Relevance translation theory can serve as a useful tool to compare and analyze the four translations of the poem, in the hope of testifying the feasibility of cognitive environment, communicative purpose and equivalence of optimal relevance in appraisal of poem translation.

This paper applies Relevance Theory to Equivalence Theory and develops a new term “optimal equivalence” to match optimal relevance, which terminates the dichotomous and taxonomic terminology o.

The Optimal Relevance of Net News Headlines——A Mirror of the Press s Attitudinal Meaning;

Creative Treason and Optimal Relevance in Literary Translation;

The relevance theory holds that the course of translation is the course of searching after the optimal relevance.

The optimal relevance is both the goal that the translator tries to achieve and the criterion that translations should abide by.

Correct understanding to the original is essencial to translation,which depends on the translator\'s chances of finding out the optimal relevance between the original sentences and the author\'s contextual assumption.

After studying Relevance Theory and combining it with translation practice, this paper presents the following enlightenments: the translator must take into account both source language author s intention and target language readers cognitive contexts in the course of translation; translator must apply proper translation tactics flexibly to achieve optimal relevance of translation texts.

In relevance theory the optimal relevance has the most powerful explanation regarding to translation and it is as well the basic argument for relevance-theoretic translation.