| Catch-22,a well-known anti-war novel written by the American writer Joseph Heller,relates a story about an American air squadron in World War II,satirizing the absurdity of war and bureaucratic system in America through caricatures.The novel constructs an absurd world with fantastic plots,un-chronological structure and ubiquitous fallacies.Its solemn theme and absurd narration make the novel a masterpiece among works featuring black humor.Text worlds in this novel are exceedingly distinct from those in traditional novels,which undoubtedly deserves due research.This thesis,based on the Text World Theory,attempts to make a comparative study on the translation of black humor in Catch-22 from the three world levels,i.e.the discourse world,the text world and the sub-world.First of all,the stylistic features of black humor reflected in different worlds are summed up.Subsequently,through analysis,comparison,and evaluation of black humor in two selected Chinese translations of Catch-22,it tries to work out some empiric rules and strategies for translation of novels characteristic of black humor.Prior to translation,translators are supposed to probe into the discourse world of the novel so as to obtain sufficient perceptual and experiential knowledge.During translation,translators need to reproduce the stylistic features of black humor manifested in the text worlds and sub-text worlds.All in all,this thesis,through elaborate case analysis,attempts to explore the guiding significance of the Text World Theory for the study of translation of literary works featuring black humor.By applying the Text World Theory to translation,it not only manages to expand the application range of the theory,but also provides a fresh perspective to study translation of novels featuring black humor.This would beyond question attract an increasing number of researchers to study translation of works characteristic of black humor from the perspective of the Text World Theory. |
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