On E-C Translation Of English Humor From Functionalist Approach

This thesis aims to explore translating English humor into Chinese from functionalist approach. In the past two decades, humor and its translation have attracted scholarly attention from home and abroad. A popular view is that humor translation is as desperate as poem translation. In the Chinese translation circle, the commonest way to classify humor is to divide it into situational and non-situational humor. Situational humor is highly translatable while non-situational humor is difficult to translate due to cultural and linguistic barriers. To solve these thorny problems, scholars and translators have put forward different strategies such as literal translation, domestication and annotation. However, some strategies used in humor translation that have been proved successful cannot obtain strong theoretical support from traditional translation theories.From the aspects of functions of English humor and its translation purpose, the author makes an in-depth analysis of humor translation. German functionalism is thus chosen to be the theoretical basis of the research. Within the framework of Skopostheorie, the top-ranking principle determining any translation process is realizing the purpose of the overall translational action, and translation strategies are determined by the purpose and the intended function of the target text. The functional appropriateness of the target text becomes the yardstick of assessing the quality of the translation. Thus the measures taken by translators to escape those linguistic and cultural constraints can be theoretically justified.Under the guidance of the functionalist approach, the author holds that humor translation is a purposeful activity and the translation strategies are aimed to fulfill the primary function of the humor translation. The author first sets out different functions of English humor and refutes the arguments that"humor has only one function", and"the translated version which can not make people laugh is regarded a failure". To amuse people is just the basic function of humor, and so is the humor translation. In fact, humor can perform any one or all of the expressive, referential, appellative and phatic functions in different situations. The author further explores how the functionalist approach is applied to humor translation by summing up two possible situations and points out focus should be put on the realization of the primary function when it conflicts with the realization of the basic function in the translation process. In some cases, the laughter-eliciting function can be sacrificed to guarantee the realization of the primary function. After a practical study of the translation examples, the author also finds that some seemingly nonequivalent translations might be the translator's creative treason to better achieve the functions of the humorous texts.In addition, the author specifies the role that inspiration and innovation plays in translating humor."A stroke of genius"is quite frequent in the translation process. At last, the author proposes that in the entertainment-oriented modern society, the combination of English humor and local humor in translating the media products can achieve extraordinary effects among the target-receivers.