A Report On Humorous Language Translation From The Perspective Of Functional Equivalence

Humor is a phenomenon shared by people all around the world,but it has various forms of expression in different cultures.In literary works,humor is able to deepen the theme as well as create a comic and relaxed atmosphere in which the truth of life is unfolded.However,due to their different cultural backgrounds and values,people in different countries tend to understand and appreciate humor differently.Thus,it is rather difficult to reproduce the humorous effects because of the huge cultural and linguistic differences.Humor plays an important role in people’s daily life.With lots of linguistic and cultural connotations,humor also has strong national flavors.So the translation of humorous language is of great importance.Nowadays,many scholars have carried out the study on humorous language from the angle of literature,linguistics and psychology.There is only a little study of humorous language translation.Therefore,it is extremely important to make a deeply research on humorous language translation.In this thesis,the author takes It gets worse as an example and translates from Chapter one to Chapter four under the guidance of Nida’s functional equivalence theory as well as explores the appropriate methods and strategies for translating English humorous language.The author considers that the most significant feature of humor is to deliver the humorous and ironic effect.In this thesis,humorous language is classified into situational humor and non-situational humor according to the language features of the original text.The author analyzes humorous language translation under the guidance of functional equivalence theory,and then explores appropriate translation strategies and methods to reproduce the humorous functions and effects.According to their respective features and the guidance of Nida’s functional equivalence theory,the author has adopted different translation methods,such as the literal and free translation,addition and omission.The thesis also discusses how to retain the original flavor and style through the translation and how to deliver thehumorous effects with application of appropriate translation methods.The author hopes to provide a case study for perfecting humor language translation through this report as well as improve the author’s own translation skills.