The Translation Of Verbal Humor In The American Sitcom From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

Relevance theory, proposed by Sperber and Wilson in their work Relevance: Communication and Cognition in1986, is chosen as a theoretical base of this thesis. Combining relevance theory and translation. Gutt in his article Translation and Relevance, points out that communication is a process of ostension-inference, in which both the speaker and the hearer aim at the optional relevance. Similar to communication, translation is a special communication which occurs between the users who speak different languages. To seek out the optional relevance, a translator who acts as a bridge is indispensable.In recent years, the American sitcom (’sitcom’is the written abbreviation of ’situation comedies’) with humorous language and relaxed effects has swept around the world. The American sitcom has also enjoyed great popularity in China. Many American sitcom fans that are conversant with English not only enjoy the sitcoms but also devote themselves to subtitling translation. Due to differences between English and Chinese languages and the lack of theoretical direction, the amateurs often find themselves in a tight corner and the original humorous effects cannot cause response among Chinese audiences. In this thesis, the attention is attached to the study of verbal humor translation in the American sitcom. The author hopes to make a little contribution while the Chinese audiences enjoy the American sitcom.In this thesis, the author selects the American sitcom Friends for the case study. Under the direction of relevance theory, the author on the one hand approves that the relevance theory is a theory with great explanatory power for verbal humor translation; on the other hand, the author makes a summary’of techniques and methods for verbal humor translation. According to the formation of verbal humor in the American sitcom, the author makes a classification at different levels:at the phonetic level, at the lexical level, at the grammatical level and at the cultural level. The author chooses different types of verbal humor in Friends, analyzes these examples and adopts translation methods and techniques to translate them under the guidance of relevance theory. The author finds that completing and improving the Chinese audiences’ cognitive environment plays a critical role during the whole process of translation. The applicable and effective cognitive environment can help the Chinese audiences establish optional relevance and achieve the contextual effects. Finally, they can enjoy humor and relax themselves. The author hopes that this thesis will provide a theoretical guidance and an operational approach for the verbal humor translation in the American sitcom.