A Practice Report On Humor Translation Of "Thank-you Note" In Late Night With Jimmy Fallon From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

The world we live in is not as closely-knit as before thanks to the invention of World Wide Web.Mass entertainment,such as TV shows and movies,has played an indispensable role in promoting and engaging different cultures with the world around them.Talk shows,with their satirical comments on up-to-date events,have been one of the most popular ways for people to be informed on what is going on in the world.This report aims at studying humor translation from one of the most recognizable talk shows in the U.S.,The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon,through its famous segment-“Thank You Note”.It is the segment that airs every Friday night when the host,Jimmy Fallon,pretends to write satirical,one-or-two-sentence thank-you notes on different subject matters.This report shows the humor-related translation problems encountered and to try to come up with solutions to the problems under the framework of the Relevance Theory.Translators,being the first-tier hearers,receive the utterance in the source language,then try to understand the humor behind the lines.After that,by finding the maximal or optimal relevance,translators come up with the translation in the target language and present it to the audience(second-tier hearers)as subtitles in the videos.Different techniques(addition,annotation,and rewrite etc.)are introduced to help create a translation that is relevant to the target language audience.In the end,the report concludes the major findings,points out limitations in the research,and offers suggestions for future studies.