Abstract

    In recent years, the exchanges between people in the world are becoming increasingly frequent. As a communication tool, audiovisual is playing a dispensable role in promoting mutual understanding and cultural exchanges. After the hyperbolic, absurd American humor, British humor, with its distinctive feature, is popular among the world.
    Downton Abbey is a costume drama, produced by ITV. It gains popularity since its publication .Its delicate dialogues; complicated family stories, unexpected plots, and particularly, the unique and ubiquitous humor are simply astounding.
    However, British humor has rarely been systematically studied as a specific translation problem. In order to fill this gap, this paper presents a case study by analyzing the Chinese subtitles of the British TV play Downton Abbey, focusing on general verbal humor, rhetoric humor and culture-related humor from the perspective of functional equivalence. It aims at discussing some feasible translation strategies that can be used in translation

Keywords: British humor  subtitle translation  functional equivalence

摘要

    近年来,世界各国人民的交流日益频繁。影视作品在全球的相互理解和文化交流中起到举足轻重的作用。继夸张，荒诞的美式幽默后，具有浓厚本土色彩的英式幽默通过大批网络热播英剧风靡全球。
    《唐顿庄园》是由英国ITV电视台出品的古装剧，该剧播出后获得了强烈的反响。其沉稳精致的语言对白，庞大的家族故事，独特的人物性格特征，跌宕起伏的故事情节，尤其是独具个性，无所不在的英式幽默，更是令人拍案叫绝。
然而，英式幽默却很少被翻译学者当作一个单独的翻译问题来研究。为了弥补这一不足，本文以奈达的功能对等理论为指导，从普遍性幽默，修辞上的幽默和文化负载性幽默三个方面对英国电视剧《霍顿庄园》幽默字幕的翻译进行分析和研究，以期得出相对可行的翻译原则和翻译策略。
 
关键词：英式幽默；字幕翻译；功能对等

1.1 Research Background
In recent years, with the development of globalization, the exchanges between people in the world are becoming increasingly frequent. As a communication tool, audiovisual is playing a dispensable role in promoting mutual understanding and cultural exchanges. Therefore, subtitle translation is regarded as a bridge between two languages and becoming more and more important. The quality of translation determines audiences’ understanding, absorption and approve of the original drama. It is widely accepted that humor translation is as desperate as poem translation. After the hyperbolic, absurd American humor, British humor, with its distinctive feature, is popular among the world. Therefore, the humor of subtitle translation has become a dispensable field of translation study and practice. “Besides, the sounds of television arts can produce new, poetic arts formation and expand its space and expression, arousing the atmosphere to arouse audiences’ imagination into a deeper level.”