Wei Cheng contains lots of metaphors and similes and that forms a typical style of Qian Zhongshu. Those metaphors and similes describe characters in Wei Cheng quite vividly and get readers attracted in its plot. Qian’s creativity in novel language lies in his success in turning his deep feelings, life experiences and sense of values into literary language with metaphors and similes.
1.2 Significance of the Research
Based on Cambridge Dictionary of American English with Chinese Translation (2010), “simile is an expression including the words ‘like’ or ‘as’ to compare one thing with another”. (p. 1182)
Similarly, the dictionary defines metaphor as “an expression that describes a person or object by referring to something that is considered to possess similar characteristics”, hence making a not explicit comparison, as in “a sea of troubles” or “the entire world's a stage”. (p. 793)
Translations of metaphors and similes have always been a challenge for translators. So, there is a question to every translators—how to clarify the essence of the author’s meaning to target readers.
Wei Cheng is one of the masterpieces of twentieth century and is famous for its metaphors and similes. Although they have been studied for many years, seldom have people discuss them from the perspective of relevance theory. The author of this paper intends to try a new angle in the research of Wei Cheng’s translation.
Besides, it is known to us all that with the development of the times, theories are developing, so I think it is necessary for us to take the change of theory into account. After analyzing some changes, in my mind, relevance theory now has some interesting benefits in translation.
1.3 Structure of the Paper
This paper constitutes of five parts.
Chapter one is the introduction, the background, and the significance of the research is introduced.
 Chapter two states the literature review, researches on Wei Cheng and its English version Fortress Besieged at home and abroad, the limitations of the current studies and why I choose to discuss from the perspective of relevance theory.
 Chapter three will be the theoretical framework of the paper. The first part concentrates on the development of relevance theory. Then comes the introduction how the relevance theory can be used in translation and how can we achieve the optimal relevance.
Chapter four clarifies the feasibility of using relevance theory for translating Wei Cheng and Fortress Besieged and examples of translations of metaphors and similes will be given and a textual analysis will be made.
Chapter five is the last part of the paper that is designed to draw a conclusion and present the findings, limitations and expectations. 《围城》中明喻和暗喻的英文翻译(2):http://www.youerw.com/yingyu/lunwen_31127.html