Abstract:  Fortress besieged is famous for its glamorous and stunning figures of speech, especially metaphors dotted throughout the whole novel, which help dress it colorfully with diversified cultural connotations and powerful aesthetic effects. Successful translation of metaphors is thus very important to this masterpiece’s exotic trip, which can be effectively described with the help of relevance theory. 

Relevance theory was put forward by Sperber and Wilson in 1986, with linguistic communication and cognition as their major concern. Generally, an utterance may be interpreted in different ways in various cases, however, we can not gain all possible meanings in any single situation. We may reach a certain understanding and rule out other possibilities of understanding in accordance with relevance. Therefore, the meaning of a specific utterance depends on the context. 

Under the framework of relevance theory, translation involves complex cross-language communicative activities and the translator play a dual role. In the process of understanding the source text, the author acts as a communicator and the translator an acceptor. In the process of creating the target text, the translator functions as the communicator and the target reader as the acceptor. Throughout the whole process, the optimal relevance is the key element to the success of communication. On one hand, the translator can only reach an effective understanding of the source text through his/her successful search for the optimal relevance with specific cultural context. On the other hand, the translator strives to interpret his/her understanding with optimal relevance to the target culture and with the least requirement of efforts for the target reader to understand the target text.

Through the description of the translation of metaphors in Fortress Besieged with relevance theory as the theoretical foundation, it is indicated that metaphors should be flexibly rendered with full consideration of optimal relevance with both the source culture and the target culture for possible reproduction of aesthetic effects.

Key Words：Fortress Besieged，relevance theory，translation of metaphors，aesthetic effects

CONTENTS

摘要

Abstract

1. Introduction..1

2. A Brief Introduction to Metaphor.2

  2.1 The Definition of Metaphor

  2.2 The Function of Metaphor

3. Relevance Theory and Metaphor.3

  3.1 The Origin and Definition of Relevance Theory

  3.2 The Principle of Relevance Theory

  3.3 The Application of Relevance Theory in the Translation of Metaphor

4. The Translation of Metaphor in Fortress Besieged..5

  4.1 The Aesthetic Effects of Metaphor in Fortress Besieged 

  4.2 Reproduction of Aesthetic Effects of Metaphor with Optimal Relevance

4.3 The Translation Strategies of Metaphor in Fortress Besieged

4.3.1 Literal Translation

4.3.2 Literal Translation with Additional Explanations

4.3.3 Free Translation

5. Conclusion...10 

Bibliography12

Acknowledgements.13