A Report On The E-C Translation Of Verbal Humor In How To Survive The End Of The World Based On Functional Equivalence Theory

People today tend to regard humor as a proof of one’s Emotional Quotient,so humor has been seen as a kind of ability.Besides,due to the accelerated pace of life and the increasing life stress,humorous works are acquiring more favor than before.A large number of foreign humorous works have also been introduced into China.Therefore,qualified translations of humorous works are in great need.According to Schimitz(2002),verbal humor can be divided into universal humor,culture-based humor and word-based humor.This thesis focuses on the translation of the three branches of verbal humor,intending to provide some experience and reference for more translators and the development of E-C verbal humor translation.How to survive the end of the world is written by Aaron Gillies,a British comedian and writer.He records his experiences and sentiment about combating his mental illness—anxiety.He uses very humorous languages to describe the serious mental illness,which contributes greatly to the good reputation of the book within only one year after its publication in 2018.The author of this thesis picks out some of the verbal humor in this book as the research object.Works of verbal humor are characterized by humorous and easy language environment,mainly through expression skills like figures of speech.Verbal humor in this book is distinctive in that it is centered on a serious topic —anxiety.Therefore,verbal humor is used to reduce patients’ fear towards anxiety and help them conquer their mental illness in an easier-to-accept way.To retain the treatment effect of the source text,the author chooses functional equivalence as the guidance,aiming at a relatively close humor effect after translation so as to alleviate the seriousness of the topic.With an equivalent humor effect of the source text while reading the translation,target readers will also be willing to recognize the help of the book,thus the aim of the book is received.The author elaborates the translation of the three kinds of verbal humor as follows.Universal humor is based on context and common cognition,rules or regulations,so humor will retain after translation most of the time.The author mainly uses literal translation and free translation to deal with universal humor.Culture-based humor is centered on the cultural images involved.Considering the coherence in language style,when translating sections with cultural images,the author mainly adopts domestication and foreignization so as to draw closer to target readers or to protect the language features of the source text.Word-based humor is the most complex among the three.It can be divided into pun,distortion,repetition or deliberate mistakes.Because word-based humor involves spelling and pronouncing rules of the source language,while it is not always easy to find a perfect equivalence in target language as a substitution,the ultimate goal of translating word-based humor has to be compromised to the least loss of humor effect after translation.The author uses various translating methods like substitution,literal translation,free translation to deal with word-based humor translation.The purpose of this thesis is set from the perspectives of both the translator and the target reader.By giving the study on verbal humor translation in this book,the author wishes to give some experience or inspiration for more studies to come so that more qualified translations can be gradually accessible.Besides,the final destination of the translations is the target reader.The author hopes for more qualified translations in the domestic cultural market where target readers can acquire enough visual and spiritual enjoyment through reading.