| In society today,most people are put under considerable pressure by the increasingly fierce competition and the spread of COVID-19 around the world.As an intelligent language art,humor is also one kind of excellent “defense mechanism” in daily life,which can promote individuals’ physical and mental health and contribute to greasing the wheels of interpersonal relationships.In academic research,humor is an independent and specialized discipline.In terms of domestic research status,the research on the psychology of humor is relatively rare,and the translated books about it are very scanty.Therefore,the translation of books on the psychology of humor will benefit the majority of psychological scholars,students and ordinary readers.The writer selects An Introduction to the Psychology of Humor as the translated text.As a textbook on the psychology of humor for undergraduate students,the book explores the theories and paradigms of humor from ten psychological perspectives.The book is written in a formal style with rigorous diction and clear expression.It uses a large number of psychological terms and humorous utterances,including riddles,jokes,couplets,and short stories.Therefore,this translation report selects the most difficult part of the translation,namely the translation of humorous utterances in the book,for case analysis.Relevance theory provides an effective methodology for translation practice,which is instructive for the translation of humorous speeches.Based on relevance theory,the translation of humorous utterances can be a two-round process of ostensive-inferential communication,in which the translator should reproduce the author’s intention so that the readers can get adequate humorous effects and achieve communicative success after making processing efforts.This report selects the humorous utterances in the book and divides them into three categories,depending on the mechanisms of humor: verbal humor,cultural humor,and situational humor.In line with relevance theory and relevant principles,different translation approaches are adopted for different kinds of humorous utterances,including literal translation,addition,substitution,annotation,etc.The writer concludes that relevance theory can give play to translators’ subjective initiative,facilitate the flexible employment of methods for translators,and even change the untranslatable into the translatable.The translation of humorous utterances is faced with many challenges,requiring translators to commit creative treason while expressing the author’s intention so as to keep the context humorous in the translation. |
