Testing the Degree of Optimal Relevance by Way of Student Response: A ClassroomBased Examination

Abstract

In the light of Relevance Theory, contextual effect and processing effort are the two major indispensable conditions for yielding relevance with varying degree of strength. As it is, the pursuit of optimal relevance aims at yielding the largest contextual effect in return with the minimum processing effort. This principle of communication guides the message receivers to choose the acceptable contextual assumptions for interpreting speaker-intended meaning. But how does a translator judge what is or is not relevant to the target-text reader with different cognitive ability and expectation? How does a translator know the contextual assumption and the intended interpretation are capable of achieving adequate or appropriate contextual effect? What if the translator arrives at a contextual assumption but clashes with the target-text reader’s expectation? These questions are worked out through a classroom-based testing on optimal relevance by way of student response generated from reading translated texts of different genres. It is suggested in this study that through this exercise student translator will get first-hand experience of confronting the real readers’ taste and preferences, and learn to incorporate the responses into further revision.

Keywords

• Relevance Theory
• Translator
• Classroom-Based Examination
• Testing
• Taiwanese Learners