Application of Relevance Translation Theory in Humor Translation

【Abstract】This thesis， aiming to investigate the process of English-Chinese translation of humor from the perspective of RT theory （relevance translation theory） ， endeavors to apply its principles and methods to the re-construction of humor in the target language.

【Key words】RT theory human translation

1. Previous study on Relevance translation theory

Relevance Theory has brought a new perspective into translation studies， which takes translation process into consideration not original text any more. Inspired through Relevance Theory， Gutt （2004） utilized relevance theory to explain translation and form a new relevance translation theory which has been playing a profound part in translation study. Gutt has claimed that， translation should be regarded as a communication process in view of Relevance Theory. According to Relevance Translation Theory， translation is an ostensive-inferential interpretive process between source language and target language. During this process， the understanding and illustration of the source text rely on optimal relevance. Humor translation， as a special kind of translation， also adapts to this translation process in which seek for optimal relevance and the most proper interpretive resemblance is an important mission in humor translation.

2. Application of Relevance Translation Theory in Humor Translation

2.1Humor Translation as Double Ostensive-inferential Process

According to relevance translation theory， the nature of translation is communicational process. In some way， humor translation process is a double ostensive-inferential process. The two ostensive-inference process can be applied into the humor translation as follows：

The translators' cognition of the source text is the first ostensive-inferential process. The ostensive process means that the original author expresses his intentions including his informational intention and communicative intention. The inferential process refers to the translator's inference of the author's intentions. In this process， what the translator needs to do is to seek for an optimal relevance between his own cognition and the original text for reasoning the author's intention correctly. In this process the translator acts as a recipient. The second ostensive-inferential process is between the translator and target readers. The ostention means that translator should show the original author's intentions to the target readers. Translator is regarded as a communicator in the second process. For example：

It' s not the fall that kills you； it' s the sudden stop at the end.

Version 1： 墜落并不會置你于死地，著地的那一瞬間才會讓你一命嗚呼。

Version 2： 跳樓的時候，“啊——”的時候還沒死，“啪！”那才是死了。

The first thing for translator is to infer the intention of author. There is an assumption that he is talking about a death process with his grave analysis. Such a vivid analysis in a serious tune generates the humorous effect. After the first ostensive-inference process， translator needs to make assumptions about processing abilities and contextual environments of target readers. literal translation， version 1， can help to complete the two ostensive-intensive processes. But in the second version translator takes more efforts to find the optimal relevance between the source text and target text. Instead of translating the two words “fall” and “sudden stop”， he takes use of different voices made in two steps to represent the two actions. It complete the communication the same， and it does much better in building optimal relevance. Hence， this translation enables target readers to take the minimal processing efforts and remains the maximal humorous effects.

2.2 Humor Translation as Context-dependent Communication

There are two vital elements in translation process which are dependent on context to a large extent， process efforts and contextual effect. Translator needs to infer the intention of source text according to information in his own cognitive context， and then creates the contextual effect that target readers need， which enables them to understand the soul of source text. Thus， a successful communication is realized. Accordingly， translator should be capable of finding out communicative intentions of source text and seeking the existence of context assumptions intended by the original writer in potential context of target readers. And then， translator needs to judge that whether the context assumptions readers needed are inexplicable or not. In Gutt's theory， it means that whether the process efforts of target readers are accordant to contextual effects. Translator should find out an optimal relevance to complete the communication. In the same way， humor translation is also a context-dependent communication. Generally， context can be divided into discourse context， context of situation and cultural context. In the following part， the influence of the three contexts on humor translation will be discussed with examples：

A： Well， you know， I wasn't hopping mad！ B： You hopped a little bit.

甲：我沒有氣到跳腳！ 乙：你跳了一兩下。

This is an example of discourse context. Humors in discourse context are usually generated by polysemy， alliteration， pun， and synecdoche and so on. Here is an example of polysemy. polysemy refers to word “hop”. “hop” means jump， but“hopping mad” in this sentence is used to describe that someone is very angry. The information intention of A is that he doesn't bristles with anger， but the communicational information runs counter to it， because B uses the literal meaning of “hop”. Thus the humorous effect comes out. The source text takes use of the different meanings of “hop” to generate a humor. In the target text， translator finds an optimal relevance， using “跳” to take place of “hop”.

3. Conclusion

Generally， humor translation under the guidance of relevance theory is a dynamic process， and is required to find the optimal relevance， so the translator needs to adopt proper and flexible translational means for ensuring the humorous effects.

【Reference】

[1]Gutt， E. Translation and relevance： cognition and context. Shanghai： Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press，2004.