Subtitling Puns In Sitcoms From The Perspective Of Delabastita’s Pun Translation Theory

This thesis examines the pun translation in Friends from the perspective of Dirk Delabastita’s pun translation theory to explore its applicability in sitcom subtitling,the frequency distributions and characteristics of the source text(ST)puns and their corresponding translation strategies identified in the target text(TT),the features of Chinese characters that facilitate pun creation.It is hoped that this thesis may better subtitlers’ understanding of puns in sitcoms and navigate subtitlers when handling specific cases with more efficiency.The first two seasons of Friends constitute a mini-corpus,with 43 ST puns and 48 pun-related translations as the subject of this investigation.Through a quantitative and qualitative study,based on Delabastita’s pun typology and theory of pun translation,it is safe to draw the following conclusions:1.The theory is applicable in sitcom subtitling;2.Homonymy crowned the frequency distribution in sitcoms,followed by paronymy.Homophony was less observed and no homography could be found;3.About translation strategies,the descending order of frequency distribution is PUN TO NON-PUN(with selective translation as the majority),EDITORIAL TECHNIQUES(with most cases explaining either the lesser-known connotation or cultural-specific items),PUN TO PUN(with the majority cases being translated to the same-type pun),NON-PUN TO PUN and PU-N TO PUNOID;4.In terms of the creation of Chinese puns,paronymy marks a shortcut,thanks to the phonetic and graphemic features of the Chinese language.The monosyllabic and ideographic Chinese characters are convenient to be replaced by other initials,finals,and radicals.As long as the ST puns do not emphasize certain connotations of the double meaning,and belong to either the homonymic or paronymic category,it is suggested to render them by forming a Chinese paronymy.