| The Relevance Theory of pragmatics proposed by Sperber and Wilsonincorporates an inferential model of communication, developed from ideas putforward by Paul Grice. Ernst-August Gutt, inspired by the basic framework ofrelevance theory, argues that relevance theory provides the much needed frameworkfor understanding translation.In the relevance-theoretical framework, translation is an act of communicationcarried out between two cultures through the medium of language. There are threeparts involved in the cognitive activities: the original writer, the translator, and thetarget language reader. In literary works, an author's intended readers are from thesame language community and sharing the same cognitive environment with him.Therefore, the writer tends to economize his writing. The cultural knowledge sharedby the source text (ST) writer and his intended readers might be omitted, which iscalled cultural default for the target language (TL) readers. However, due to thedifferent cognitive environments between the author of the ST and the TL readers,cultural default might give rise to misreading or incoherent understanding on the TLreader's part in cross-cultural communication. How to deal with the problem causedby cultural default in literary translating process becomes the main issue for translators.The present research intends to apply relevance theory to the disposal ofcultural default in the process of literary translation. To make it more convincing, theauthor mainly examines the disposal of cultural default in"Apart from Love"by way of relevance-theoretical approach and analyzes two main translation strategies,annotation and paraphrasing, to deal with specific cultural-loaded terms.Through the study of relevance-theoretical translation theory and the translationof Apart from Love, the author of this paper expound the guiding value of therelevance-theoretical approach in translator's comprehension and decision-makingprocess of dealing with cultural default in literary translation. |
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