| Under the guidance of Relevance Theory, this thesis probes into American sitcom Friends by comparing the humorous dialogues in English with the translated Chinese version, discusses the humorous degree in reception language, proves the immense explanatory power of the theory in accounting for subtitle translation, and gives an overview of relevance-theoretical significance as well as pragmatic value.The thesis primarily demonstrates relevant principles of Relevance Theory in terms of translation study, which can be viewed as follows:"translation is an ostensive-inferential process", "optimal relevance" coincides with the minimal inferential "processing efforts" and the maximum "contextual effects", the goal of which for a translator is to meet the target text reader's "expectation" with the source text writer's "intention".Then, basing on the uniqueness of subtitling translation that a subtitler is constrained by time and space condition, this thesis analyzes the dual identities of a translator in the ostensive-inferential process, which is to initially assume the cognitive environment of target audiences, thereby estimate their expectations, and then seek the optimal relevance through the understanding of original writer's communicative intention, apply suitable translation strategies to make sure audiences achieve maximum information by minimal processing efforts, so as to verify the reception discourse resemble the source text.Finally, by demonstrating representative humorous examples quoted from American sitcom Friends, this thesis classifies the distinguishing features of humorous translation and proposes advanced suggestions on the existing version, with the aim to further examine the explanatory power of Relevance Theory in accounting for subtitle translation, and reach the conclusion of different translation strategies should be adopted to different humors, hope to provide a theoretical and methodological basis for the research and practice of subtitle translation.
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