等值論和目的論視角下的言語幽默翻譯研究.pdf

廣西師范大學 碩士學位論文 等值論和目的論視角下的言語幽默翻譯研究 姓名 張玉宏 申請學位級別 碩士 專業(yè) 英語語言文學 指導教師 袁斌業(yè) 20080401 iii 等值論和目的論視角下的言語幽默研究等值論和目的論視角下的言語幽默研究 研究生 張玉宏 年級 2005 級 學科專業(yè) 英語語言文學 導師 袁斌業(yè)教授 研究方向 翻譯理論與實踐 中中 文文 摘摘 要要 本文從幽默的普遍特征入手 首先探討了幽默的定義 對于該名詞術語迄今為止學術 界還沒有廣泛統(tǒng)一的定義 出于不同的學術研究要求幽默被賦予了不同的定義 因此 幽 默事實上也是個分類不明確的概念 不同的研究可根據(jù)研究需要予以分類 根據(jù)語言與幽 默的關系 本文首先將其分為言語幽默和非言語幽默 考慮到語言和文化在幽默翻譯中的 特殊性及其可譯限度 言語幽默又可分為普遍幽默 語言幽默及文化幽默 借助語言文字特點和文化背景知識來達到幽默效果的幽默 給翻譯造成了一定的困難 但幽默的重要特點在于其詼諧 寓教 娛樂的功能 在跨文化交際中 這種功能就表現(xiàn)為 原語和目的語讀者是否具有相同的體驗 具體到翻譯中 就要求譯文在目的語境中重現(xiàn)相 同的幽默效果 而譯語讀者反應與原語讀者也應大體一致 以期譯文與原文幽默功能的一 致 功能對等論關注原語與譯語的讀者反應相同 力求達到譯文與原文所產(chǎn)生的效果一致 為本文言語幽默的翻譯研究提供了一個極好的切入點和理論支持 目的論則起了一定的指 導作用 譯者在目的論指導下 以再現(xiàn)原文中的幽默效果為目的 根據(jù)譯文的預期功能和 目的選用適宜的翻譯策略來翻譯言語幽默 在具體的操作中 為實現(xiàn)譯文的目的和功能 針對語言幽默可采用歸化策略 在目的 語中尋找相應的可接受的替代對原文信息進行有效的替換和補償 以期在目的語中重現(xiàn)類 似的幽默效果達到功能對等 但同時值得譯者著重考慮的還有接受者的有關文化背景知識 這就需要對目的語中的一些文化取向 審美習俗和價值觀念等諸多方面進行較為周全的分 析和準確的判斷 根究目的論 翻譯本質(zhì)上是一種比較 介紹和吸收文化的交際活動 是 不同民族的人們進行文化交往的一個重要媒介 因此 在目的論的指導下 在文化幽默的 過程中對于某些具有濃厚民族文化特色 在目的語中很難找到與之吻合或?qū)恼Z言手段 將原文中的幽默保留下來 此時譯者可采用加注或歸化及加注策略 普遍幽默中的語言文 化因素的制約作用已退居二位 而情境在此凸顯了其在制笑上的重要作用 因此對于普遍 幽默 譯者基于相同或相似的情景可以采取直譯 關鍵詞關鍵詞 對等論 目的論 言語幽默的翻譯 iv A Study of Translation of Verbal Humor From the Perspectives of Equivalence Theory and Skopos Theory Postgraduate Zhang Yuhong Grade 2005 Supervisor Professor Yuan Binye Major Field of Study English Language and according to the features of verbal humor and its translatability it is further separated into universal cultural and linguistic ones Through the comparison of English and Chinese humor they are found to share with each other the same cognitive mechanism Principles to produce disparity to mislead and intrigue humor are similar in the general way between English and Chinese humor This proves the translation of humor across English and Chinese is basically possible The comparison also reveals that differences between English and Chinese humor definitely pose great predicament for the translation Humor though primarily is translatable translatability witnesses its less possibility in linguistic and cultural ones which has dominated much of the humor research of the paper The comparison of the functions of humor across English and Chinese is also carried out since in the study of humor importance has always been attached to its functions as the core consideration Humor across English and Chinese turns up to express the same idea in different ways but have the same psychological and sociological functions The same function constitutes a precondition to translatability Functional equivalence is expected since the universal psychological and social functions of English and Chinese humor overlap Guided by the Skopos Theory in the translation activity of humor different cases are assessed within the social cultural framework of the TL with emphasis on the expected effects and functions For the most challengeable linguistic humor it may play with lexical ambiguity as in puns or make use of linguistic deviation like ill formedness Together with the creative application of rhetorical devices humorous effects are intrigued However the deviation and rhetorical devices used v innovatively are often hard to reproduce directly In order to convey the message maximally and at the same time retain much of the function of the SL the translator often turns to the semantic approximation in the TL with the same notion but different forms of expression In this way the translation strategy of adaptation is applied finding substitutions in the target language and culture to fill in and compensate for which is lost A lack of cultural background or an insufficient evaluation of the target recipients linguistic ability aesthetic consuetude and cultural liability would render the translation unacceptable though conveying the message Skopos Theory again offers a noticeable perspective since it considers translation as a kind of communication with the practice of comparing introducing and absorbing the new aspects of another culture Thus for the translation of cultural humor as well as those playing with specific background knowledge annotating and introducing the totally different and fire now cultural background knowledge hold true For the translation of universal humor literal translation in the most cases is sufficiently to fulfill the skopos of achieving the same function Key words Equivalence Theory Skopos Theory Translation of Verbal Humor vi Abbreviations SL Source Language TL Target Language 1 論文獨創(chuàng)性聲明論文獨創(chuàng)性聲明 本人鄭重聲明 所提交的學位論文是本人在導師的指導下進行的研究工作及取得的成果 除文中已 經(jīng)注明引用的內(nèi)容外 本論文不含其他個人或其他機構(gòu)已經(jīng)發(fā)表或撰寫過的研究成果 對本文的研 究作出重要貢獻的個人和集體 均已在文中以明確方式標明 本人承擔本聲明的法律責任 研究生簽名 日期 論文使用授權聲明論文使用授權聲明 本人完全了解廣西師范大學有關保留 使用學位論文的規(guī)定 廣西師范大學 中國科學技術信息研 究所 清華大學論文合作部 有權保留本人所送交學位論文的復印件和電子文檔 可以采用影印 縮印或其他復制手段保存論文 本人電子文檔的內(nèi)容和紙質(zhì)論文的內(nèi)容相一致 除在保密期內(nèi)的保 密論文外 允許論文被查閱和借閱 可以公布 包括刊登 論文的全部或部分內(nèi)容 論文的公布 包 括刊登 授權廣西師范大學學位辦辦理 研究生簽名 日期 導 師簽名 日期 ii Acknowledgements The completion of the dissertation comes after the support and assistance of many sides Among them my thanks go above all to Professor Yuan Binye my academic supervisor His timely guidance and enlightening suggestions helpful criticism and positive encouragement have helped me a lot It was for them that I was courageous enough to rise to this challenge and continued with the study when difficulties emerged I also would like to express my gratefulness to all the professors during the graduate studies in the College of Foreign Studies Guangxi Normal University They have helped me to develop interests in E C and C E translation and to acquire basic knowledge of many aspects in translation studies Including my supervisor all professors instructions have given inspiration to me thus benefit me a lot Their motivating questions and illuminating arguments have enlightened me a lot to sharp ideas on several issues that are presented in the dissertation My sincere thanks also extend to Zhang Zhiqun a friend of mine in Shanghai Jiaotong University When I was in Shanghai doing research he accommodated me which made me feel at home while at the strange land With his material help and spiritual support I have made a good use of time and finished the research work in Shanghai effectively My dear classmates are always my supporters and they are my friends all in my life Without the concerns and conveniences they provided for me I wouldn t finish the dissertation on time With them I discussed academic problems and from them I always got the right mood to continue my research Last but not least I would like to thank my dearest families who were neglected during my three years study for master degree They are always on my side and offer constant support to me Without them I would not have been able to accomplish so much over the past three years 1 Chapter 1 Introduction 1 1 Introduction Human life cannot be separated from humor Humor does make the dull everyday life become alive fresh and animate As a mode of communication with dramatic entertaining function humor no matter verbal or nonverbal is a particular and exclusive characteristic of human being a serious subject and a holy land for which the explorer must equip himself thoughtfully Verbal humor for its unique artistic effects and communicative values strikes the fancy of the public With a comfortable and harmonious communicative environment it creates communicative parties laugh and enjoy meanwhile perceive the philosophy of life However humor across cultures falls flat every now and then even understood word by word In this case translation of humor is the only resort to cracking such a hard nut in cross cultural communication Moreover translation of humor is different from that of literary texts due to the elusive nature of humor and its different cultural and linguistic traits Consequently the question of translatability frequently confronts the translator However on all account equivalence counts for much in translation So far as humor is concerned since its major functions are to communicate and to arouse amusement functional equivalence is discussed with the expectation to achieve similar responses between TL and SL recipients This also reveals that a good translation is function oriented Skopos Theory highlighting translation with its function and purpose well meets this requirement thus is worth discussing in this paper 1 2 Stimulus for Humor Study from the Translational Scope Existence identity consciousness and humor are all axiomatic concepts of the human condition Diana Elena Popa 2005 48 Yet when it comes into our consciousness humor seems to be one of the least understood ibid because its hermetic structure and elusive nature refuse to open up to researchers Scholars of all schools have explored humor with numerous efforts and the exercise of humor studies is as old as humor itself tracing back to the times of Aristotle It initially was confined to one of the branch of Philosophical studies which has been focusing on the development of a satisfactory definition of humor Considering the nature and features of humor theories concerned can be classified into three groups incongruity superiority and relief theories Incongruity theory is said to have its origin in Aristotle s comments in the Rhetoric and now it is a leading and prevailing research approach Taking incongruity a broadly used term embracing ambiguity logical impossibility irrelevance and inappropriateness as the central features of all humor the theorists of incongruity theory treat humor as response to incongruity in the violent dissolution of such inappropriateness Later it 2 was termed as Incongruity Resolution Theory claiming that humorous effect arises from the perception and cognition of two incompatible ideas and resolution of such incongruity With a linguistic basis on Relevance Theory it illuminates the underlying cognitive mechanism involved in humor comprehension In this way it finally gives an answer to the question why something rather than others are humorous a question haunting over humor studies long ago However until recently there are only a few philosophers focusing on humor studies probably due to the reason that the studies of humor are proved to be daunting inviting numerous tricky problems and repeated failures Moreover endeavor to study humor is inevitably intertwined with interdisciplinary fields thus it is necessary to draw insights from linguistics literature psychology sociology anthropology and so on Humor has witnessed its sharp increased studies since 1960s when linguistics has provided a broad theoretic perspective thus vastly extending its studies into the field of linguistics literature and translation Attardo and Raskin s 1991 General Theory of Verbal Humor GTVH with its six hierarchical Knowledge Resources illustrates how jokes and wordplay are generated by bringing together two scripts containing the information necessary for generating a joke The General Theory of Verbal Humor GTVH also claims itself to be the first tool for analyzing humor translation For Attardo 2002 174 175 two utterances in two different languages or even in the same language can never be identical but merely similar to some extent thus he proposes GTVH as a metric for translating humor because it already includes a way of measuring similarities between texts whether they are in the same language or in different ones GTVH therefore is strictly a linguistic theory for measuring the similarity and difference between texts Moreover such theory with its orientation mainly to jokes and wordplay theoretical extension to humor may not applicable to humor on the whole since jokes and humor are definitely not the same though there is overlapping Modern studies have gradually shifted its emphasis towards cross cultural issues which has had profound implications for the translation studies as well as humor study In the modern world people are integrated more tightly humor as an essential tool of everyday communication and an important component of literary works mass media and art in general deep roots in the specific cultural and linguistic context thereby confronts a great challenge for its cross cultural study However such dilemma well justifies that a cross cultural study of humor is urgent and indispensable Philosophical and linguistic studies on humor in general have run into predicaments of neither taking on an interdisciplinary perspective nor being attentive enough to the culturally specific traits of humor However translational studies of humor offer a new turning point Within this field humor is seen as an outcome of interdisciplinary researches as 3 well as a production of each specific nation s long time interaction of philosophy ideology culture economics politics and linguistics and so on 1 3 Significance to Study Humor Translation across Cultures Admittedly explorations of humor and its translation have always been carrying on in this field though the pace is relatively slow because of complexity and the numerous difficulties attached to this very topic humor and translation Compared with the literary and technical translation translation of humor is meagre indeed for its involvement of special linguistic traits as well as cultural factors The translator with his or her effort to reproduce humor across cultures is compared to a ropewalker indicating that humorous effects would easily be lost and the potential of failure is really high Thus the sticking points finally come up namely what kind of balance or equivalence to use the technical term is expected and how to keep it This offers a cut in point for this paper Based on the above questions frequently coming up in translating humor this paper takes English and Chinese as two distinctively different carriers of humor carries out an interdisciplinary research emphasizes its trans lingual and cross cultural traits and finally paves the way to attain acceptable translation strategies Inevitably a series of questions come up when going into the concrete aspects as stated below 1 4 The Statement of Related Research Questions By the statement of those questions this paper aims to make clear the contents and structure dealing with them and to carry on the research and study accordingly 1 How to define humor its nature and classification 2 How to distinguish English and Chinese humor their similarities and differences 3 What are the challenges of translating humor Or in other words how to render humor across English and Chinese with smooth transference of effects cultural linguistic and ethical feature That s to say 4 What kind of equivalence is expected in translation humor and how to Such questions require us to think over 5 What are the satisfying theoretical foundations for humor translation to bridge over translational practice and theoretical feasibility for major types of humor This also leads to another important yet urgent question 6 Based on certain translation theories what are the adoptable translation strategies for each specific type of humor All the questions would be expounded thereafter and the structure of the paper is built up on them though it may not be in line with the order above 4 1 5 Structure of the paper This paper is organized by five parts In chapter one the purpose and necessity of humor study and humor translation are stated In Chapter Two a literature review is given to assess briefly the translational studies of humor across English and Chinese with which the theoretical and practical starting point of research of the paper comes forth In chapter three the paper attempts to furnish humor translation with theoretical basis of Equivalent Theory and Skopos Theory with which applicable translational strategies would be adopted in the translation of different types of humor But before that it should get down to the nature and features of humor Thus it is necessary to make clear firstly in chapter four the nature of humor and different ethical traits between English and Chinese humor A classification of humor into universal cultural and linguistic ones is given for the purpose of humor translation of the paper Subsequently chapter four tries to drive the translation of each type of humor home with strategies of adaptation and annotation based on the foregoing theories of functional equivalence and Skopos Theory discussed in chapter three An outspread of humor in humorous short messages is touched upon in chapter four as a field of later study Chapter five is the conclusion 5 Chapter 2 Literature Review With a relatively long history humor is archaic and a hard nut to crack which can be traced back to the time of Aristotle China similarly has a long history of xiaohua 笑話 tracing back to the Analects of Confucius However concerning the word humor itself a popular viewpoint in the 1930 s by Lu Xun was that there was no humor in China since humor as a kind of borrowed western culture there is no such a corresponding term to it in China Western philosophers at that time tended to think that humor as the embodiment of western culture could hardly be transplanted into another culture However finally humor took root in the soil of Chinese culture by Lin Yutang and his transliteration of 幽默 林語堂 見董小玉 韓云波 等 1993 50 and sooner becomes a proper word in Chinese language Now it s a widely used term However concerning the humor translation across English and Chinese some scholars compare it with the poem exclaiming that both of them have reached the degree of being untranslatable When referring to translation of English humor the Chinese translation studies scholar Liu Miqing 1998 83 in his book Style and Translation stated Language is a complicated thinking and communicating tool Its complicatedness is demonstrated above all by the history culture and psychology unique to a nation Some of these backgrounds are barriers in the way of transference Humorous and punning language can hardly be translated because humor comes from the witty use of words and the wit easily vanishes in translating process Rhyming always produces humor Rhyming is generally untr