An Analysis Of Humor Translation In English Comedies From The Perspective Of Skoposthorie

As a means of cultural communication and entertainment, movies are closely related to people’s daily life. In recent years, as international cultural transmission flourishes, the function of movies cannot be underrated. More and more excellent foreign movies have been introduced; especially the Hollywood blockbusters which symbolize the most received English movies and American situation comedies, also known as sitcoms. The Hollywood blockbuster and sitcoms usher in audio-visual shock for Chinese audience in terms of its unique narration, pressing episodes and the application of special effects.English movies provide Chinese audience with the approaches to comprehending Western culture, as well as learning English. Obviously, the translation means a lot in the process. Film translation is subordinate to the translation in a broad sense. As a result, functionalist approaches are of great instructive significance to film translation.Traditionally, there are three types of the movie, that is, comedy, tragicomedy and tragedy. This thesis probes into the translation of humorous language in English comedies. Humorous language in the movies with its strong national characteristics has constantly been regarded as a thorny issue in translation, even as untranslatable. What’s more, due to the limitation of time and space, how to convey the same humor effects to Chinese spectators only by scanning the subtitles below the screen in a limited time seems extremely arduous.Skopostheorie was proposed by German translator Hans Vermeer. According to Skopostheorie, translation is defined as a purposeful activity as well as an intentional communication between cultures."The end determines the means" becomes the essence of this theory, which lays the emphasis on the purpose of translation activity. The most significant aim of humor translation is to retain and to impart the humorous effects. Consequently, Skopostheorie can be applied as the theoretical frame for humor translation.In this thesis, the author employs Skopostheorie as the theoretical basis for the translation activity. The humorous language which is constantly used in movies is classified in the thesis. And its features and functions are introduced. Generally humor can be categorized into situation and non-situation humor. Situation humor refers to the behaviors, response, results violating normal reasons under specific situation. Although expressed by language, some effects rely more on specific condition than language use. However, as for the non-situation, humor is independent of circumstances. Non-situation humor is mainly performed by the employment of rhetorical devices, such as pun, hyperbole, parody, anti-climax, irony.Through the elaboration of the application of Scopostheorie in the translation of humorous language in English movies, the author summarizes three principles in the translation activity. Firstly, the target text should retain and reproduce the humorous effects of the source text; secondly, the target text should conform to the cultural customs of target language to have the readers perceive the humor; thirdly, the major information of the source text should be conveyed in the process. Under the guidance of the principles, the author also offers four translation strategies, that is, literal translation, liberal translation, domestication and foreignnization.