Subtitle Translation Quality Assessment Of Verbal Humor Under The CIA Model

Verbal humor is the soul of comic works,and it is a hard task to translate it in a correspondent and intelligible way and achieve a humorous effect at the same time.The quality of subtitles directly affects the humorous effect on the audience,so quality assessment is of great importance.Therefore,this study borrows the CIA model developed by Künzli(2020)and modifies it,aiming to conduct a study on the subtitle quality assessment of verbal humor and to inspire future model construction and translation practice.In the present study,78 cases of verbal humor are identified from six comic films produced by Mahua Funage Pictures,and they are classified into three categories according to J.R.Schimtz’s taxonomy:24 cases of linguistic humor,12 cases of cultural humor,and 42 cases of universal humor.Based on the revised CIA model,this study assesses the quality of each type of verbal humor in terms of correspondence,readability,and authenticity,and then summarizes the translation strategies of each type for an analysis of effectiveness.The study finds that linguistic humor scored low in the quality assessment,and the literal translation can not effectively reproduce its meaning and form.It is of need to explore expressions in the target language that are semantically and formally equivalent to linguistic humor such as homophones and puns.Subtitles of cultural and universal humor perform better.The liberal translation is the major strategy for cultural humor,which achieves the humorous effect effectively.The literal translation is viable in most cases of universal humor,achieving correspondence,readability,and authenticity.