The Translation of English and Chinese Puns from the Perspective of Relevance Theory

Abstract

This paper attempts to provide a relevance-theoretic account for the translation of puns between English and Chinese. The rich cultural connotations behind puns and the distinctive features of the puns’ form, sound and meanings pose great challenges to the translator. Relevance Theory, as a communication theory on the basis of cognitive science, emphasises on the achievement of communication efficacy or the ‘mutual manifestness’ between the communicator and the receptor. Based on such a framework, the author ventures to propose several strategies to translate puns, namely punning correspondence, separate explanation, change of the image, sacrifice of secondary information and editorial means. The preconditions for the adoption of each strategy have also been described through in-depth analysis of different translated versions of the selected corpus with the aim of facilitating the translator’s actual practice.