Relevance-theoretic Study Of Humorous Utterance Translation

Relevance theory advanced by Sperber and Wilson and the relevance-based account of translation theory posed by Gutt have become a new theory of directing translation at present. Many scholars have done some researches to translation from the perspective of relevance theory. This thesis which studies the specific case of humorous utterance translation intends to prove relevance theory is powerful in accounting for the theory and practice of translation, especially in explaining humorous utterance translation and provides a new angle for the researches into humorous utterance translation. The most important point for humorous utterance translation is to render its style, reflect its humorous effects and attain equivalent functional translation.The introduction defines humorous utterances, introduces their classification and features, expounds the difficulties in translating humorous utterance and states the reason why the author chooses this topic.Chapter One elaborates a necessity of relevance-theoretic humorous utterance translation. Humorous utterance translation follows the general laws of relevance-theoretic translation. In 1.1, the thesis introduces two important notions: relevance and cognitive context and furthermore it states the influence of cognitive contexts including cognitive linguistic context, situational context and cultural context on humorous utterance translation. In 1.2, the thesis discusses the relationship between relevance theory and humorous utterance translation. The relationship fully embodies in the nature of humorous utterance translation under the direction of relevance theory. The nature of humorous utterance translation comprises three aspects: humorous utterance translation is an ostensive-inferential communicative act; humorous utterance translation is a process in which the translator seeks the optimal relevance between the cognitive contexts of SL and TL; humorous utterance translation is an interlingual interpretive use. Thus the thesis also puts forward the criterion to judge relevance-theoretic humorous utterance translation: the transference of...