On The Translation Of Humor In Tne Adventures Of Tom Sawyer From The Perspective Of Dynamic Equivalence Theory

With the rapid development of globalization, there are more and more culturalcommunications between different countries, part of which is being conducted byliterature translation. As a unique cultural phenomenon, humor translation is gettingmore attention than before because of the difficulties in translation caused by thedifferences in language and culture. Up till now, the dispute on translatability anduntranslatability of humor has never ceased. It is the same to the issue of which theoryis more suitable in guiding humor translation. Some scholars suggest Gestact Theory,some scholars suggest Relevance Theory, and some prefer Functionalist Translation.However, there is no agreement on which one is better or more suitable in humortranslation.This thesis plans to make an in-depth study on humor translation through a case studyof Mark Twain’s the Adventures of Tom Sawyer under the guidance of Nida’sdynamic equivalence theory. Since Nida developed dynamic equivalence theory in1960s, translators and scholars in the field of translation have held different ideas onthe theory. However, it is undoubteful that Dynamic Equivalence is different fromtranditional translation theory in providing a completely new criterion for theevaluation of translation. In order to study how Dynamic Equivalence is used inevaluating humor translation, the author chooses two Chinese versions of TheAdventures of Tom Sawyer, one of the most famous novels by Mark Twain and makescomparisons in humor translation from the perspective of dynamic equivalence theory.Nida thinks that a successful translation should be the closest natural equivalent to thesource language that can evoke from its readers the same response as the source textdoes from its readers. In order to achieve a successful humor translation, the author ofthis thesis proposes two strategies: foreignization and domestication, three methods:literal translation, substitution and conversion in conducting humor translation. In fact, since humor can be classified differently according to different standard, anddifferent humor has different function, so, the most important point is that translatorshould adopt different approaches according to different purposes or functions so as tokeep faithfulness to source text and best readability for the target receptors.