| As one of the representatives of Shaanxi writers,Jia Pingwa has been working hard and has won more than 50 literary awards both at home and abroad so far.Temporary Sitting is Jia Pingwa’s second urban theme novel and the first real urban female perspective novel.The wide use of dialects makes the novel full of strong Shaanxi characteristics.Since the book was published,it has aroused strong repercussions from all walks of life.Relevance Theory deems that communication is an ostensive-inferential process,and relevance is the key to success of communication.The process of discourse communication is the process of seeking optimal relevance,that is,the audiences or readers can obtain sufficient contextual effects after making the least effort in discourse comprehension.In view of this,this thesis,from the perspective of Relevance Theory,takes the Chinese-English practice of Temporary Sitting as an example,and explores the translation strategies of the novel from lexical,syntactic and textual levels.This thesis makes a systematic analysis of the origin,development and main points of Relevance Theory,then summarizes the language features of Temporary Sitting,and the translation of the novel is carried out.Additionally,the differences between the original translation and the revised translation under the guidance of Relevance Theory are compared by illustrating examples.It is found that translators must adopt different translation strategies flexibly under the guidance of Relevance Theory in order to enable target readers to obtain sufficient contextual effects with minimal effort.In the whole process of translation,different translation strategies are not used in isolation.Specifically,at lexical level,the translator adopts the translation strategies of annotation,omission and substitution;at syntactic level,translators can flexibly use the translation strategies of division and amplification based on the differences in expression between English and Chinese;at textual level,translator adopts literal translation to reproduce the original style,and free translation to take into account the meaning transmission and cultural transmission of the source language.Based on the translation and revision of Temporary Sitting under the guidance of Relevance Theory,this thesis draws the following conclusion: the first ostensive-inferential process,namely,the translator’s correct speculation of the author’s communicative intention is the premise of the success of translation.In the the second ostensive-inferential process,the translator should also consider the cognitive context and cultural background of the target language readers in order to truly convey the style and characteristics of the source text.Although there are differences in cognitive environment between East and West,Relevance Theory has a strong explanatory power for the translation of Temporary Sitting.Therefore,this research is of reference and guiding significance for the English translation of contemporary Chinese literary works in the future,and is conducive to the promotion of Chinese culture,especially the local cultural characteristics of Shaanxi,so as to promote the external communication and exchange of Chinese culture. |
