Agnieszka Solska “Whoever finds it relevant” - translating and retranslating Tao Te Ching in a relevance-theoretic perspective 1. Introduction Translating literary and philosophical texts is often a translator-driven activity and may be seen as a process of communication with no definite addressees. As such it seems to represent what Sperber and Wilson call “broadcast communica- tion” in which “the communicator is communicating her presumption of relevance to whoever is willing to entertain it” (Sperber—Wilson 1986:158). This seems to be especially true of the ancient Chinese philosophical work Tao Te Ching, which - after the Bible - is reputedly the second most often translated book in the world. Written some time between the 6th and the 3rd century BC by the legendary sage Lao Tzu, the Book of the Way reflects upon the nature of the universe and human behavior thus laying the philosophical foundations for one of the world’s great wisdom traditions, Taoism. Comprising a mere 5,000 words broken up into 81 chapters it has been one of the major underlying influences in Chinese thought and culture for over two millennia. Though the book was first translated into English in the 19th century most Westerners remain oblivious to its existence, yet it seems to have captured the attention of legions of translators. As Ursula Le Guin observed, “... so many Tao Te Chings have appeared or reappeared that one begins to won- der if Lao Tzu has more translators than he has readers” (Le Guin 1997: 110). While it may be argued that each of the various translators merely attempts to restate the classic for his or her generation, this does not explain the sheer number of recent translations or the surprising fact that many of these are merely inter- polations based on other translations and are written by authors who do not even know Chinese. Inevitably the question arises why so many feel compelled to pro- duce yet another rendition of a text they cannot read? Another question that might appear is to what extent the numerous translators are merely mediators of mean- ing between the source text writer and the target text reader and to what extent