A Study On Verbal Humor Translation From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

According to traditional translation theory, translation is regarded as a means to realizethe transference of meaning from a language into another through code-switching, whichdenies the role of dynamic inference in communication. Relevance Theory proposed bySperber and Wilson in1986is a combination study of cognition and pragmatics, which holdsthat human communication is cognitive orientated. In the process of understanding discourse,the listener will inevitably find the optimal relevance of the utterance so that he can getcontextual effects. Then, Gutt combines the study of Relevance Theory and translation,holding that translation is an interlingual communicative activity as well as a kind ofpragmatic behavior. Therefore, as a kind of cognitive and pragmatic theory aims to explainthe communication, Relevance Theory has explanatory power for the translation.As a kind of human phenomenon, humor, in essence, is a kind of verbal communicationsince the reality of the humor especially depends on context. Therefore, this thesis tries tomake analysis of verbal humor and its translation in Fortress Besieged from the perspective ofRelevance Theory in order to prove that Relevance Theory has a strong explanatory power fortranslation. And in verbal humor translation process, the translator adopts flexible translationmethods in order to ensure the validity of the translation.The thesis studies verbal humor translation in Fortress Besieged under the guidance ofRelevance Theory. These verbal humors are classified into three types: cultural-loaded humor,linguistic humor and universal humor. Then the analysis is carried out with the help of Gutt sdirect and indirect translation methods, including literal translation, annotation, supplement,substitution, and paraphrase. At the same time, merits and demerits of the translation areillustrated.Through the theory study and case analysis, this thesis draws the following conclusions:Relevance Theory has a strong explanatory power for translation, especially for verbal humortranslation; the translator should flexibly choose translation methods to achieve the optimalrelevance in the process of translation, so that the target text can correctly transfer humorouseffects; although relevance theory has a strong explanatory power for translation, any theorycould not fully cover all translation phenomena, the author of the thesis finally points outdeficiencies of the Relevance Theory and shortcomings of this thesis.