Abstract The sitcom, a main form of comedy in the media era, has been attracting people’s attention with its frequent comedy conflicts, facetious dialogues and vivid characterization. American sitcoms originated in the 1940s have incurred great effects in China. Chinese young audiences consider watching American sitcoms as a trend of times. The increase of audience of American sitcoms in China could mainly be attributed to the following factors. The first factor is the charming characteristics of the works themselves. The second one is peoples’ universal interests in humor. In addition, the translators’ creative capability also contributes to the sitcoms’ success. People throughout the world share the same desire to understand and enjoy humor in different languages. However, the perse languages and cultures of China and America make it difficult to achieve this common desire. Thus there is a long way to go in translating humor subtitle of American sitcom. 54641
Two and a Half Men is an English sitcom made by Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS). The rhetorical devices and wordplays scattered in this play make cross-cultural communication tougher. That is to say, it is hard for people in different cultures to understand the English humor achieved by these rhetorical devices. Therefore, the translators have to convey humor effects as well as the precise meanings in translating American sitcoms into Chinese. However, there are no set rules or principles concluded for subtitle translation. In actual translation practice the translator not only needs to convey what is meant by the source language but ought to pay attention to the effects the translated versions incurred in the target readers, that is, to achieve Functional Equivalence. In this thesis, a detailed analysis of humor translation in Two and a Half Men is made in an effort to find out some practical and flexible methods as guidance for subtitle translation based on the theory of functional equivalence.
Keywords: humor translation; functional equivalence; Two and a Half Men
摘要作为媒体时代喜剧的一种主要形式,电视情景喜剧以频繁的喜剧冲突,幽默的人物对白以及鲜明的人物塑造广受人们喜爱。美国情景喜剧始于上世纪四五十年代,发展至今不仅在美国国内有广泛的影响,而且在中国也深受喜爱,尤其是年轻人,将观看美剧当作一种时代潮流。 美国的情景喜剧在中国的流行一方面是由于作品本身具有的艺术魅力,另一方面也来自于人们对幽默的共同热爱。同时,翻译者们对翻译作品的再创造,对美剧在中国的流行也起到了至关重要的作用。 不同国家的人们虽然使用着不同的语言,但他们有个共同的愿望-----传递和共享彼此语言中所蕴含的幽默。由于中国和美国的语言和文化差异,我们理解美剧中的幽默非常困难,因此,对美国情景喜剧的幽默字幕翻译研究任重而道远。
《好汉两个半》是由哥伦比亚广播公司播出的一部电视情景喜剧, 该剧中各种修辞手法和文字游戏的使用,让跨文化交际更加困难。也就是说,因为这些修辞手法的使用,别国文化的观众很难理解该剧中的幽默。翻译者在翻译字幕时不仅要传达幽默效果,而且要准确地表达字幕所传递的意思。然而目前并没有一套固定的理论或规则来指导字幕翻译。翻译者在对字幕进行翻译时不仅要传达原语言的意思,还要顾及到译文对使用目的语的受众的影响。本文通过对《好汉两个半》中各类幽默的举例分析,期望从奈达“功能对等”的研究角度归纳出不同类别幽默较合理的翻译方法。
毕业论文关键词:幽默翻译;功能对等;《好汉两个半》
Contents
1. Introduction 1
2. Literature Review