On Translation Of Puns From The Perspective Of Semantic Translation And Communicative Translation

The pun application in literature may date back to two thousand years ago, and it is still widely utilized today in all kinds of subjects. The pun translation is always difficult; even some people consider puns as untranslatable. The previous scholars and researchers have their particular ideas on the translation of pun from the perspective of functional equivalence, pragmatic relevance theory, social semiotics, adaptation approach and so on, all with valuable achievement. Based on Newmark's theory of semantic translation and communicative translation, this article makes a new attempt in methods of translating puns and provides a new strategy in pun translation.According to Buhler's classification of the language function, the English translator, translation theorist Newmark has divided texts into three types, namely expressive, informative and vocative. In view of different types of text translation, he proposes the theory of semantic translation and communicative translation. The two are to be applied respectively referring to different types of texts where puns appear, or combined together. Communicative translation is to convey the exact information, and semantic translation is to retain the language specialty and cultural distinction of the original text; the combination of semantic translation and communicative translation is to serve the two purposes simultaneously. This thesis classifies numerous pun examples into three kinds according to the text-types (expressive text, informative text and vocative text) that they appear in, translates the pun examples with semantic translation and communicative translation theory, and proves the feasibility, applicability and importance of this theory in pun translation.The pun translation is both interesting and bothering. Few people in our country carry on comprehensive research and provide systematic elaboration on how to translate puns. This article is a beneficial attempt, aiming to provide some help for translators and to offer a few ordinary introductory remarks so that others may offer their valuable ideas. It is sincerely hoped that pun translation attracts more attention, and that this article can act as a model and also a reference for developing research in pun translation.