A Study Of Animal Imagery Translation In Chinese And English Versions Of Sakya Legshad From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

This thesis aims to study translation strategies of animal imagery applied in Wang Yao's Chinese version and John Thomas Davenport's English version of Tibetan poem collection Sakya Legshad in the light of relevance theory.The study categorizes animal imagery in Sakya Legshad into two groups,namely non-mythological animal group and mythological animal group.The Analysis finds that both Chinese and English versions of Sakya Legshad apply transliteration and non-transliteration strategies to both groups of animal imagery.With regard to non-mythological animal imagery,translation strategies demonstrate strong relevance to their value judgement in Tibetan,Chinese and English culture.Transliteration is applied on animal imagery that holds neutral value judgment in source language(SL)and positive or negative value judgement in target language(TL),as well as on those hold positive value judgement in SL and neutral value judgement in TL.However,transliteration is applied on animal imagery that hold positive or negative value judgement in SL and negative or positive value judgement in TL,and on those hold negative value judgement in SL and neutral value judgement in TL.It requires adjectives and/or footnotes to compensate for a complete translation.Non-transliteration is used on animal imagery that are referred by the use of metonymy and hypernymy.On some occasions,non-transliteration also indicates mistranslation.With regard to mythological animal imagery,value judgement is discarded as the major variable in determining translation strategies.The analysis observes a pattern of mythological animal imagery translation in which transliteration is applied on animal imagery that are originated from Buddhist classics or Tibetan folklore,non-transliteration is used on those that traditionally have established images or similar images in the TL culture.Non-transliteration on mythological animal imagery also indicates mistranslation on certain occasions.