On The Translation Of Humorous Language In American Sitcom The Big Bang Theory

As a special kind of language phenomenon, humor has always beena delight. But the translation of humorous language is quite difficult.Many researches have been taken under the guidance of various theoriesto analyze the translation of humorous language, but up to now, noagreement has been reached among scholars. This thesis tries to conduct athorough analysis of the translation of humorous language within theframework of pragmatic equivalence and through a case study of YYeTs’subtitle translation of the American sitcom The Big Bang Theory.Taking humor as an independent linguistic system, this thesisanalyzes its translation purpose, translation criterion, constraints oftranslation and translation methods comprehensively and systematicallyfrom the viewpoint of pragmatic equivalence with the hope to explore theinner mechanism of humor translation.With the combination of case study and induction and deduction, thisthesis discusses the merits and demerits of YYeTs’translation and itstranslation theories behind that. It is shown that the theory of pragmaticequivalence is applicable to the translation of humorous language and thatscholars and translators should take a more open and tolerant attitudetowards the translation of humorous language by understanding“faithfulness” in a borader way.