Translation Of Puns In Sitcoms Based On The Quantitative Model Of Pragmatic Translation Of Puns

The thriving film and television industries have pushed audiovisual translation(AVT)and subtitling to the forefront in recent years.For instance,The Big Bang Theory,a popular American sitcom,has been subtitled into Chinese by various fansub groups.One challenge in its translation is the frequent use of puns in the original dialogues.Pun translation,or rather the AVT of puns,however,has not received due attention.This thesis examines two versions(YYets and Netflix)of pun translation in The Big Bang Theory by using the Quantitative Model of Pragmatic Translation of Puns propounded by Zhao Huijun as well as conducting textual analysis of typical examples.The purpose is to evaluate the quality of pun translation as affected by different choices of strategies and then offer suggestions on how to improve the process.The quantitative results show that YYets’s translation of collected puns is of higher quality than Netflix’s.Among Transference,Equivalence,Substitution,Neutralization,Omission,Compensation,and Editorial Technique,the most frequently utilized strategies in YYets include Editorial Technique,Transference and Neutralization,while those in Netflix are Omission,Neutralization and Transference.It has been proven that Transference and Equivalence are most likely to reach a high translation quality,followed by Neutralization,Substitution and then Omission.The Editorial Technique,used either independently or along with other strategies,produces results of varied qualities.Compensation,a strategy never deployed in the examples analyzed,needs further exploration.In light of all this,Transference and Equivalence are particularly recommended.The study bridges a research gap in the AVT of puns by combining quantitative and qualitative methods.It also offers practical advice on assessing and raising the quality of pun translation.