Chapter 1 Relevance Theory
1.1General Review of Relevance Theory
Since it was born, relevance theory has brought a large amount of studies on it so thatthe associated materials that could be found are in a large number as well. Based on this fact,this paper would select the most important and the most related documents to make a generalreview of relevance theory but not on the whole of it.What is the core notion of relevance theory? The answer is quite obvious that it is thenotion of “Relevance”. Sperber and Wilson give the definition of Relevance in terms of theprocessing effort and the cognitive effects. The outcome of the cognitive effects is aninteraction of the old information which is delivered by the speaker and the new informationwhich is processed by the hearer. Usually there are three kinds of interactions and the newinformation may be combined with an already existing assumption to yield contextualimplications, and may intensify the existing assumptions or on the contrary, it wouldcontradict or eliminate the existing assumption. So if other things are the same, the more thecognitive effects gain from the processing of the new information, the more relevance it got. However, to process the new information and to achieve something from the cognitiveeffects need some kind of mental effort. And this type of effort is in inverse proportion to therelevance. It means that the greater effort it takes the lower relevance it has. There are twofactors that have an influence on the understanding of an utterance. Firstly, the complexity ofthe utterance may affect the processing. It is not hard to understand that if the utterance is fartoo complicated, it surely will take more effort to process it. And secondly, a rather suitablecontext is needed from the memory or imagination which means that the more suitable thecontext is, the less effort may be needed on processing the utterance. If it takes a greatereffort to process the utterance, it implies a lower relevance which could result in a higher riskof losing the hearer’s attention. Thus, Sperber and Wilson (Sperber and Wilson, 1995; 122)said that “an assumption is relevant in a context if and only if it has some contextual effectsin that context.”
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1.2E.A. Gutt’s Relevance Theory Framework in Translation
Ernst-August Gutt, who is a cognitive pragmatist and once a student of Wilson, firstlytook into account of translation in the framework of relevance theory after the theory hasprovoked a huge number of studies on pragmatics since Sperber and Wilson established it in1990s. Just in the year of 1991, Gutt published his book named Translation and Relevance:Cognition and Context which brought a totally fresh angle of translation studies. In the bookGutt put forward some of his views about translation including a). It is necessary to changethe research methods of translation study and the category of research should be rescheduled,b). What is the unique “faithfulness” of translation theory in terms of relevance theory, c).Relevance theory is the source of every translation theory and d). his remarks on directtranslation, indirect translation and communicative clues and so on. And in this thesis, theauthor makes a thorough summary of his translation theory and picks up two important pointswhich are the most relevant to the study to explain.
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Chapter 2 Financial English and Financial EnglishTranslation
2.1 Financial English
With the thorough globalization and the accelerating speed of economic development ofour country, in order to keep the pace with the whole world, it is necessary for financial fieldto get the newest and the most leading-edge financial information, along with which thedemand for financial English text reading from the professionals is continually increasing.Therefore, there should be an upsurge of enthusiasm for financial English translation and it isessential to translate this kind of professional text precisely to meet the need of us Chinesepeople. Thus in this chapter, the author will dig into financial English and its translation sothat it could be well applied to relevance theory framework. At the very beginning, the author thinks that it is rather necessary to make sure what thedefinition of financial English is so that this paper would go on with both a valid theoreticalbasis which is introduced in the last chapter and a solid textual basis which is going to beintroduced in this chapter. And as a start, what is finance?According to Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary, the 6theditionwhich is published by the Commercial Press and Oxford University Press, firstly, when it isused as a noun, it has three kinds of meanings. Finance: 1) money used to run a business, anactivity and a project. For example: Finance for education comes from tax payers. 2) theactivity of managing money, especially by a government or commercial organization. Forexample: The minister of finance, the finance director/ department, a diploma in banking andfinance, the world of high finance. 3) finances: the money available to a person, anorganization or a country; the way this money is managed.
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2.2 Financial English Translation
Financial English has its own characteristics and functions and so on, while althoughthere are many studies related to its translation, the number is far from enough. With thereform policy of China to the world, especially after China entered WTO, China has played amore and more important role in world economy. Except exporting and importing goods,China will export and import technology and service as well, especially in importinghigh-ended financial information. And all these need translation, and thus the translation offinancial English becomes more and more crucial to the Chinese economic growth. Thereforein this section, the author will offer a general review of the current status of financial Englishtranslation and the significance and challenges in translating it.
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Chapter 3 Translation for Financial English under Principles ........32
3.1 The Ostensive-inferential Model in Financial English Translation ......32
3.1.1 Application of Ostensive-inferential Model ........33
3.1.2 Significance of Model Using ...........34
3.2 Cognitive Environment in Financial English Translation.......36
3.2.1 Cognitive Environment of Financial English .......36
3.2.2 Effect of Cognitive Environment on Financial English ......38
3.3 Optimal Relevance in Financial English Translation.......40
3.3.1 Uniqueness of Optimal Relevance in Financial English Translation.......40
3.3.2 Objectives of Optimal Relevance in Financial English Translation ........41
3.4 Enlightenment of Strategies for Financial English Translation .....43
Chapter 3 Translation for Financial English under Principles of Relevance Theory
3.1 The Ostensive-Inferential Model in Financial English Translation
The ostensive-inferential model, as mentioned before, is proposed by Sperber andWilson. They defined it as “the communicator produces a stimulus which makes it mutuallymanifest to communicator and audience that the communicator intends, by means of thisstimulus, to make manifest or more manifest to the audience a set of assumptions I” (Sperberand Wilson, 2001; 63). And the graph in chapter one could be quoted to help making thissense clearer. The speaker sends an ostention which is also known as the informative intention and theostension gives a stimulus that can result in possible assumptions through a mutuallymanifest. And at last, the assumptions can offer the hearer conditions to make inferencewhich is also known as the communicative intention about the whole communication. This ishow the model works, but how is this model used in the specific text? The following sectionwould explain the process.
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Conclusion
This thesis paper was designed to make a study of the application of relevance theory inEnglish for special purpose and the thesis paper had taken the financial English as anexample for empirical research.When Sperber and Wilson published their remarkable work, in which they proposedtheir famous theory – relevance theory based on Grice’s cooperative principle, linguistic fieldhad stepped into a new era. This theory arouses more attention to the study of communication.From Sperber and Wilson’s point of view, relevance theory focuses on human cognition andthey argue that human cognitive processes are ready to seek the most possible positivecognitive effect with the least possible processing effort. The basic idea of relevance theory isnamed communicative principle of relevance which means that the information that iscommunicated should come with a guarantee of relevance. They also believe that allutterances come with some kind of context and the utterances must convey some kind ofimplicatures so that when people communicate relevance theory is important to explainhuman communication and it accounts for the interaction of linguistic meaning andcontextual factors in the utterance interpretations. And it is Gutt who brings the famouslinguistic theory that is relevance theory into the application of translation field. It is a bigstep in using the theory flexibly and it is a key to guide the following studies on bothlinguistic and translation topics. And it also plays an essential role in this paper which aims tofind effective ways to the translation of English for special purpose, especially in financialEnglish translation.
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References (omitted)