The Relevance of Relevance Theory to the Teaching of Literary Translation to Speakers of Arabic Language

Abstract

This paper deals with the relevance of relevance theory to the teaching and learning of literary translation to Arabic speaking students. It also seeks to demonstrate that the use of a relevance-theoretic framework to teach translation practice to Arab students can yield positive outcomes in terms of accuracy, communicative potential and faithfulness to the original writer’s intentions, among others. After introducing the major premises of the relevance theory of communication and the pertinence of communicative clues to the practice of literary translation, this paper proceeds to a systematic illustration of how these clues can substantially help the student of literary translation to produce communicatively and culturally relevant translations or renditions of texts from English to Arabic and vice versa. Though it involves occasional hints at the translation of stylistic devices, this discussion does not engage with the issue of figurative language in a systematic or explicit way, but rather opens up paths of enquiry into its potential handling from the perspective of the relevance theory of communication. .