On The Intersubjectivity Of Translation From The Perspective Of Relevance-Adaptation Theory

The present research is a pragmatic exploration of the translation intersubjectivity in the translating process from the perspective of Relevance-Adaptation Model (R-A Model for short). This model is tentatively formulated on the basis of Sperber's and Wilson's Relevance Theory and Verschueren's Adaptation Theory to describe the intersubjective relationship and interaction among the translation subjects of different nature, namely creative subject, translation subject and receptive subject respectively. It intends to give an account of the inherent relations among the subjects in translation activities, that is, how the translator carries on cross-cultural, cross-spatiotemporal and asymmetrical communication with the original author and the target audience. The focus of this study is to integrate Relevance Theory (RT) and Adaptation Theory (AT) for a more efficient account of the translation intersubjectivity in the translating process.Sperber and Wilson's Relevance theory has great interpretative power of interaction between speakers and hearers and Verschueren's Adaptation Theory has great concrete descriptive power about how the language users make linguistic choices in linguistic communication. R-A model, as a bipartite theoretical paradigm, aims to point out that ST author, translator and TT reader are involved in the relevance-adaptation processes of the negotiation and co-construction of the meaning of a work of literature on an equal footing.Based on the theoretical deduction and text analyses of Hardy's Tess and D'Urbervilles and its two Chinese translation versions, this study states that in the communicative process, the author's presumption of relevance decides his/her choices of utterance. Based on the original utterances, the translator consciously draws inferences and makes choices aiming at optimal relevance to the author; meanwhile, the translator also consciously makes predictions about the reader's cognitive state and chooses linguistic forms at different levels of utterance-building ingredients of the target version to cater for the audience. Then, the reader constructs possible interpretive hypotheses of relevance and makes interpretation choices. In the relevance-adaptation processes, both the production choices and the interpretation choices are of equal importance for the translation flow and the way in which the meaning is constructed.In summary, it is evident that R-A model gives a relatively complete description of the mutual cooperation and interaction among the ST author,the reader and the translator. It also solidifies its interpretative power of the existence of the translation intersubjectivity.