On The English Translation Of Verbal Humor In Gan Xiao Liu Ji

Life couldn't be more wonderful without humor.Humor is popular both in our daily conversation and in literary works.The cognition and understanding of humor varies with people,countries and nations.As humor values are not unified,a difficult issue comes up in front of people—how to translate humor relevantly.Based on the General Theory of Verbal Humor(GTVH)and its Extended Theory,this research sets up a Chinese-English bilingual parallel database with Yang Jiang's prose works Gan Xiao Liu Ji and its two English versions Six Chapters from My Life “Downunder” by Howard Goldblatt and A Cadre School Life Six Chapters by Geremie Barme.Through database retrieval,quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis,this research firstly explores the characteristics and translation methods of verbal humor in Gan Xiao Liu Ji and its two selected English versions,as well as transformation modes of the verbal humor with rhetorical devices,then makes a comparative analysis on the reservation of humorous effects in the two translated versions,in the hope of providing empirical evidence for the translation of Chinese humorous texts.The major findings of this research are presented as follows:(1)The GTVH can provide an analytic framework not only for short English jokes,but also for long Chinese humorous prose works.(2)Rhetorical devices are the crucial means used to generate verbal humor in Gan Xiao Liu Ji.Metaphor,simile and irony constitute the main triggers of verbal humor.(3)Both the two English versions employ four translation methods for verbal humor,namely literal translation,free translation,substitution and omission.Literal translation is the most frequently-adopted translation method among them,free translation takes the second place,substitution and omission account for a smaller proportion.Literal translation and substitution successfully transfer most of humor effects while free translation and omission fail to do so.(4)The two English versions adopt three modes,namely homogeneous transformation mode,heterogeneous transformation mode and zero transformation mode,in transforming the rhetorical devices in verbal humor.Among them,homogeneous transformation mode takes up the highest proportion.The research results suggest that for the purpose of successfully transferring humor effects,it is of essential importance to take into full consideration the retaining or shifting of parameters of the source text,especially Script Opposition of the deep parameters and rhetorical devices in Narrative Strategy of the surface parameters.