A Comparative Study Of Two Chinese Versions Of The Great Gatsby From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

The Great Gatsby written by F.S.Fitzgerald is an important masterpiece in the history of American literature in the twentieth century.The thesis will choose two Chinese versions of the great Gatsbyto do research,one is from Wu Ningkun and another is from Yao Naiqiang.The articleintends to set about from the perspective of the translator’s analysis of the original text,the translator’s ostensive means and the translator’s cognitive context assumption of the target readers and list lots of typical examples,to discuss and analyze different solutions of two translators in pursuing the best contextual effect.Through the research and analysis,we find that translation made by Wu Ningkungives readers an impression of direct translation and oral character,while Yao Naiqiang’ s version mainly adopts literal translation and literary word,which makes language full of literariness.Meanwhile,through a lot of examples,we can learn the guiding role the relevance theory in translating the Great Gatsby.First,the relevance concept of relevance theory,such as optimal relevance and maximum relevance,has an important role in translating the Great Gatsby.We find that on the one hand,in order to understand the meaning of the original discourse with effective effort,two translators adopt different translation strategies,that is to say,Yao’s version mainly employs free translation,which makes the article more literary,while Wu’s version mainly adopts literal translation,which makes the article more understandable and more simple;on the other hand,two translators employs the translation methods,such as adding comment,for the sake of achieving the maximum relevance and letting the reader pay less effort to obtain strong contextual effects.What’s more,the influence of ostensive-inferential communication on translation is obvious.Two translators,for reaching best effect,first infer the original author’ intention,and then employ different ways to present to readers.Wu’s version tends to use the thought of western people,leading to his translation not in line with Chinese logic;while Yao’s version has considered Chinese people’s feeling and translated this work with the way of thinking among Chinese people,thus target reader only needs to pay less effort to achieve better effects.The aim to write this article is not to compare which work or translation is better,but to explain that relevance theory has an important role in literature translation.It exists two communications in relevance theory,and the translators need act as a dual role of both speaker and listener.Because in relevance theory,the translator has subjectivity and dual role,different versions of the Great Gatsby appear,what’s more,different readers has different understanding on the same translation,let alone the different versions.Thus we know,relevance theory has played an important guiding role in translation.