A Comparative Study On Hedges In Gone With The Wind And Fu Donghua’s Translated Version Under Relevance Theory

This thesis tries to explain and study hedges translation in Fu Donghua’s translated version of the novel Gone with the Wind based on Relevance Theory, a theory belonged to the category of cognitive linguistics. Hedges are the type of words which make the meanings become fuzzier. They are not only frequently used in oral expressions but also in formal expressions, like poems, prose and novels, etc. This type of words plays an important role in the actual verbal communications. Because of its late start, it is hard to avoid some not so comprehensive studies in this area. Some related studies are restricted in the areas like the definition, the classification and the semantic expressions. Based on this consideration, this thesis has carried out a tentative study on the hedges in the novel Gone with the Wind, and selected the corresponding translated version—《飘》, to analyze the translation of hedges in Gone with the Wind.Relevance Theory has been proposed in the1980s, and it has been emphasizing on finding relevance in the cognitive contexts. In the translated work, the first task should be to get a comprehensive understanding of the whole text, and then to fully understand the source text as well as the context in the source text, after that, through the analysis of the context, to find out the optimal relevance between the source text and the translated text, and in the end, the optimal contextual effect can be attained. Relevance Theory belongs to the category of cognitive linguistics, and it can be regarded as to have the strongest explanatory power for translation—the most complicated psychological process. This thesis tries to explain hedges translation under Relevance Theory, and focus on the explaining of the non-equivalent phenomena. As for the reasons, this thesis starts from the perspectives like the cognitive context, the cognitive translation and the translation strategies under Relevance Theory, like domestication and foreignization, literal translation and free translation. These are the aspects from which the non-equivalent phenomena can get explanations. The research method of this thesis is a descriptive-explanatory one. The cases of Fu Donghua’s translations have been selected as the research corpus. Firstly, the complete equivalent translations have been taken, including the formal equivalence, and the semantic equivalence. After that, many non-equivalent translations have been selected, and Relevance Theory has been adopted to analyze the purposes of Fu Donghua’s translation strategies. The non-equivalent translations on the surface are equivalent in the deep surface, and they aim to get a better language context, so that the explanatory power of Relevance Theory to translations can be revealed.This thesis focuses on the hedges in the literal work, and takes the hedges’ translation as the research cases. Relevance Theory under the category of cognitive linguistics has a strong explanatory power in the translation field, so that people can get to know that, no matter they are complete equivalent translations or non-equivalent translations, the ultimate goal is to achieve the harmony and equivalence in the context. The non-equivalent translations used by translators are to achieve a better cognitive effect. Hedges, not only in formal languages, but also in the daily oral languages, play an essential role, so that it is important to put more attention on the hedges in the literal world. The deep understanding of this type of words can help readers get a more comprehensive understanding of the literature as well as the translated works, and in the end get a deep understanding of the works.