A Study Of Humor Translation In Drama From The Perspective Of Memetics

Lady Windermere’s Fan is the first drama by Oscar Wilde,and its language style is very humorous.There are many Chinese versions of it,among which Yu Guangzhong’s and Qiao Guoqiang’s are most widely accepted.However,there has been no research of humor translation strategies in Lady Windermere’s Fan.With the rapid development in academic studies as well as the cultural blending,a further study and analysis should be made on the research.The application of Memetics in translation studies is one of them.Memetics is based on Darwin’s evolutionary theory in an attempt to explain the evolution laws of culture.The language itself can be deemed as a system consisting of meme.Thus,humor in drama is a kind of meme as well.And this new perspective of Memetics may provide the translation research with some new revelation and interpretation.Adopting Memetics as the theoretical foundation,humor in the source text Lady Windermere’s Fan and the two popular Chinese versions of Yu Guangzhong’s and Qiao Guoqiang’s as the subjects,this thesis focuses on the transmission of humor meme in the two Chinese versions of Lady Windermere’s Fan.The thesis analyzes the translation of the two Chinese versions at three levels from the perspective of Memetics.At the syntactic level,strategies such as literal translation,transportation and unit shift are adopted.At the semantic level,strategies like abstraction change,emphasis change,and paraphrase are employed.At thepragmatic level,strategies including cultural filtering,explicitness change and information change are used.Consequently,the conclusions of this thesis have been drawn as follows.First of all,the translation of humor in the two Chinese versions of Yu Guangzhong’s and Qiao Guoqiang’s is mainly dominated by expectancy norms and professional norms.In the process of translation,the translator should satisfy the expectations of the target readership at first and be faithful to the source text.Besides,the translation behavior of Yu Guangzhong’s and Qiao Guoqiang’s are in accordance with the expectancy norms and the professional norms.What’s more,the translation of humor is essentially the product of culture competition among different meme.The translator should attach importance to the transfer of the original meaning with abundant information in the target text,and adopt various strategies in the translation of humor.Last but not least,in the process of translation,translators should also pay more attention to the transfer of the abundant information contained in the source text,and adopt various strategies to translate humor.