Translating Humorous Texts: A German-Functionalism-Based Systemic Approach

Due to the special nature and properties of humor, the translation of humorous textsconstitutes one of the most challenging areas of translation practice. Naturally, relevantstudies of it have been carried out and have made apparent achievements in understanding itsnature and features and in designing proper principles and strategies for it. Often, however,these studies are limited by a lack comprehensive theoretical bases and methodologies andneed to be compensated for by more integrated studies. Guided by Jia Zhengchuan’sDialectical Systemic Philosophy of Translation, based on German functionalist theories oftranslation, and employing an integrated methodology combining deduction and induction orsynthesis and analysis, this thesis therefore conducts an integrated study of humorous texttranslation and establishes a German-functionalism-based systemic approach to it.On the conceptual levels, the formulated approach comprises a German-functionalism-based systemic notion and characterization of the translation of humorous texts: Humoroustext translation is generally a contextualized purposeful communicative and artisticinterlingual, inter-textual, interpersonal, intersocietal and intercultural humorous textprocessing activity, being internally composed of initiator, commissioner, source humoroustext producer, source humorous text receiver, translator, target humorous text receiver and/oruser, source humorous text, target humorous text, Skopoi, strategies and other componentswith a complementarily differentiating and competitively coordinating structure, beingexternally conditioned by a situational and socio-cultural context and performing in itlinguistic, artistic, cognitive, psychological, social, cultural and other functions, especially thefunction of passing on humor, and temporally exhibiting itself as a process of continuoushumorous text comprehension and production. Humorous text translation is characterizedgenerally by dialectical interconnectedness, internally by dialectical integrity, externally bydialectical openness, and temporally by dialectical dynamicity.On the operational levels, the approach proposed in this thesis consists of a German-functionalism-based systemic rule and strategy system for the translation of humorous texts: On one level, it is composed of four ordered rules, i.e., the overall interconnectedness rule (i.e.“Take all relevant factors and relations into consideration”), the high-degree openness rule (i.e.“Be aware of relevant external conditioning factors”), the multidimensional integrity rule (i.e.,“Deal with all the internal relationships in order”)(which in turn comprises three sub-rules, i.e.the Skopos rule—“Try to satisfy the Skopos of the target text”, the coherence rule—“Tryto make the target text reader or user-friendly”, and the fidelity rule—“try to be loyal to thesource text”), and the multifaceted dynamicity rule (i.e.“Keep the dimension of time inmind”). On another level, it comprises four procedures consistent with the four rules, i.e.,overall consideration, contextual analysis, structural analysis, and process and analysis, and italso consists of such documentary and instrumental strategies as interlinear translation, literaltranslation, philological translation, foreignizing translation, equifunctional translation,heterofunctional translation, and homologous translation.The results of this study are helpful to enhancing the translator’s capability ofsystematically viewing, and characterizing humorous text translation and flexibly choosingand applying appropriate rules and strategies for it and may thereby facilitate the practice ofhumorous text translation. It may also compensate for the drawbacks of the existing studies ofhumorous translation. This study is therefore of both theoretical as well as practical value.