Analysis Of Chinese Subtitling Of Humor Expressions In The Big Bang Theory

Sitcoms constantly resort to the dialogues between the characters involved forthe frequent production of humor, aiming to provoke laughers among the viewingaudience every half a minute. Thus the quality of subtitling directly influences theaudience’s comprehension and appreciation of the source humorous texts and evendetermines the ultimate success or failure of the original audiovisual works. However,compared with studies in the western world, China lags behind in this increasinglyimportant field. Therefore, the subtitling of humor elements in sitcoms has become anindispensable field of translation study and practice.The Big Bang Theory is the second most popular and successful sitcom afterFriends. The funny scenarios in the sitcom have gained itself a great reputationamong audiences. There are many lines involving rhetorical devices and wordplay,and it is hard to solve these linguistic-related humors. Besides many humors shown inthe sitcom are produced in some certain situations with images and sounds, whichentails translators more difficulties. Meanwhile, humor is loaded with a great deal ofconnotation involving culture. Since there are so many differences between westernand Chinese cultures, it is much harder to render the cultural humors in the show.Context is a key factor in translating as well as in other communicating activities. And,humorous languages tend to rely on context to achieve pragmatic effects; thus,contextual analysis plays an assignable role in the subtitling of humor elements.The thesis attempts to have a study pertaining to subtitling and humor withreference to context theory. Based on this theory, context is classified into linguistic context and extra-linguistic context (cultural context, situational context and cognitivecontext). By analyzing the popular data collected from one of the most recent sitcoms,this paper studies the idea of how humor is best rendered in subtitles throughcontextual analysis and what translating methods should be adopted under differentcontexts. The thesis hopes to provide a new perspective for the study of the subtitlingof humor elements and makes translators aware of the importance of context in thesubtitling of humor elements in sitcoms.