Practice Study Report On E-C Translation Of English Humorous Fictions

As one important branch of literary translation, English fiction translation arouses more and more attentions. Humor with the function of amusement is often expressed in the fictions which features its attractive plots. But humor translation is always acknowledged as one of the most debatable among all types of translations. Until now the arguments on its translatability and untranslatability continue and no agreement has been reached.This practice study report centers round the excerpts (Chapter 1 to Chapter 5) of a humorous fiction Skipping Christmas written by John Grisham as well as its E-C translation process. It mainly explains how the writer of this report applies Nord’s function plus loyalty theory to guide this translation practice, and explores the appropriate strategies for translating English humorous fictions. By summarizing the difficulties in humor translation, this report also discusses how to retain the original’s spirit and style in the translation and how to transmit the humorous effects with the application of appropriate strategies. The writer wants to provide a case study for perfecting humor translation through this report, and improve the writer’s own translation skills.Humor can be divided into two types:situational humor and non-situational humor. According to their respective features and with the guidance of Nord’s function plus loyalty, the writer has adopted different translation strategies, like the literal and liberal translation, domestication, addition and annotation. Meanwhile, the writer has also emphasized the importance of pre-translational preparations and post-translational proof and revision in this report.As this report reveals, to reproduce the same humorous effect in the target text as that in the source text, a translator should have good command of bilingual skills, enrich the knowledge about two different cultures. Only by making enough preparations and guided by certain translation theories, the translator can employ appropriate translation strategies and approaches to transfer the humorous effect between two different cultures.