Study On Translation Methods Of Verbal Humor In Subtitles From Functional Equivalence Theory

The verbal humor plays a significant role in a sitcom.Therefore,the transmission of humorous effects of the original text is put in the first in translating of verbal humor in a sitcom.Language,culture,as well as other factors will affect the translation of verbal humor in subtitles.In addition,the particularity of subtitle text will pose great challenge to translation of subtitle humor.Given this,this paper takes the humorous subtitle translation of the American sitcom The Big Bang Theory(Season 10)as the study object.According to the Raphaelson-West's classification on humor,the humor in The Big Bang Theory is classified into three categories covered by universal humor,culture-related humor and wordplay humor.Then,this paper mainly gives a specific explanation for the contents of these three types of verbal humor and makes a contrast to their Chinese version and English version.A case study is conducted on some of the verbal humor translation to find out the specific translation methods used by translators.The translation of humor subtitles should strive to achieve the humorous effects of the original text,which is consistent with the core point of functional equivalence theory that pays more attention to the reader's response,pursues not only lexical equivalence but also the semantic and stylistic equivalence.The theory requires that the response of the target language reader to the translated text should be roughly the same as that of the source language reader.Therefore,this paper applies Nida's Functional Equivalence Theory to make a thorough analysis on the translation methods of these three types of verbal humor,namely literal translation,free translation,transliteration,annotation,substitution amplification,as well as literal translation with annotation,it also analyzes how these methods achieve humorous effects in translating the source language.Through analysis,this paper finds that the translator mainly adopts the following translation methods with the purpose of cross-cultural transmission of humor,annotation and substitution are mostly used for the culture-related humor;literal translation and amplification are mainly used for universal humor;in the translation of wordplay humor,the transliteration is mainly applied for parody,free translation is for misinterpretation,and literal translation with annotation is for the pun.All these translation methods mentioned above fully can,to a certain extent,convey the comic effects of the original TV play and achieve the dynamic equivalence emphasized in the functional equivalence theory,which makes both the original audiences and receptors share the same impression on the sitcom of The Big Bang Theory.Finally,this paper gives a summary of these translation methods.