C-E Translation Of Chinese Puns From The Experessive Function Perspective

Pun, as one of common rhetoric, exists in almost all languages in the world. The Chinese pun has a long history and under the influences of its language, culture etc., bears the distinct characteristics which are different from those of the English pun. The translation of puns is always difficult or impossible. The application scope of pun is also becoming wider and wider. It springs to the eye or ear from formal occasions to the daily usage. The longstanding history and wide application of pun arouse rhetoricians'and linguists'great interests. They have spared no efforts to study pun. With the language development and deep-going research, people's understanding towards pun continuously renews. The scope of pun is no more confined to words, but expanded to the whole text. Pun is not just the pure rhetorical method in traditional rhetoric any more. It plays a new role and has unique effects in those relevant study fields which share the intimate relationship with rhetoric. All these new explorations of pun which are based on the analysis of large quantities of language materials, renovate people's realization towards the Chinese pun.According to the Peter 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 Chinese pun translation. Newmark has divided texts into three types, namely expressive, informative and vocative. In this thesis, the author puts more attention in expressive text to translation of Chinese pun. The author dissects Chinese pun from its definition, application scope, classification and the typical examples in different periods of Chinese history so that the thesis is beneficial to people's full understanding of Chinese pun. The translation of puns is usually thought of as difficult or impossible. The author discusses the translatability of puns from multiple aspects and introduces several translation methods of domestic and foreign scholars. This thesis is beneficial to the understanding of the characteristics of Chinese pun and the laws of pun translation from Chinese into English. And it is helpful to people's full understanding and flexible application of pun, people's decoding appreciation of literary works, and translation of translators.