On The English And Japanese Translation Of Chinese Humorous Texts

Humor is a long-dated and fascinating study that has attracted much academic interest from the aspects of literature, linguistics, sociology and culture researches, etc.Based on the theoretical framework—the General Theory of Verbal Humor, the present research aims to investigate the translation of Chinese humorous texts, with a focus on a systematic analysis of A Q Zhengzhuan, the English version The True Story of Ah Q and the Japanese version 「阿 Q 正伝」. This paper uses the Chinese English Japanese trilingual parallel database as the research approach, and mainly illustrates the humorous examples with rhetorical devices and calculates the translation methods of verbal humor in A Q Zhengzhuan and the English and Japanese versions, then discusses the similarities and differences between the two translated versions when translating Chinese humorous texts as well as the reasons that cause the differences. The major findings are summarized as follows:(1) Based on the General Theory of Verbal Humor, it becomes apparent that the higher parameters script opposition(SO) and logical mechanism(LM) play a vital role in translating humorous texts, the translators should respect as many KRs as possible, especially for the higher parameters;(2) Chinese rhetorical devices play an important role in generating humor, which are closely related to narrative strategy(NS);(3) Four kinds of translation methods are used in humor translation, including literal translation, free translation,substitution and omission in the two versions. Although they show the same translation trend, the proportions are different. English version shows as the following order: literal translation(54.8%)> free translation(36.1%)> substitution(4.8%)> omission(4.2%), however Japanese version appears as literal translation(74.7%)> free translation(12.0%)> substitution(9.6%)> omission(3.6%). Among them, literal translation and substitution successfully retain most of humor while free translation and omissionusually lead to the failure of humor transference;(4) The reasons why JTT remains more humorous texts than ETT can be summarized as the following two main points: the cultural similarities between China and Japan, the existence of the same words and phrases in Chinese and Japanese.The research results indicate that the GTVH is an explanatory theory to explain the production and understanding of verbal humor in A Q Zhengzhuan. It also proves that the adopting of different translation methods has a great impact on the reservation of humorous effect in the two translated versions. Japanese Target Text(JTT)literally translates and uses substitution as a compensatory method to reserve Chinese humorous texts with a large proportion of 84.3%, which are much more than English Target Text(ETT) and can be regarded as a better version to some extent. This research has extensive practical meanings and theoretical significanceinthe translation study of Chinese humorous texts, and can be deemed as enlightenment in Chinese, English and Japanese trilingual studies as well.