A Study Of The Translation Of Pragmatic Markers In Pride And Prejudice

Since the 1970s,research on pragmatic markers has become the focus of attention with the work of Schiffrin,Blakemore and Fraser.Though there is no consensus on the definition of pragmatic markers,it is agreed that the use of pragmatic markers facilitates the understanding and the translation of the utterance.Against this background,the pragmatic markers used in Pride and Prejudice and its Chinese version have been systematically investigated and compared in the present study within the framework of Relevance-Adaptation Theory.Specifically,the distribution of pragmatic markers,their translation in the Chinese version translated by Wang Keyi and the underlying cognitive processes of using and translating them are examined in this study.In order to better compare the distribution of pragmatic markers in the original novel with their translation in the translated version,the parallel corpus that consists of the original novel and Wang Keyi's translated version is established to get both qualitative and quantitative data.Findings of the study reveal that:1)pragmatic markers used in Pride and Prejudice fall into eight types and each type differs in distribution due to their different functions;2)four techniques can be used to translate the English pragmatic markers into Chinese,i.e.direct translation,omission,amplification and transposition;3)the improved Relevance-Adaptation Model established in this study is powerful in explaining the cognitive processes underlying the successful use and translation of pragmatic markers.Guided by the principle of optimal relevance,the translator makes continuous adaptation to the linguistic context,situational context and background context in order to effectively convey the original meaning of the novel to the readers.On the whole,the results of the study contribute to the use and translation of pragmatic markers and offer new perspective for the appreciation and reinterpretation of classic novels.