different langugage, factors such as different culture, social customs, religious belief,etc have certain influence on metaphor translation. With the guidance of relevance theory, translator should pay their efforts to these factors, seek optiaml relevance and pursue the best contextual effects, thus guarantee best quality of meatphor translation. In a word, the relevance translation theory's explanation on metaphor translation is dynamic and dialectic, it catches the essence of translation, and it has positive instructive influence on translation, the translator's efforts in the metaphor translation are focused on the pursuit of optimal relevance and the improvement of contextual effects. Relevance theory, thus provide the new vision of metaphor translation as well as the whole translation field.