Conceptual Blending And Hum Or Translation

This paper aims at a cognitive analysis of English humor from the perspective of Conceptual Blending Theory (CBT), a salient theory in western cognitive linguistic field, which was initiated in the1990s by Gilles Fauconnier, a professor of cognitive science at the University of California at San Diego."Humor" was derived from the Latin word since ancient times, and can be classified into verbal humor, cultural humor, and universal humor. CBT theory brought forward a four-space model, which has attracted much attention both in and out of China due to its forceful explanatory power. Scholars have applied it to various aspects of linguistic studies and proved its explanatory power from different angles, but few of them apply this to translation studies and humor translation specifically.In this study, Friends is selected for analysis to probe into the mechanism of CBT in humor translation. Friends is a popular American sitcom among Chinese university students and young white-collars, a sitcom abundant in humor at different levels. The present paper first discusses the classification of humor, then analyzes the construction of humor on the basis of CBT by using cross-space mappings, selective projection, generic space, the blend, emergent structure, conceptual integration networks and integration principles. In Chapter4CBT in humor translation is examined through examples. The present paper is conducted inductively to arrive at the cognitive model of humor on account of conceptual blending theory and proves the explanatory power of CBT on humor translation.It has both verified the CBT’s explanatory power at literary level and offers a new approach for appreciating and studying humor translation. It can be concluded that single-framing network in humor translation often happens in universal humor, which is usually translated through literal translation strategy. Misunderstanding and metaphor translation of humor often relate with frame networks, though these humor themselves may be constructed through different types of frame networks. Culture humor translation is usually done through one-sided or two-sided networks. Foreigniztion is usually adopted in humor translation that is constructed through one-sided network. Domestication is usually adopted in humor translation that is constructed through two-sided network.