A Quantitative Study On Pragmatic Translation Of Puns

Although there is a different connotation in English pun and Chinese pun, the puns inboth languages can be classified into two types: the homophonic and the homonymic. Theconformity of two types of puns in two languages is the basis to transform puns from onelanguage into another effectively.In measuring the quality of translation effectively and exactly, it is necessary to applythe methods of mathematics, logics and linguistics into practice. Three meaning points,including two meanings of an orignial pun (two source meanings: SM1and SM2) and apragmatic meaning (source pragmatic meaning: SPM), are the invariable elements intranslating puns, while the corresponding three points of the original in target language arethe variable elements, including two target meanings (TM1and TM2) and a targetpragmatic meaning (TPM). By analysing the correspondence of the invariables and thevariables, the overlapping charts of three meaning points could be drawn, in which, OD(overlapping degree) could be moved from0to1dynamically. And, a concise and feasibledynamic quantitative translation model of puns is established.We could take advantage of a method of target language pragmatic exploration toverify the effectiveness of the pragmatic quantitative models in translating different typesof puns. Under the dynamic leading of the quantitative model of pragmatic translation ofpuns, not only could we get the more concise and satisfactory translating results, but alsothe incredible target consequences probably---which might be different expressions but bein line with the original---usually arousing one’s speculation and probing desire deeply.In brief, by studying the quantitative model of pragmatic translation of puns, we could,although some puns couldn’t be translated into target language in some extent, translatedifferent types of puns into the ideal target language, and prove the effectiveness of themodel.