Redivivus Of Satiric Humor In Fortress Besieged

The present thesis is a tentative study on the redivivus of satirically humorous metaphors in Fortress Besieged, the English translation of Wei Cheng. By exercising General Theory of Verbal Humor, especially the knowledge resource of incongruity, the paper analyzes systematically how the metaphors in the source text trigger bitter laughter. Furthermore, under the framework of Relevance Theory, which claims the common nature of translation activity and any communicative activities, namely, the pursuit of optimal relevance, the thesis deciphers the manipulation of metaphors in the English version, thus indicates that the effect of the translation highly depends on the cognitive environment of the reader and the effort made. The translator must re-forge various triggers of humor based on the comprehensive understanding of the cognitive overlapping and discrepancy between the readers of the two cultures. From the perspective of Relevance Theory, the process of translation constitutes two rounds of communications, in which the translator plays a double role of both an audience and communicator. As the audience in the first round, s/he needs to recognize the optimal relevance visualized by the original writer and understand the source text properly. In the second round, s/he conducts as a communicator and should convey the understanding to the target readers in a way that is optimally relevant to them. Obviously, in each round, optimal relevance is the principle of successful communication. Therefore the transfer of optimal relevance from the source text to the target text becomes the translation principle. In all, the present thesis is of some significance referring to the future researches in question.The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter one, the introduction, presents the research background, significance and methodology. Chapter two tenders a relevance theoretic approach to verbal humor comprehension and illustrates with some examples from Wei Cheng the importance of incongruity, the core of GTVH, in the understanding and systematic analysis of humorous texts. Furthermore, the third chapter discusses the relation between Relevance Theory and translation activities, particularly metaphor translation; the fourth chapter, with the help of Relevance Theory, thoroughly analyses the manipulation of satirically humorous metaphors in the English version and points out its merits and demerits. The last chapter, the conclusion, is a review of the study by which the author of this thesis indicates that the translators of the English version mainly retain the vehicles of the metaphors. They expect the reader to make certain effort for achieving the communication, thus realizing the travel of source language culture to the target language culture. Only when there's overlapping between the two cultures can we achieve optimal relevance by retaining the vehicles of the source text metaphors. By contrast, the discrepancy and even the vacuum between them together with the translator's improper manipulation of Chinese language will fail the original writer.