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精品文档，仅供学习与交流，如有侵权请联系网站删除点击Good morning, all appraiser committee members. I am Wang Yingyun and my supervisor is Professor Ge Lingling. With her constant encouragement and guidance, I have finished my paper. Now, I will present my efforts to you and welcome any correction. 点击The title of my paper is “On the English Translation of Chinese Humorous Texts: A Case Study of Ru Lin Wai Shi and its English Version”. Here is the outline of my presentation. 点击Why返回The question “Why do I choose the theme for my study?” will be discussed in Part 1: Research Backgroud and Part 2: Research Questions & purposes.点击 How返回Part 3 and Part 4 present How I collect and analyze data under the guidance of the theoretical framework, that is the General Theory of Verbal Humor.点击 What返回The question “What have been found in the research?” will be answered in Part 5 and 6.主页First, I would like to talk about “Why do I choose the theme for my study?”.点击 1Humor, as a very effective tool of communication, has been widely employed by authors in Chinese literature. Due to the enormous cultural differences and the specific characteristics of Chinese humorous texts, there exist many obstacles in the process of humor translation.点击 Ru Lin Wai ShiAfter reviewing the previous literature, I find that the academic researches on Ru Lin Wai Shi and its English version developed rather slowly. Here are some statistics.点击Figure 1 shows the research tendency of Ru Lin Wai Shi from 1952 to 2013.点击From Figure 2, we can know that within all the research perspectives of Ru Lin Wai Shi, Translation Studies only account for a small fraction.返回Table 1 clearly shows that none of the existing papers has ever focused on the humor translation of Ru Lin Wai Shi. 点击So, it is of great necessity and significance to make a tentative research on the methods of humor translation in Ru Lin Wai Shi.主页Since Linguistics and Translation Studies are closely related, linguistic theories and methodologies are usually borrowed to analyze the process of humor translation. The review of literature also tells us that Raskin and Attardos General Theory of Verbal Humor has rarely been employed in the research field of long humorous texts. So, studying verbal humor and humor translation in Ru Lin Wai Shi under the guidance of the General Theory of Verbal Humor is of both theoretical value and practical significance.点击 2The whole research revolves around three research questions: 1. How does verbal humor come into being? 2. Can the General Theory of Verbal Humor well illustrate the generation of verbal humor in long Chinese humorous texts? 3. What are the most appropriate methods for humor translation?The purpose of the research is to help readers better enjoy the humor contained in Chinese humorous texts, and at the same time, set the foundation for the further studies of humor translation.主页Now, lets take a look at the process of conducting the research.点击 3The General Theory of Verbal Humor and its Extended Theory are applied in this research as the theoretical framework. 点击 GTVHThe GTVH has made two main contributions to humor studies by proposing Six Knowledge Resources and Joke Similarity Metric System.返回The Six Knowledge Resources refer to six parameters that assign a unique descriptor to any joke all together, with SO, SI, NS, LA being obligatory and LM, TA optional. The Six Knowledge Resources present a hierarchical arrangement and constitute the humor similarity measurement system as shown in Figure 3. According to the Joke Similarity Metric System, the degree of perceived difference between jokes increases linearly with the height of the Knowledge Resources in which the two jokes differ. Simply speaking, two jokes that differ by language are perceived to be very similar, whereas jokes that differ by script opposition are perceived as very different.返回点击 ExtendedIn 2012, Professor Ge Lingling and He Yuanjian extended the General Theory of Verbal Humor by categorizing the six Knowledge Resources into “surface parameters” and “deep parameters” based on the specific characteristics of Chinese humorous texts. 点击 ApplicationThe General Theory of Verbal Humor and its Extended Theory has shown its overwhelming superiority in humor research and humor translation study. In this research, Ru Lin Wai Shi and its English version The Scholars are selected as the research material. Although Ru Lin Wai Shi contains abundant humorous sentences and discourses, how to collect the ideal data still remains a problem. Luckily, the GTVH not only describes how one can generate a funny text by manipulating KRs that are not funny taken separately, but also provides the necessary and sufficient conditions that a text must meet for the text to be funny and an algorithm for checking whether a given text is funny or not.In terms of the choices made within each KR, all the mini-humorous discourses 点击extracted from the source text Ru Lin Wai Shi can be represented as shown in Table 2. Normalized type denotes a set of humorous discourses with all six KRs. De-normalized type 1 denotes the cases which have only five KRs, with LM or TA being lost. De-normalized type 2 denotes samples, in which humor is generated by four obligatory KRs. These three kinds of data type are consistent with all the samples in the database. Discourses that possess less than four obligatory parameters will not be collected into the database, for that they lack the ability of humor generation.Based on the metric of joke similarity Attardo gives practical recommendations for translators of humorous texts: “if possible, respect all six Knowledge Resources in 点击your translation, but if necessary, let your translation differ at the lowest level necessary for your pragmatic purposes”. Figure 4 well illustrates the process of adapting the joke similarity metric to humor translation.返回The Extended Theory of GTVH makes a detailed explanation of the relation between deep parameters and surface parameters. Figure 5 reflects the distinct features in the surface and deep parameters in Chinese humorous texts and the relation between them. 主页点击 ExtendedChinese humorous text has its peculiar NS and LA, which is embedded in rhetorical devices and alien sources respectively. For this reason, together with the six KRs, rhetorical devices and Chinese alien sources are also used as linguistic markers when extracting humor data form Ru Lin Wai Shi.点击 4Part 4 shows the concrete steps of data collection and data analysis.When collecting data, three key issues should be taken into consideration: representativeness, size and sampling. In order to guarantee the representativeness of parallel database, the works of famous press and famous translator should be given priority to from the beginning. In this research, the statistics and its relevant analysis are based on the edition of a bilingual version of Ru Lin Wai Shi (The Scholars), published by Hunan Peoples Publishing House in 1999.It is argued that a bigger database will not necessarily be more useful than a small one, since there is a limit to the amount of data that a researcher can analyze. The contents in the whole 55 chapters of Ru Lin Wai Shi have been segmented into 214 mini-humorous discourses, and the same goes for the translated version.In the course of sampling, rhetorical devices and Chinese alien sources together with six Knowledege Resources are used as linguistic markers to define data and make analysis of samplings as well.The process of database compilation mainly consists of four steps: 点击 Input返回Table 3 is a model of archive that records the basic information about the database.返回点击 Tokenization Tokenization can solve the problem of inconsistency in the inner text caused by different sources and formats when we process data collection. What can be seen in Figure 6 is that space is added to two tokens both in the ST and the TT in order to make the tokens separate, which will be convenient for the analysis in the next phase.Figure 7 shows that the database used in this research is based on mini-discourse alignment, since we should take context into consideration when analyzing humor in the text.点击 TaggingTable 4 presents the abbreviations used for annotation of samples in the database.点击And Table 5 presents the abbreviations used for annotation of translation methods in the database.返回Based on this Chinese-English bilingual parallel database, we can make quantitative and qualitative analysis on how the GTVH and its Extended Theory work in testing original Chinese humorous texts and assessing their English translations.点击 StatisticalFirst, lets look at the data type in the source text. 点击图片As mentioned in the application of six Knowledge Resources, all the 214 mini-humorous discourses extracted from the ST in the database fall into two types: normalized type and de-normalized type (1, 2). 返回点击The data in relation to the distribution of the two types in the ST warrant the statistics shown in Figure 8. There are 214 mini-humorous discourses collected altogether from the original novel, among which 166 items contain all six KRs; 8 items entail five KRs excluding LM; 37 items involve five KRs without TA; and 3 items have only four obligatory KRs.点击Then, lets analyze KRs reserved in the target text. Figure 9 presents the number of the data concerning the KRs reserved during verbal humor translation and their separate percentage of the total number. Since the samples of no KRs reserved only account for 1%, we can arrive at a tentative conclusion that the Yangs have transferred all the KRs in the ST faithfully to the TT in most cases.Figure 10 concludes the number of the data concerning three categories of KRs 点击reserved in the TT and the proportion of the preservation of humorous effects in each category.点击According to the Extendede Theory of GTVH, Chinese humorous text has its peculiar NS and LA, which is embedded in rhetorical devices and Chinese alien sources respectively. Of all the 214 mini-humorous discources in the database, more than 81 generate humor with the help of Chinese alien sources.点击 Figure 11 presents that the humor generated by rhetorical device accounts for 87%, which occupies a large proportion in verbal humor within the whole database. Statistics shown in Figure 11 also suggests that in the ST, verbal humor is achieved mainly through various rhetorical devices, which presents no balance in use. Quotation, hyperbole, simile and metaphor are the most frequently used devices with a total number of 32, 28, 23 and 21 for each. Metonymy, rhetorical question, irony, allusion, pun and personification appear less frequently in the humorous samples, of which the total number ranking in descending order are 19, 16, 14, 9, 6, and 6. The least frequently used devices are repetition, antithesis, anagram, and palindrome, with a total number of 4, 3, 3 and 2 respectively. In order to study the methods of humor translation in The Scholars objectively, I conduct a general survey of translators methods of translating humorous discourses including literal translation, paraphrase, substitution, omission, synthesization and 点击annotation, which cover certain proportion in humor translation respectively.Table 6 shows the distributional tendencies as to which translating strategy is adopted more than another in translating humor embedded in different rhetorical 点击devices. 主页Since one of the research purpose is to assess the translation of the original humorous text, I also count the proportion of humor reserved in the TT under different translation methods. Figure 12 reveals the results.点击 5The last two part of the presentation conclude what have been found in the research. The major findings of the research can be summarized into three main points. 点击 GeneralThe first onefinding about the General Theory of Verbal Humor.返回点击 Figure 8The statistics in Figure 8 show that all the data in the database fall into two types, which is consistent with theoretical expectations of the GTVH. 返回Therefore, it is proved that the GTVH can provide an analytic framework not only for short jokes, but also for long humorous texts.点击 ChineseThe second finding is about the characteristics of Chinese humorous texts.点击 Figure 11The statistics in Figure 11 show 返回that the generation of verbal humor contained in Chinese humorous texts relies heavily on rhetorical devices and Chinese alien sources.点击 ExamplesHere are some examples. In example 1, the Narrative Strategy is embedded in the rhetorical devicemetaphor, and the Language is embedded in the Chinese alien source狐假虎威.点击In example 2, the Narrative Strategy is embedded in the rhetorical devicemetonymy, and the Language is embedded in the Chinese alien source醍醐.点击返回The same goes for example 3, the Narrative Strategy is embedded in the rhetorical devicehyperbole, and the Language is embedded in the Chinese alien source狗血喷头.点击 MethodsNow, we come to the last finding of the researchThe methods of humor translation adopted in The Scholars. 点击 Table 6The statistics in Table 6 show 点击返回that there are mainly six translation methods for verbal humor in The Scholars in all. Literal translation that occupies 48.1% takes up the largest proportion among the six. Paraphrase is the second frequently-applied translation method that takes 31%. As for substitution, synthesization, annotation and omission, the proportion is much less than that of literal translation and paraphrase.点击 Figure 12The statistics in Figure 12 illustrate the following points:Literal translation shows its absolute advantage in translating humorous discourses, as long as Chinese alien sources are not involved.Substitution is a suitable method to translate humor triggered by some certain Chinese alien sources which have their counterparts in English.返回When translating humor triggered by Chinese alien sources with no equivalent expressions in the target language, annotation and synthesization are applicable methods.Paraphrase and omission usually lead to the failure of humor transference.点击 LTIn order to explain the situation better, Im going to analyze several typical examples of each translation method.返回In this example, there are two scripts: one is “Wang De and Wang Ren”, the other is “wooden figures”. The two scripts are incompatible in reality. The figurative word “like.” serves as the trigger in changing the first script to the second one. The simile used to describe the indifferent attitude of Wang De and Wang Ren makes people laugh. By adopting literal translation, the Yangs endow the TT with the same humorous effect as in the ST. 点击 Sub.In this example, the metaphor in the ST is recast as a simile introduced by “like.” in the TT. Besides, the Chinese alien source “狐假虎威” is substituted by the English idiom “a donkey in a lions hide”. Literal translation will surely put the TT 返回reader in a complete bewilderment. So, the translators adopt substitution to deal with the translation of this humorous text. We may perceive that the implied meaning of the Chinese alien source is sustained in the TT, thus, SO is preserved, and so is the humor embedded in metaphor.返回点击 An.In this example, Xiao Jinxuan is making a joke on the monk through metonymy. “秃驴” in the ST is a Chinese alien source used to poke fun at monks. By literally translated “秃驴” into “a bald-headed ass”, the Yangs preserved the original image faithfully. However, the script caused by the Chinese alien source “a bald-headed ass” is not activated in the TT, so the Yangs added annotation to further explain the association between the two scripts. Therefore, literal translation plus annotation guarantees the transference of humorous effect in this example.点击 Syn.Here is the example of synthesization.返回In this example, the enigmatic folk simile “老虎头上扑苍蝇” is not quoted in its full form, for the second part “找死 (bring about ones own destruction)” is omitted in the ST. In order to reproduce the SO, the Yangs employ synthesization by translating the animal imagetiger and fly literally and adding the two key words “only fools” to paraphrase the overlap between two scripts. Though such kind of SO is alien to the TT reader, it is easy for them to infer the implied meaning and get the similar result, hence appreciating the similar humorous effect.点击 Pa.返回In this example, the author Wu Ching-Tzu abnormally employs this expression “没脊骨的” to modify things, hence causing script opposition on normality. However, compared with the original version “没脊骨的事”, the paraphrased version “unprincipled things” seems to be much too formal and just. Humorous effects in the ST disappear together with personification in the TT.点击 Om.Lets take a look at the example of omission.返回Due to the subjectivity of the translators, complete omission is adopted here. The abandoned part gives an shrewd and vivid description of various people living in Yangzhou. The “六精” refer to officials, bearers, attendants, doormen, wives or concubines and salt merchants respectively. Because of complete omission, no parameter is sustained in the TT, let alone the humorous effect.点击 6主页The sixth part is about the limitations and suggestions of the research.To begin with, the present research is restricted in one specific literary workRu Lin Wai Shi, and other long Chinese humorous texts are left untouched. In fact, besides this novel, there are so many other Chinese classical literature full of humorous elements. Thus, the sphere of the research seems relatively narrow. Then, although the GTVH is more developed than any other theory in humor research, it is still nothing more than a very early draft of a model, which is lack of strong empirical support. So, it is expected that the present research will be a quantitative study for the interpretation of the GTVH.Last but not the least, the categorization of humor in Ru Lin Wai Shi is much wider than the cases listed in this thesis. And the translation methods which have been analyzed in view of the GTVH and rhetorical devices may be far from exhausted. The author only analyzes each method for humor translation in a descriptive way. Hence, it leaves much room for further research.Here are some suggestions for future research.On the one hand, more researches should be conducted on the General Theory of Verbal Humor in order to fulfill and extend the study of this theory and its practice. Therefore, it is necessary to enlarge samples of other literary works so as to get more convincing data.On the other hand, more efforts should be made to seek for the appropriate methods for humor translation. As a result, the target readers would have more chances to appreciate humor conveyed in Chinese literary works.Thats all for my presentation, thanks for your attention.【精品文档】第 10 页
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