A Contrastive Study On The English Translations Of Key Categories In The Analects Under Relevance Theory

The Analects was one of the classic works of Confucianism and an important classic of Chinese traditional culture.It centrally embodied the basic propositions of Confucianism and had a history of more than 2,000 years.The English translation of The Analects had a history of more than 150 years,and its English translated version had reached more than 60 kinds.There were many key categories in The Analects,which comprehensively included the Confucian view of heaven,humanity and world.These featured categories were simple and rich in meaning,and they were difficult to find equivalent words in the target language.How to accurately grasp and translate featured confucianiam categories in The Analects is very important for the foreign translation of The Analects and even the spread of traditional Chinese culture.Nowadays,relevant research on translation of The Analects often purely from linguistic perspective explores the equivalent reproduction of key categories: the possibility of its reproduction,the specific method of reproduction,etc.,and there is full of profound insight.However,from a deep sense to say,translation process is often a dialogue and exchange of worldviews,values,and cognitive views between two parties.This thesis intends to explore the cognitive operating mechanism of translators under the surface of language transformation from the perspective of relevance theory,so as to provide some rational basis for their translation strategies or methods.Relevance theory believed that translation is a process of dual ostensive-inferential communication,involving the participation of source language author,translator and target readers.Translator infers the information through the ostensive stimulus of the original author,and conveys out the information in translated works.Readers infer the information of the translated works through the ostensive stimulus of the translator combining with his own cognitive environment.It can be said,whether translation is realized depends on the optimal relevance between translated works and cognitive environment of readers.This thesis takes the English translation of The Analects translated by Waley,Gu Hongming,and Wu Guozhen as the material,and takes the core Confucian category as the research object to explore the translation methods of three versions,especially the cognitive mechanisms contained therein,hoping to provide some references for the translation of similar classics.Research shows that these three translations all adopt specific methods such as literal translation,free translation,and domestication method.Different translation methods are often adopted for the same featured category.The category is the same,but the translation method is different,which shows that the contained ostensive and inference mechanism are different.In translation practice,it is not necessary for translator to be constrained by some specific translation method.Translator should pay attention to and perceive the potential cognitive mechanism among authors,translators and readers and realize the guiding significance of this mechanism possess on translation practice.