（外国语言学及应用语言学专业论文）关联顺应模式下文化意象的翻译.pdf

iv 摘 要摘 要 本文尝试从关联顺应模式的角度来探讨文化意象的翻译问题。该模式以关 联理论和顺应理论为基础构建而成。通过理论阐述和个例分析的方法，本研究旨 在揭示翻译过程中译者如何在关联顺应模式的指导下采取恰当的翻译方法来处 理文化意象差异。 在关联顺应模式框架下，翻译是一个双向的交际过程。作为原文作者和译 文读者之间的协调者，译者在翻译过程中发挥着至关重要的作用。首先，译者要 与原文作者进行交流，从源语展示的信息意图推断出原作者的交际意图并获得最 佳关联。然后，译者与译文读者进行二次交际。因为原文读者和译文读者处于不 同的认知语境，文化差异在所难免。所以译者必须不断地进行语言选择以确保译 文读者通过有效的努力来获得足够的认知效果。为了确保交际成功，在选择翻译 策略的过程中，除了文化因素之外, 译者还要兼顾自己特定的翻译目的、译文读者 的审美期待和接受水平。当然，在实际翻译过程中，这两个交际过程之间并没有 清晰的界限。明示推理过程和语言选择过程往往是交错进行的。 在文化转向的大背景下，文化因素在翻译研究中越来越受到人们的重视。文 化意象的翻译给译者带来了极大挑战。关联顺应模式为这一问题提供了新的研 究角度。同时，它也为不同的翻译策略提供了理论支持。直译还是意译，归化还 是异化，不再是彼此矛盾的概念，而是译者为了特定翻译目的在具体语境下做出 的恰当选择。 关键词关键词：关联；顺应；跨文化交际；文化意象；翻译策略 ii abstract the present study attempts to explore the rendering of culturally-loaded images from the perspective of relevance-adaptation model, which is based on the relevance theory (rt) and adaptation theory (at). through theoretical explanation and example analysis the author aims to investigate how the relevance-adaptation model guides the translator to adopt certain translating strategies instead of others in dealing with cultural differences in translating process. in the framework of relevance-adaptation approach, translation can be considered as a dual communicative process. and the translator, as a mediator between the original author and the target readers, plays a decisive role in the cross-cultural communication. to begin with, the translator carries out communication with the original author. from the latters informative intention the translator infers the communicative intention and obtains the optimal relevance to the source utterance. then the translator begins the communication with his intended readers in another cognitive environment. due to different cultural backgrounds the translator has to make linguistic choices continuously to ensure that the target readers can achieve adequate contextual effects without making unnecessary processing effort. while he chooses translating strategies the translator must also take into consideration the target readers aesthetic expectations and acceptability levels in addition to cultural factors. of course, there is not a clear-cut line between the dual communicative process. the ostensive-inferential process and the choice-making process often intersect with each other. iii against the background of the “cultural turn”, the role of cultural factors in translation studies has come to be highly valued. this relevance-adaptation model supplies a new perspective to culturally-loaded image rendering, which poses great challenge to the translator in translating practice. this approach also provides theoretical support for various translating strategies. literal translation or free translation, domestication or foreignization, they are not contradictory to each other but the appropriate choice the translator has made in specific contexts for certain purposes. key words: relevance theory, adaptation theory, cross-cultural communication, culturally-loaded images, translating strategies 学位论文独创性声明 本人郑重声明：所呈交的硕士学位论文，是本人在指导教师的指 导下，独立进行研究工作所取得的成果。除文中已经注明引用的内容 外，本论文不包含任何其他个人或集体已经发表或撰写过的作品成果。 对本文的研究做出重要贡献的个人和集体，均已在文中以明确的方式 标明。本人完全意识到本声明的法律结果由本人承担。 作者签名： 日期： 学位论文使用授权声明 本人授权沈阳师范大学研究生处，将本人硕士学位论文的全部或 部分内容编入有关数据库进行检索；有权保留学位论文并向国家主管 部门或其指定机构送交论文的电子版和纸质版，允许论文被查阅和借 阅；有权可以采用影印、缩印或扫描等复制手段保存、汇编学位论文。 保密的学位论文在解密后适用本规定。 作者签名： 日期： i acknowledgements i wish to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, professor shi guoqiang, who has provided me with generous assistance and sustained encouragement during the three years of studies. and i am really thankful for his valuable suggestions in my thesis proposal and thesis writing. his kindness, considerateness and academic ability have deeply impressed me and urged me to keep on improving myself. my sincere appreciation should also be extended to all the other teachers who have taught me, for example, prof. fan gexin, prof. yan yixun, prof. li yunqi, prof. hao jun and prof. zhang hui, whose insightful lectures have deepened my understanding of translation studies. and their help ensures that i can finish my study smoothly. my special thanks also go to my classmates and friends, who have helped me in one way or another in the whole course. their constant support has always been heart-warming and encouraging. finally, id like to express my deep gratitude to my parents, who have been helping me look after my young baby, and my husband, whose spiritual support is always there. without their understanding and help, i wouldnt have finished my studies. their love and support will always be treasured. 1 chapter 1 introduction 1.1 the background of the present study relevance theory (hereinafter as rt) was put forward by sperber and wilson in relevance: communication and cognition in 1986. it is a new approach to pragmatics, which focuses on the study of the context-dependent aspects of utterance interpretation. according to rt, communication is an ostensive-inferential process. on the communicators part, it is an ostensive process in which the communicator produces a stimulus, or expresses his informative intention; while on the audiences part, it is an inferential process, in which they deduce the communicative intention from the speakers ostensive stimulus. “relevance theory is based on a definition of relevance and two general principles: the cognitive principle that human cognition tends to be geared to the maximization of relevance; and the communicative principle that the utterances create expectations of relevance” (he the greater the contextual effects achieved, the greater the relevance is. although it is not proposed for translation studies, rt has greatly influenced this 2 discipline. in 1991 ernst-august gutt published translation and relevance: cognition and context, and rt was first applied to translation studies. according to gutt, translation is an inter-lingual interpretive use of language. direct translation and indirect translation, which are based on the two notions of direct speech quotation and indirect speech quotation, give a unified account of translation. he also suggests “the translation should resemble the originalonly in those respects that can be expected to make it adequately relevant to the receptor language audience”(gutt, 2004, p. 107), and the translation should be expressed “in such a manner that it yields the intended interpretation without putting the audience to unnecessary processing effort” (ibid.). three years later, lin kenan (1994) gave a brief introduction to gutts theory in the article “a brief introduction to translation and relevance”. since then, many scholars in china have attempted to explain some controversial issues in translation studies including translatability, rewriting, equivalence, and so on. zhang xinhong and he ziran (2001) examine the nature of translation from the perspective of rt, and state that translation involves the dynamic relationship between three communicators, the source text author, the translator and the target language readers. in a reductionist approach to translatology zhao yanchun (2005) falsifies the two supermemes in translation studies, untranslatability and equivalence, and maintains that rt offers a theoretical framework for the research into the nature of translation and translating strategies. this book gives a systematic account of the relationship between rt and translation. meng jiangang (2002) holds that the adoption of foreignization and domestication are closely related to the authors and translators communicative 3 intentions, and it is the optimal relevance that decides the choice of translating strategies. zhang chunbai (2003), on the basis of rt, explores direct translation and indirect translation. of course, there are also critical comments on rt. wang bin (2000) claims that rt doesnt take social culture into account, thus it is incompetent to show how to render cultural default and accordingly cant be used to explain translation, the cross-cultural communication. but zhao yanchun (1999) has a different opinion. he believes that rt has great explanatory power to translation. in favor of zhao yanchuns argument, li zhanxi (2008), from the perspective of rt, analyses the rendering of culturally-loaded images and puts forward pragmatic translating strategies. adaptation theory (hereinafter as at), proposed by jef verschueren, is another theory on pragmatics. he defines language use as the continuous making of linguistic choices. consciously or unconsciously the process of making choices happens at every level of language form. and speakers choose not only forms but also strategies. the three properties of language, variability, negotiability and adaptability make such choices possible. at provides for us a theoretical explanation of the translators continuous linguistic choices in language use. among the scholars who have applied at to translation studies, the following are quite representative. song zhiping (2004) explores the nature of translation from the perspective of at. he thinks that translation in essence is a continuous making of choices ranging from selecting the source text to choosing translating strategies for a specific purpose. and social, cultural and cognitive factors go through the whole process of translation. ge 4 lingling (2002) discusses the enlightenment of at on translation and points out that the translators linguistic choices should be based on dynamic adaptation to linguistic structures and contexts of the original. wang jianguo (2005) proposes that the process of translation is the process of dynamic adaptation, which itself is a translating strategy. li jin and liao kaihong (2005) explore adaptation to cultural contexts and reveal that different translating methods are the results of adaptation to specific cultural contexts. in all, many scholars have discussed the enlightenment of rt or at on translation studies, esp. on the nature of translation and translating methods. generally speaking, they agree that rt has shed light on some long-debated issues in translation and translating strategies should be dynamically chosen according to specific contexts in the light of at. even though rt and at have contributed much to translation studies, they both have limitations. rt stresses the theoretical explanation of utterance interpretation, but it is inadequate in its description. at focuses on describing the actual language use, while it is deficient in theoretical description. in view of their shortcomings, yang ping (2001), on the basis of the two theories, conceives a new model of communication: relevance-adaptation model. she suggests that this model can be applied in language teaching, cross-cultural communication, translation and some other fields. translation, first as a language-dependent activity, cannot do without linguistic decoding and reconstructing. at the same time, it is a cross-cultural communication and the translator has to take cultural factors into account in order to fulfill the task of cultural exchange. he ziran (1992) explores the pragmatic approach to chinese-english 5 and english-chinese translation, esp. the rendering of culture-specific terms. wang dongfeng (1997) defines cultural default and puts forward some effective strategies to deal with cultural differences in translation practice. xu chongxin, ke ping, du zhengming, qiu yiru, to name just a few, all have discussed the relationship between translation and culture, and their articles have been collected in culture and translation (guo, 1999). due to the fact that culturally-loaded images are rich in cultural connotation, how to properly render them to the target audience turns out to be of vital importance. in the framework of relevance-adaptation model, this thesis intends to explore how the translator, in the process of transferring culturally-loaded images, first interprets the original utterance and achieves the optimal relevance to the authors communicative intention, and then makes linguistic choices to communicate with the target readers in another cognitive environment. 1.2 the significance of the present study in the background of the “cultural turn”, translation is not only a simple process from decoding to reconstructing, but also a kind of cross-cultural communication. thus it is not enough for the translator to describe the source text, he must also fulfill the task of promoting cultural exchange. culturally-loaded images, due to their characteristic of bearing rich cultural information, have long proved to be of great difficulty to translation practice. and the translator is often in a dilemma as to whether to transfer the literal meaning or preserve the connotation of the image. 6 previous studies about the translation of culturally-loaded images are mainly about method discussion. too much attention has been paid to the comparison between literal translation and free translation, foreignization and domestication. against such a background, the author of the thesis attempts to apply the relevance-adaptation model to the rendering of culturally-loaded images because it provides a new perspective to translation studies. it not only deepens the understanding of the actual translating process but also provides a theoretical explanation of the translators strategy choosing in different contexts. therefore, the present study is both theoretically and practically significant. 1.3 methodology the present study is a qualitative research. it includes theoretical explanation and example analysis. the research begins with theoretical explanation, including the expounding of both rt and at, and the relevance-adaptation model. in this way the mental working of the translator in the translating process is clearly elaborated: how he figures out the communicative intention of the source utterance; how he chooses proper strategies to transfer the optimal relevance intended by the original author to the readers in another cognitive environment. the examples in the study mainly come from literary works because compared with expressions from dictionaries, they are put in certain contexts which are necessary for the translator to understand the meaning of the cultural factors. whats more, literary 7 works can attract more readers and translators, and famous translators versions are more representative and convincing. contrastive analysis is also made to show what motivates the translator to make appropriate linguistic choices and why some choices fail to achieve successful cross-cultural communication. in all, theoretical explanation and example analysis of culturally-loaded images will go through the whole research. through this kind of method, the author of the thesis hopes that the mental process of the translator can be tentatively described and analyzed. 1.4 the overall structure of the thesis this thesis consists of five chapters: chapter one is a brief introduction to the present study, including the research background, the significance of the research and main methods to be applied in the research. chapter two is a literature review. it includes some key points of the relevance theory and adaptation theory and relevance-adaptation model related to the study. the relationship between language, translation and culture, linguistic and cultural approaches to translation are also discussed in this part. chapter three proposes a theoretical approach of relevance-adaptation to translating culturally-loaded images. to begin with, representative differences of culturally-loaded images between chinese and western cognitive environments are covered because difficulty in translation often stems from such differences. then the 8 relevance-adaptation model is explained in detail. on the basis of rt and at, translation is considered as a dual process. the translator interprets the authors intentions when he communicates with the original author; and he makes dynamic linguistic choices when he communicates with the target readers. and the translators subjectivity plays a very important role in the translating process. chapter four puts forward some effective translating methods to deal with culturally-loaded images on the basis of relevance-adaptation model. the methods include literal translation, substitution, free translation, etc. chapter five summarizes the major findings of the research, presents its limitations and makes some suggestions for future research. 9 chapter 2 literature review 2.1 relevance theory relevance theory (rt) was proposed by sperber and wilson in relevance: communication and cognition in 1986. it attempts to answer questions about the nature of communication and how the interpretation process goes on in the hearers mind. relevance theory is based on a definition of relevance and two general principles: the cognitive principle and the communicative principle. human cognition is governed by the maximal relevance, while communication the optimal relevance. rt is an approach to pragmatics, but because of its great explanatory power, it has brought inspiration to many neighboring disciplines, such as linguistics, literary studies and psychology. translation, as a special kind of communication, has also been greatly influenced. 2.1.1 ostensive-inferential communication according to rt, communication is an ostensive-inferential cognitive process. sperber and wilson (2001) define ostensive-inferential communication as follows: “the communicator produces a stimulus which makes it mutually manifest to communicator and audience that the communicator intends, by means of this stimulus, to make manifest or more manifest to the audien