Abstract

With the arising of Relevance theory proposed by Sperber and Wilson (1986) and the relevance-theoretic translation theory proposed by Gutt (1991), many scholars began to make researches on translation from the perspective of Relevance Theory. Under the guide of Relevance Theory, this thesis, taking humorous dialogues in famous American sitcom Friends as examples, tends to explore strategies employed in translating these humorous dialogues, i.e. literal translation, free translation, translateration plus explication, and lone translation.

Key Words:  Relevance theory   translation   sitcom  Friends   

摘要

随着Sperber与Wilson(1986)关联理论的提出以及Gutt(1991)的关联翻译理论的问世，许多学者开始从关联理论的角度进行翻译研究。本文以关联理论为指导，以美国情景喜剧《老友记》中的幽默话语为例，探究幽默话语翻译的策略，即直译、意译、直译加注和套译。

关键词：关联理论；翻译；幽默；老友记

Chapter One Introduction
1 .1 Research Background
    Humor is a very fascinating phenomenon of language. Many scholars and experts worldwide have made profound study on humor. It is complicated, multidimensional and all widespread. As a kind of language skill, humor plays an important part in interpersonal communication. As a result, it is of practical significance to enforce humor study. Many scholars began to do research on humor, a complicated task covering various disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, psychology, linguistics, philosophy, history, literature, and so on. Moreover, there are different reasons and purposes for using humor. People may use it to deal with some problems, to be clever in front of others or to prove something that could have offended other people if expressed without humor. Humor also plays a significant play in cross-culture communication, which makes the study of humor translation more colorful and meaningful.
1.2 The Structure of the Thesis
    This thesis is formed by four parts.
    The first chapter is mainly about research background and the structure of the thesis.
    Chapter Two gives literature review. The first section explains traditional studies of verbal humor. The second section explains modern studies of verbal humor from different academic perspectives, including three chief points. The third section is mainly about previous studies of humor translation.