Verbal Humor And Humor Translation In The Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn From The Perspective Of Cooperative Principle

This thesis explores the issue of verbal humor's production mechanism and verbal humor translation from the perspective of Cooperative Principle in pragmatics with special reference to Mark Twain's original text and Zhang Wanli's translated version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn(shorted as Huckleberry Finn).Cooperative Principle, which was first proposed by Grice, is to regulate the interlocutors'verbal behavior in conversation. This principle has four maxims, namely the maxim of quality, quantity, relation and manner, which clearly regulate what should be said in conversion and how it is to be said. To Grice, only when the principle is complied with can we ensure the effective exchange of information. However, some verbal humors usually violate one or two maxims of Cooperative Principle to generate effects such as exaggeration, satire, and amusement etc. Firstly, this thesis analyzes the production mechanism of verbal humor in Huckleberry Finn through the violation of four maxims of Cooperative Principle.Secondly, this paper is designed to analyze humor translation from the perspective of Cooperative Principle and its four maxims. In the process of translation, the author interprets translation from the perspective of Cooperative Principle as follows: Translation is an indirect conversation cycle between the original writer and the translator, then between the translator and the target readers. The translator bridges a cross-cultural communication between the original writer and the target readers by transferring the message with the translated version. Furthermore, the translator should also abide by the four maxims, which can be interpreted as follows: abiding by the maxim of Quality means conveying the information of original text loyally and reproducing the humor effect accurately; abiding by the maxim of Quantity means avoiding reducing the required information and losing the humor effect; abiding by the maxim of Relation means treating the original text as an organic whole, making the translation more coherent in order to reproduce the similar humor effect; abiding by the maxim of Manner means avoiding obscurity and ambiguity and making the translation logical, explicit to convey the humor effect. Another core of this thesis aims at exploring how CP maxims are employed and obeyed in humor translation to reproduce the humor effect of original text with reference to Zhang Wanli's translated version of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.Finally, from the study and analysis in this thesis, it is can be concluded that Cooperative Principle provides a new and effective way to the study of verbal humor and its translation.