Relevance Theory In Drama Translation

Relevance theory, a new approach to the study of human communication, was first put forward by Sperber and Wilson (1986) in their co-authored work:Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Relevance theory is a new approach to pragmatics, which attempts to answer not only philosophical questions about the nature of communication, but also psychological questions about how the interpretation process unfolds in the hearer’s mind (D. Wilson,2000:210). Hence, the theory is in nature a pragmatic theory on communication from the cognitive perspective. The theory assumes that a communication involves the information process both in terms of the communicator and the audience, and the utterance interpretation includes decoding and inference of language. The communicator conveys intentions through ostensiveness by utterance and the audience infers the communicator’s intention through contextual assumptions and the utterance. The communicator should provide information that shares adequate relevance, namely information relevant to the audience. The goal of communication is trying to achieve the optimal contextual effect by the least mental effort.The translation guided by relevance theory is quite different from the traditional translation theories. It not only concerns with the source text writer and the translator, but also the expectation and cognitive ability of targeted readers and the translator. In general, traditional translation theories assume that the translator’s task is to faithfully manifest the semantic meaning of source text. Nevertheless, they fail to consider the language, cultural difference and reading expectations of target readers; fail to think about the acceptability and cognitive environment of the target readers; and also fail to regard the cognitive ability of the translator himself. In contrast, translation guided by relevance theory concerns the source text writer, the translator and the target language readers at the same time. Furthermore, it also takes account of target language readers’cognitive environment and reactions to source text, as well as the communicative effect.Drama translation is a special branch of literary translation. Compared with other literary translation, drama translation has its two features at the same time: actability and readability. The reader could refer to the notes of some terms while reading poetry, novel and essay, however, the audience could not while watching a drama. That is to say, the audience’s direct and immediate interaction with the actors on the stage is regarded far more important than the readers in other literary works.This paper is a research on the application of relevance theory to drama translation practice. The author of this paper adopts relevance theory to expound translation phenomenon in drama The School for Scandal. By introduction relevance theory in terms of its nature, key concepts, principle, and critiques of the theory, the author explains how this theory is applied to translation, what is the criterion for successful translation, what strategies should the translator adopt in drama translation under the guidance of relevance theory. Later on, by analyzing the drama, The School for Scandal, the author compares it from three perspectives:dramatic language, rhetoric, and culture and draws the conclusion:Firstly, colloquial dramatic language entails more than informative intention, but communicative intention, such as emotion, actions and traits of characters to put the plot going forward. So the translator should guarantee the target audience could follow the lines without unnecessary processing effort, which means the lines should be clear and natural for the audience to understand, and fluent and speakable for the actors to utter and act.Secondly, rhetoric plays a very important role in the source text, acting as a key stimulant for the success of the story, especially in dialogues, since it can promote the transmission and communication of emotions and ideas. The rhetoric devices require the translator use resemble methods to express in translation, which is quite difficult on some occasions If there is no way to be similar to the source text, then the translator should deliver communicative intention of the wrier to target readers at his best effort. Thirdly, cultural differences are insurmountable in translating practices. What the translator should do is to eliminate the blocks and ensure both the informative intention and communicative intention are transferred to the audience.Finally, the translation guided by relevance theory gives the translator much freedom and flexibility. the translator can adopt different sorts of translating skills, strategies and approaches, such as free translation, literal translation, foreignization, domestication, and other skills to find the same optimal relevance in source text.