Untranslatability And Compensation Of Linguistic Humor In Subtitle Translation

Subtitle translation study is gaining more and more attention. With their unique and rich sense of humor, American sitcoms are very popular among Chinese audience. Translation of humor directly influences how the audience receives the sitcom. Although humor exists in all language communities, these communities are very different in terms of culture, tradition, value, social system and so on. Therefore, humor is very hard to translate.This thesis is a case study of the subtitle translation of The Big Bang Theory, analyzing untranslatability and compensation of linguistic humor in sitcom subtitle translation. This thesis introduces the basic concept, major methods and principles of translation compensation. It also studies the compensation methods and principles applied to different kinds of linguistic humor in The Big Bang Theory and tries to offer some suggestions to achieve better compensation of linguistic humor.It’s hoped that through this case study, some pragmatic advice could be offered to help better translate linguistic humor and give sitcom audience better experience.