To Laugh Or Not To Laugh, That Is The Question-A Case Study Of Humor Translation In Pride And Prejudice

The word "humor" comes from Latin, meaning "moisture". Its main function is to make people laugh. Therefore, many writers are fond of adjusting the atmosphere of their works by using a certain kind of humor. Humor is shared by every nation. However, different nations have different kinds of sense of humor, closely related to religion, ideology, society, politics and culture. Therefore, although humor has been studied for a very long time, most are from the perspective of literature, art, sociology, psychology, pragmatics or linguistics. Only a few scholars study the translation of humor, most of whom are from the subjective perspective of functional equivalence, stylistics, and so on. This thesis tries to study the translation of humor from the perspective of DTS.What is Descriptive Translation Studies? In Maria Tymoczko's words: Descriptive Translation Studies—when they attend to process, product, and function—set translation practices in time and, thus by extension, in politics, ideology, economics, and culture. Scholars of DTS hold the view that there are no ideal translations. So we get information by studying the existing translations instead of paying any attention to the ideal translation. Through studying, norms that are used to judge the translation behavior are hoped to be found. And according to Cheng Hongwei, at present, the prescriptive model of "standard—analysis—conclusion" dominates the field of translation criticism, which is, indeed, suitable effective for a synchronic evaluation of translations. However, "when it is concerned with the different translations of the same original under different social and historical conditions, this method will shed little light on them, but descriptive translation studies can". So in this thesis, DTS is employed.The author chooses Pride and Prejudice as the case study, the masterpiece of Jane Austen's. Jane Austen is a very famous novelist in the early 19th century. She is good at describing the common life of the middle-class people. Sir Walter Scott thought highly of her ability to render "ordinary commonplace things and characters interesting", Macaulay and George Lewes regarded her as no less than a "prose Shakespeare"; and in the twentieth century Brigid Brophy described her as "the greatest novelist of all time". Jane Austen's words are humorous and her description is vivid. And Pride and Prejudice fully shows Jane Austen's characteristics of writing. In this thesis, the author divides the humor of Jane Austen into four categories: irony, sarcasm, hyperbole, metaphor and dramatic presentation. As to each category, the author cites several examples from Pride and Prejudice and gives the translation from each version the author has collected. By comparing the different translations of the examples of humor, a norm of translating humor is found. When translating humor, translators should try their best to imitate the writing style of the author and reproduce the style of the work.