英语毕业论文On the Humor Translation in Friends.doc

英语毕业论文On the Humor Translation in Friends On the Humor Translation in FriendsAbstract As an every phenomenon, humor is a typical and unique way of communication for human beings. Translation of humor helps people in different societies exchange their facilities their communication. Therefore, study on humor translation has gradually become an indispensable part in cross-cultural communication. In fact, beings language and cultural bound, humor frequently makes itself a tangible problem for translators. At the same time, with an increasing number of foreign films and TV program beings introduced into China, subtitling, especially of sitcoms, has occupied a significant position in the transmission of humor inherent in the audiovisual materials, which however, has not received as much attention as it deserves. This thesis, taking the popular American sitcoms Friends as an example, aims at exploring various categories of sitcom humor and discussing some feasible translation strategies.Key Words: humor; humor translation; sitcom; subtitling; Friends内容摘要 幽默作为一种日常生活现象，是一种人类典型而独特的沟通方式。幽默翻译可以帮助身处不同社会环境中的人们进行幽默交流并且分享彼此的笑声，还能缩短他们的心理距离，促进其沟通，进而有利于其进一步交涉。因此，关于幽默翻译的研究也逐渐成为跨文化研究领域不可缺少的一部分。但是，实际上在日常生活中，幽默常常与文化或语言相连，这就在无形之中为译者造就了难题。与此同时，随着外国电影和电视节目不断被引进中国，字幕，特别是情景喜剧的字幕，便在文化交流中充当了越来越重要的角色。 本论文以当前流行美国情景喜剧老友记作为范例，通过对其字幕所反映的幽默进行详尽的分析，试图探索情景喜剧中各种各样的幽默，并试图探求一些可行的翻译策略和手段。关键词：幽默；幽默翻译；情景喜剧；字幕；老友记ContentsAbstract 英文 iAbstract 中文 ii1.Introduction.12. Literature Review .22.1Humor and Humor Translation.23.Review on Subtitling63.1Brief Introduction of Audiovisual Translation.63.2Definition and Types of Subtitle.73.3Features and Constraints of Subtitling94.Application of Translation Variation Theory in Humor114.1Humor in Friends.11Introduction of Friends11Humor in Friends and Its Translation135.Conclusion.14Works Cited. 161. IntroductionSituation comedy, or “sitcom” in short hereafter referred to as sitcom , is a genre of comedy performance originally devised for radio but today typically found on television. Sitcoms are usually composed of recurring characters in a format in which one or more humorous story lines are centered on a common environment, such as a family house, a cafeteria or a workplace. Since the opening-up policy was carried out in China, with the rapid development of science and technology n the modern society, large numbers of foreign movies and TV plays have been imported into China and shown on Chinas screen. Audiovisual media have virtually entered every household and are playing an increasing important role in our daily lives. “Globally, this is the age of mass communication, of multimedia experiences and a world where audiences demand the right to share the latest text, be it film, song, “Our common cultural, however much we might wish it were not so, is less and less a book culture and more and more a culture of cinema, television and popular music,” films and TV plays take a great share in reflecting the culture of a particular of countries, with China included. As is indicated by the name, sitcom characterizes humor as either a primary element or a secondary one. Undoubtedly, humor plays a critical role in creating and appreciating the general effect of a comedy. It is very natural that the translation of humor becomes the most decisive factor of the translation of sitcom. As is shown by a net survey that is conducted by sina in 2000, 70.87% of the people involved are in favor of foreign films and TV series with subtitling instead of dubbing. Therefore, the author would like to put emphasis on subtitle translation in sitcoms rather than dubbing. However , the discrepancy of culture forms a great barrier for the transfer of humorous effects in sitcoms subtitling, since humor translation often involves two different languages and cultures and sometimes is dramatically restricted by different cultural backgrounds. When cultural differences are striking and obvious, it is of great difficulty to retain the cultural message from one culture to another. Attempts have been made to analyze humor from the perspective of sociology, psychology as well as linguistics; however, humor has rarely been systematically studies as a specific translation problem. In fact, “being partly universal, partly language or culture bound, partly individual, humor has various levels of applicability, frequently making itself a tangible problem for translators. For the purpose of ensuring understanding and communication, the problem must be solved in one way or another.” Susanna Jaskanen, 1999: 2 This situation is particularly true for humor translation in sitcom subtitling.This thesis aims at exploring something new in the translation of humor in sitcoms. Even though the translation of humor is a hard nut for all the researchers both abroad and in China, the author takes a positive attitude that with the constant improvement of the readers quality, all kinds of humor, especially those of in the sitcoms, can be translated in the framework of translation variation. The thesis consists of three parts. Besides the introduction, the study is reported in three parts. Part One presents literature review of humor translation and research on subtitling. Because the scripts of American sitcom Friends will be adopted as research material, previous study of humor translation in Friends is also conducted in this chapter .In Part Two, Friends and humor in Friends are introduced in details. The theory of translation variation is applied to the analysis of translation strategies of humor in Friends. The last part is the Conclusion, where the author concludes the study results and presents the limitation of the present study and implication for the future research.2. Literature Review2.1 Humor and Humor Translation L. Weiss pointed out in his “Philosophies et Vie “Philosophy and Life” in 1951 that “humor and laughter make life more bearable, sometimes even enjoyable.” Avner Ziv, 1988: VII However, diligent people have been endeavoring in lifting the joyous mask on the face of this universal as well as national phenomenon and deepening into exploring from the viewpoints of such interweaving factors in humor process as physiology, psychology, linguistics, logics and culture.Study on translation or transferring humor from one language to another, though being a runner-up, has been ongoing continually both in China and abroad in the preceding decades. Without exception, all those studies began with the exposition of difficulties and even with impossibility in humor rendering. Definition and Types of Humor Until now, numerous scholars and dictionaries have defined “humor” from different perspectives. But the very notion of humor as well as its scope varies from scholar to scholar considerably. On the whole, the term “humor” can be broadly defined as “something that makes a person laugh or smile” Ross,1988, cited in Nancy Dolores Bell, 2002: 11 . In addition, humor is supposed to be composed to be composed of three components: wit, mirth and laughter. Anyway, the effect caused by humor is hard to predict and control. Even with the same piece of humor, people will differently due to different characteristics and other factors. Humor can be classified according to various purpose and in many different ways. The classifications often overlap. Hereby, the author would like to adopt the classification made by J. R. Schmits 2002 . According to J. R. Schmits 2002 , humor can be divided into three types" 1 universal humor 2 cultural humor；and 3 linguistic humor Universal humor is the humor which depends on neither of the language nor of the culture，and which transfers from one language or culture to another Paul Rankin，2000：30 .Universal humor, also called reality-based humor, mainly refers to some humorous situations or incidents which Can be understood by people of many cultures Cultural humor refers to the humor which is related to the cultural background information，including history, social customs and institutions，etcCulture provides established forms for humorous production and expressionThrough established forms and cultural values culture has a strong influence on humor in terms of what to laugh at how laugh is provoked and accepted, why to laugh under certain occasions，etcPeople can not understand the cultural humor without some cultural background informationLinguistic humor refers to the humor produced by many linguistic factors and rhetorical devices，etc.1.2 Humor TranslationOver a long period of time, humor has been a topic discussed by scholars as well as by ordinary people at home and abroad. Studies and explorations of humor and its translation have been going on in academic field, in spite of that due to the complexity and the difficulty attached to humor and translation ,the research pace is comparatively slowA debate between translatability and untranslatability of certain kinds of linguistic humor has dominated humor research for a long period of timeOn the whole，studies at home On humor translation mainly focus on untranslatability of humor or difficulty in humor translationEven though some enlightening opinions and translation approaches are put forward，there is still room for further systematical explorationModem translation studies have paid more attention to functional considerations and the equivalence of effectNeubert and Shreve 1 992：1 44 point out that “equivalence is not really a relationship between textual surfaces；it is a relationship of textual effectof communicative value”，whereas Laurian 1 992 suggests that even though verbal humor may not be translatable within strict formal equivalence，it Call，depending on the capacity of a translator, be translated functionally Echoing with functional approaches，Professor Huang Zhonglian proposes his new version of translation variation，even though the principles and methodology are quite different from the former one see further discussion in Chapter Two for details The theory of translation variation observes that any translation should satisfy the specific need of specific readers，resembling the “Skopos rule”Even though he does not directly focus his study on humor translation, he holds that the translation variation theory is applicable to various categories of works，including literary works，social scientific works and technical materials，to different extents 2002：245 Of course，verbal humor translation can find certain clues from such a theoryIt is often agreed that successful translation involves recreating in the target language text those features of the source language text that are relevant for the text to function for a certain purpose cfKussmaul 1 995：90 With a humorous text，the purpose is，for all practical purposes，always the same：to elicit laughterHumor translation should be able to function for the target language audience in a imally similar way as the original text did for the source language audience，even if this is achieved by substantially altering it Balancing between source language restrictions and target language demands，the translator is“engaged in what could be compared to an exercise in tightrope walking，in that the immediacy of effect can easily be lost” Jaskanen 1 999：3 1 or and Humor Translation in SitcomsAs is mentioned in the introduction, sitcoms characterize humor as either a primary element or a secondary one and humor plays a critical role in creating and appreciating the general effect of a comedyBut due to special characteristics of sitcoms，humor in sitcoms all has its own features In sitcoms，humor is a crucial factor, a motor that propels us from one sequence to anotherOf course，the translation of humor in sitcoms plays a significant role in creating the overall humorous effect for the target audienceIn our daily life，it could be argued that most humor is spontaneous and unintentionalBut in sitcoms，humor doesnt result from conscious intellectual endeavor，even if it sometimes comes in the guise of spontaneityHumor as entertainment in general and humor in sitcoms in particular could be described as a specific genreTherefore，the audience has certain genre-based expectations towards itWhen a viewer switches to watch a sitcom，he or she expects to see a program punctuated with one-liners and funny situations，where humor is signposted for the viewer with canned laughterIt could be said that even here the laughter depends on some sort of framework of expectancy Susanna Jaskanen，1999：2425 The purpose of the sitcom translation is to fulfill the functionof humor imally in the particular target language。Only if the translation functions well as humor-inducing element in audience does it succeed as a translation，which is also a criterion to measure whether the translation is effective or notThe humor is often discussed on three levels：jokes，humorous situations and humorous charactersThis three-level analysis Call account for the fact that much of the humor in sitcoms is based on recurring themes，situations and behaviors of the characters which are not completely captured by analyzing individual jokesThis thesis is mainly intended to analyze the principles and strategies of humor translation in sitcom subtitling which combines with an exploration of types of humor used in sitcoms in order that the target language viewers Chinese viewers Can get the possibly same humorous effect as the original onesFor this reasonthe series have been selected on the basis both of popularity and of varietyThrough crosscultural comparison，as well as the comparison of different series，an overview of the various strategies and techniques for amusing audiences in light of translation variation theory is made，which takes into account the specific characteristics of situation comediesReview on Subtitling3.1 Brief Introduction of Audio visual TranslationAudiovisual translation is also called “film translation' and “screen translation” Karamitroglou，2000：1 The first studies carried out tended to refer to “film translation”，but，as the field of study extended to include television and video releases，the term “audiovisual translation” was introduced Anderman & Rogers，2003：194 With the development of science and technology ,especially computer and internet，the industry of film and television，namely audio-video technology, see a flourishing spring。However, research on translation of film and television，namely audiovisual translati