Strategies Of Verbal Humor Translation From English To Chinese-A Study Based On The GTVH And Relevance Theory

Humor is something common and necessary in our daily life. There is no society in which humor has not been reported to exist. This thesis explores the issue of verbal humor translation in the light of General Theory of Verbal Humor (hereafter referred to as GTVH) and Gutt's translation theory based on Relevance Theory.GTVH relates perceived differences between jokes to six hierarchically ordered Knowledge Resources (KRs), namely Language, Narrative Strategy, Target, Situation, Logical Mechanism, Script Opposition. Hereafter verbal humor, an elusive subject can be analyzed systematically and structurally. However, considering the fact that humor is culturally specific and its appreciation depends on the readers'cognitive environment; the GTVH is obviously inadequate to depict how humor should be translated to maintain its similarity and effects in another culture.According to the Relevance Theory, which is based on the cognitive linguistics, translation consists of two ostensive-inferential processes, and three parties are involved: the source text author, the translator and the target text reader. Gutt who applied Relevance Theory to translation, points out that the nature of translation is an interpretive use of language aiming at achieving optimal relevance. In order to achieve communicative success, the translator should compare the cognitive environments of original readers with that of target readers and reconstruct humor clues in a way that ensures optimal relevance.From the hierarchy of Knowledge Resources follows a mini-theory of joke translation: if possible respect all six KRs in your translation, but if necessary, let your translation differ at the lowest level necessary for your pragmatic purposes. From the perspective of Relevance Theory, the more KRs'similarities have to be given up, the more cognitive environments should be considered. The binary branching methods are set up based on these two theories, from the highest level to the lowest level as practical translation strategies: preserve all 6 KRs, preserve only 5 KRs, preserve only 4 KRs, preserve only 3 KRs, preserve only 2 KRs, and preserve only 1 KR. And at each level the corresponding translation methods are listed and illustrated.