On The Translation Of Chinese Verbal Humor Based On The General Theory Of Verbal Humor

Humor plays an indispensable role in enlivening the dull life. The untranslatability of humor used to be a long-standing debate among linguists in the 20 th century. At the same time, the translating methods of humor turn into a stumbling block for scholars. Due to some cultural setbacks, some humorous texts which are rife with specific Chinese rhetorical devices and alien sources restrict the public acceptance of English humor.Based on the General Theory of Verbal Humor(GTVH) put forward by Attardo and Raskin, this research establishes a small parallel bilingual database with Lao She’s masterpiece Zheng Hong Qi Xia and its English version Beneath the Red Banner by Don J. Cohn. Six knowledge resources(Language, Narration Strategy, Target, Situation, Logic mechanism, Script Opposition) and joke similarity metric are applied to analyze humorous texts triggered by the rhetorical devices and their translating methods in order to help people better understand Chinese verbal humor and lay the foundation for the future study of humor translation in Chinese humorous texts.The research finds that:(1) there are 146 humorous texts embededed with rhetorical devices in Zheng Hong Qi Xian, accounting for 92% in the whole database;(2)23 kinds of rhetorical devices are applied in Zheng Hong Qi Xia, among which Jiang Yong, metaphor, simile, hyperbole, irony, Pang Yi are most frequently used;(3) there are 5 translating methods in Beneath the Red Banner, including literal translation, free translation, substitution, omission and synthesization. Literal translation is overwhelmingly used in the translated version with 55%. Secondly, free translation takes up 22% in the database. Synthesization, omission and substitution occupy 15%, 5%, 3% respectively.The research results show that:(1) the production of humor in Chinese humorous texts largely depends on rhetorical devices, and the reservation of specific rhetorical devices is a key;(2) the translator tends to apply synthesization to keep KRs in the ST as much as possible when dealing with texts which are rich in Chinese cultural factors;(3) If it preserves SO in the target text, the humorous effect in it is basically retained or lowered a bit while if SO is excluded in the target text, the humorous effect is completely lost.