Analysis Of Humor Translatoin In Sitcomes From Perspective Of Reception Aesthetics

In recent years,more and more foreign movies and TV programs have been introduced to China and the demand of subtitle translation is growing.However,nowadays,most of the subtitle translation practices are completed by fansub groups composed by amateur translators.The quality of translation cannot be guaranteed.And the popular American sitcoms are faced with the same problem.Thanks to the humorous lines,relaxing and funny plot,American sitcoms has become popular since they are introduced to the Chinese audience.However,due to the differences between English and Chinese language as well as the short of effective theory as a guide,the translation of humor in sitcoms fails to effectively convey the humorous effect to the Chinese audience.Meanwhile,the relevant researches in China is still not mature enough.Considering this,from the perspective of reception aesthetics theory,the thesis presents a case study of the subtitle translation of famous American sitcom Modern Family,emphasizing the translation of humor in order to find out more effective methods to translate humor in sitcoms.Taking the reception aesthetics theory as the theoretical basis,this paper analyzes and concludes translation strategies of humor in American sitcoms.The reception aesthetics theory emphasizes the status and role of the readers and insists that the readers have horizon of expectations.In translation,the translator should consider the reception ability of the readers and make the translated works fuse with the readers' horizon of expectations.According to the reception aesthetics theory,the translation of subtitles should fuse with the target language audience's horizon of expectations which include the directed expectations and the creative expectations.It also has an impact on the translation strategies of humor translation in sitcoms.The overview research of humor translation and subtitle translation are introduced at first.The following are the introduction of the reception aesthetics theory and its main concepts.Next are the features of humor and constraints to translate it.In the section of case study,domestication and foreignization are concluded as two main translation strategies to translate humor and some translation techniques are also listed as to respectively achieve domestication and foreignization through the analysis of subtitle translation in Modern Family.For domestication,the application of Chinese fourcharacter terms,Chinese idioms and buzzwords on the Internet can effectively express the humor in the sitcoms.In addition,the technique of omission and replacement can also achieve the same effect.In the aspect of foreignization,literal translation and literal translation plus annotation contribute not only to the satisfaction of the target language audience's creative expectations,but also to the preservation of foreign flavor and the addition of humor.The conclusion of the thesis is that to translate humor in sitcoms,domestication should be taken as the primary strategy to achieve the target language audience's directed expectations while foreignization as the complimentary strategy to fulfill the creative expectations.The combination of the two strategies works together to achieve the horizon of expectations of the target language audience and meanwhile to effectively express humor to them.