论文总字数：52397字

摘 要

现在,越来越多的国外影视剧走入中国,走入英语学习者的视野。很多美剧以其精良的制作,幽默的情节和对话吸引了一批又一批的国内观众,而这些剧作也成为了我们了解美国文化和民俗的一个重要窗口和媒介。但由于语言的差异,大部分人欣赏这些美剧都要借助翻译,于是字幕翻译在其中起到至关重要的作用。幽默是情景喜剧中的关键组成部分,所以幽默对白的翻译,幽默效果的传达直接影响观众对整部剧的观赏。

本论文将首先对情景喜剧中的常见幽默进行分类，主要为普遍幽默、语言幽默和文化幽默。接着通过实证提取、分类，分析人人影视字幕组对情景喜剧《摩登家庭》中幽默话语的中文翻译；归纳总结出幽默对白字幕翻译的几大常用技巧：直译处理、押韵处理、口音处理、双关处理、注释处理等；并最终对全文进行归纳总结，指出研究的局限和不足。

关键词：幽默话语；字幕翻译；摩登家庭

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements i

Abstract ii

摘要 iii

Table of Contents iv

Chapter One Introduction 1

1.1 Background of the study 1

1.2 Significance and purpose of the study 1

1.3 Layout of the thesis 2

Chapter Two Literature Review 3

2.1 Subtitle Translation 3

2.1.1 Research on subtitle translation at home and abroad 3

2.1.2 Features of subtitle translation 5

2.2 Current research on humorous lines 6

2.3 Current research on subtitle translation of humorous lines 6

Chapter Three Subtitle Translating Strategies of Humorous Lines in Modern Family 8

3.1 Introduction of Modern Family 8

3.2 Introduction of YYeTs fansub group 8

3.3 Subtitle translation methods of humorous lines in Modern Family 8

3.3.1 Universal humor 9

3.3.1.1 Literal translation 10

3.3.1.2 Free translation 11

3.3.2 Linguistic humor 13

3.3.2.1 Rhymes and alliterations 13

3.3.2.2 Puns 15

3.3.2.3 Accents 15

3.3.3 Cultural humor 17

3.3.3.1 Free translation 17

3.3.3.2 Annotations 21

3.4 Major findings 22

Chapter Four Conclusion 24

References 25

Chapter One Introduction

1.1 Background of the study

With the accelerating progress of globalization, Chinese people are getting more accessible to various resources of foreign cultures. Among all these, foreign TV sitcoms enjoy a particularly high popularity, thanks to their exquisite production and humorous lines. It is no exaggeration that humor is a vital component in foreign sitcoms; therefore, the translation of humorous lines directly decide whether audiences will be able to understand and enjoy the humor. Currently in China, it is mainly some certain non-profit fansub groups that undertake the work of translating subtitles of foreign sitcoms. Though many of these amateur translators may not have professional background in the field of translation, they are still able to come up with excellent Chinese translations that keep the original humor intact in translated versions and make audiences better appreciate those sitcoms.

1.2 Significance and purpose of the study

In recent years, subtitle translation has been gaining increasing attention from more audiences. However, presently in China, there is yet no universal standard on translating subtitles, and the people who are engaged in subtitle translation include both professional translators and amateur fans, resulting in varied translating styles. Besides, unlike regular text translation or interpretation, subtitle translation is subject to time of the TV show and size of the screen; therefore, it is in some way a more difficult job to do a satisfactory subtitle translation, especially when the original texts are humorous lines in American sitcoms.

Humor is often considered as the essence of American sitcoms. An accurate and vivid translation of humorous lines will enable audiences to better understand the dialogues in those comedic TV series. Thus, doing research on subtitle translation of humorous lines is worthwhile and feasible; and it might also provide guidelines for translators to apply more humor translation methods in a better way.

This thesis attempts to summarize and conclude the translation strategies adopted by YYeTs fansub translators in subtitle translation of humorous lines in Modern Family. This study is expected to help translators work more efficiently on humorous lines and subtitle translation in general.

1.3 Layout of the thesis

This thesis consists of four chapters. Chapter One is a general introduction of this thesis. It presents the research background, the significance and purpose of the study and the overall structure of this thesis. Chapter Two is mainly about the literature review on subtitle translation and humor translation. It briefly introduces domestic and foreign research of subtitle translation. It also discusses current research on humorous lines and the subtitle translation of them. Chapter Three deals with a few subtitle translating methods of humorous lines in a famous American sitcom, Modern Family. This chapter begins with the introduction of Modern Family and YYeTs subtitle translation group, the major fansub group that provides Chinese translation of Modern Family. The latter part of this chapter explains the strategies in translating three types of humor in Modern Family. The last chapter, Chapter Four, makes a conclusion of this study by making a summary and pointing out the limitations of it, and giving suggestions for future study.

Chapter Two Literature Review

2.1 Subtitle Translation

Subtitles usually refer to the texts displayed in the dialog of audiovisual shows, such as films, dramas and television programs. In most cases, subtitles appear at the bottom of the screen, whereas in stage performances or other special work, subtitles are presented on both sides of or above the stage. As Danan pointed out, “Subtitling is the economical solution reserved for the restricted markets of smaller countries. However, the choice of subtitling is not only dependent on economic reasons, it is also based on major factors extending to the cultural and linguistic identity of a nation.” (Danan 1991: 606)

2.1.1 Research on subtitle translation at home and abroad

Since 1950s, a few European scholars began to publish papers on how to improve the quality of foreign subtitle translation. The earliest study mainly focused on the discussion about dubbing and subtitling from the perspective of translation and aesthetics. In 1957, Lake (1957) published Le sous-titrage de films (subtitling of films), which could be regarded as the first volume dealing with the theme of subtitling, and it provides the public with a number of subtitling techniques.

In 1974, a renowned article called On Subtitles in Television Programs written by Cay Dollerup (1974) was published on Babel. This article was deemed as the first significant work fully concentrated on subtitle translation. It discusses various kinds of subtitling errors in translating English TV shows into Danish ones; it also looks into the way subtitles help people learn foreign languages.

In 1991, Georg-Michael Luyken (1991), along with four other scholars, wrote the book Overcoming Language Barriers in Television: Dubbing and Subtitling for the European Audience and had it published. The authors explained three functions of subtitles from the theoretical perspective: passing on interlingual information, simplifying or compressing texts, and transforming oral expressions into written language. It is the latter two functions that make subtitle translation distinguished from other forms of textual translation.

In 1992, Jan Iverson (1992), a famous Swedish subtitling professional, published Subtitling for the Media: A Handbook of an Art. It provides guidance for people involved or interested in subtitle translation and its related practice. Six years later, Jan Iverson (1998) and Mary Carroll (1998), co-authored Subtitling. This book focused primarily on useful strategies of subtitling and its recent innovations.

Apart from Iverson, Gottlieb is another influential scholar in the field of media translation. In his essay Subtitling (2001), he introduced ten sorts of subtitling skills in order to tackle a number of problems, be them linguistic or culture-related ones. For example, “dislocation” (Gottlieb, 2001, pp.1010) is a method adopted by translators to come up with different expressions or translations when dealing with “music or visualized language-specific terms” (Gottlieb, 2001, pp.1010).

In 2007, Aline Remael (2007) and Jorge Diaz Cintas (2007) published their book Audiovisual Translation, Subtitling. This is an introductory textbook which provides a solid overview of the world of subtitling. Based on sound research and first-hand experience in the field, the book focuses on generally-accepted practice but identifies current points of contention, takes regional and medium-bound variants into consideration, and traces new developments that may have an influence on the evolution of the profession. The individual chapters cover the rules of good subtitling practice, the linguistic and semiotic dimensions of subtitling, the professional environment, technical considerations, and key concepts and conventions, providing access to the core skills and knowledge needed to subtitle for television, cinema and DVD.

Compared with studies abroad, domestic research on subtitle translation has a late start. So far, there has been no systematic theoretical framework under which mature academic research on subtitle translation can be carried out.

In his paper On the basic principles of film translation, Ma Zhengqi (1997) analyzed the basic principles in translating film subtitles from the aspects of oral expression, character personality, emotion, mouth shape and popularity.

Zhang Chunbai (1998) discussed the instantaneity and popularity of film language in his A Preliminary Study on Film-television Translation. He conducted research on the nature, principle and strategy of film-television translation, and also discussed translation of puns.

In 2000, Qian Shaochang (2000) published his thesis Film Translation: A Field with Increasing Significance in the Translation World. The paper points out the importance of film translation and calls on the translators to pay more attention to it. The author analyzed the differences between film language and written language and describes the five characteristics of the former: comprehensiveness, instantaneity, popularity, unidirectivity and no annotation. He also provides seven personal experiences in film translation.

2.1.2 Features of subtitle translation

In On the Application of Functional Equivalence Theory in Film-television Translation by Yin Yan (2013), she introduced five features of film-television subtitle translation.

1. Effectiveness. Translators should make sure that the subtitle translation conveys the exact meaning of those contents in the most direct and effective way.
2. Pertinence. Different films and television programs are targeted at various groups of audience, who clearly have separated levels of comprehension ability. As a result, translators should adjust their choices of wording and expression when the target audiences differ.
3. Equivalence and space limitation. The dialog must correspond to the meaning of the screenshot, and the length of the subtitles is restricted by the screen space. Thus, the film-television subtitle translation must be able to convey the most-needed information within limited screen space.
4. Colloquialism. As film-television subtitle translation primarily touches upon contents about daily dialogs, it shouldn’t be as formal and precise as written text; in this way, audiences will be able to truly resonate with the content.
5. Instantaneity and compatibility. Since each screenshot will disappear within seconds, it is therefore significant and necessary for subtitle to be perfectly matched with the content of each screenshot, with no delay or head start.

Of all the features listed above, space limitation and instantaneity are two unique features of subtitle translation and therefore should be especially emphasized.

In conclusion, subtitle translation should be the most popular, direct and effective method to convey information closest to the original contents within the most limited time and space.

2.2 Current research on humorous lines

The general definition sees humor as the attributes of an event that makes people laugh. In the book Taking Humor Seriously by Jerry Palmer (1994), he argues that humor “is multi-dimensional, it is part of personality and part of our cognitive and emotional processes; it is subject to social rules governing appropriate behavior on different occasions. It is part of literary and audio-visual narrative; it is subject to moral and aesthetic judgment, and it is a rhetorical instrument.” He believes that “it is only through investigating those separate dimensions that we can begin to understand the phenomenon of humor.”

In the paper On the Pragmatic and Semantic Characteristics of Humorous Lines written by Wang Jinling (2004), the author believes that the real goal of humorous lines is to express various underlying meanings other than the original ones of the lines, and she concludes five pragmatic characteristics of humorous lines: tacitness, modularity, emotion evaluation, nationality and ambiguity.

In the paper Pragmatic Study on English Humorous Lines by Feng Qian (2008), the author analyzes English humor from the following angles: deixis, cooperative principle, speech acts and presupposition. The author writes the paper to reveal the pragmatic elements that create English humor, and to shed some light on research of English humor and real communication.

2.3 Current research on subtitle translation of humorous lines

Sun Meng (2013) from Inner Mongolia University has done a research on the subtitle translation of situation comedy The Big Bang Theory from the perspective of skopos theory. Wang Youxi (2014) from Beijing Foreign Studies University has discussed humor translation in American sitcom Modern Family on the basis of Relevance Theory and its major principles in her thesis. In a few theses concerning American situation comedies, Tian Xiufeng (2011) and Shen Yang (2005) focused on the analysis of humor translation strategies in Friends, whereas Liu Hui (2005) mainly analyzed its humorous effect after subtitle translation from the perspective of linguistics. Liu Xiaoling (2014), Ding Dandan (2014), Geng Fang (2014) and Li Jingya (2013) have respectively studied the subtitle translation of humorous lines in The Big Bang Theory from aspects of Relevance Theory, Conceptual Blending Theory and Pragmatic Presupposition Perspective. Chen Lijie (2014), Yang Ying (2013) and Shi Chunying (2012) have all written a thesis on subtitle translation in Desperate Housewives. However, Chen and Yang centered upon the perspective of Skopos theory while Shi focused on the aspect of Functional Equivalence Theory. All these theses have reviewed and analyzed the subtitle translation in situation comedies from different angles, and have all contributed to the future study in this field.

However, despite the widespread popularity of Modern Family as one of the most popular American sitcoms around the world, the number of theses about humor translation methods at CNKI is no more than 10; moreover, papers on this subject are also much fewer than those on humor translation of sitcoms such as Friends, The Big Bang Theory and Desperate Housewives. Therefore, this thesis aims to focus on analyzing humor translating methods applied particularly in the translations of Modern Family, with the purpose of providing more useable references and materials for later researchers to conduct research on relevant fields.

Chapter Three Subtitle Translating Strategies of Humorous Lines in Modern Family

3.1 Introduction of Modern Family

Modern Family is an American television mockumentary that revolves around three different types of families (nuclear, step- and same-sex) living in the Los Angeles area who are interrelated through Jay Pritchett and his children, Claire Dunphy and Mitchell Pritchett. As the name suggests, this family represents a modern-day family and episodes are comically based on situations which many families encounter in real life.

Modern Family premiered to positive reviews from critics. It has won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series in each of its first five years and the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy in 2011. This sitcom is also popular among Chinese audiences, as it has been played nearly 40 million times on Sohu website and downloaded 8 million times on YYeTs website.

3.2 Introduction of YYeTs fansub group

In early 2003, some Chinese fans of American TV series co-founded the YYeTs fansub group which volunteered to translate many an American TV program and film. YYeTs fansub group, together with Yidianyuan fansub group, Ragbear fansub group and FRM fansub group, is the top four fansub groups in China that have the most audiences. Among these four, YYeTs enjoys the most popularity among young fans of American TV series, thanks to its youthful style of subtitle translation.

3.3 Subtitle translation methods of humorous lines in Modern Family

In the situation comedy Modern Family, there are a lot of humorous English dialogs that are created to make audiences laugh. While these culture-based humor may be easily understood by native English speakers, how to precisely convey the original meaning of such humor to non-English speakers could be a problem. Under such circumstances, amateur translators in YYeTs fansub group have applied several translation methods in the translation of humorous lines in Modern Family. All the examples are extracted from the first four seasons of Modern Family. The first four seasons enjoy a particularly high popularity among the audiences, and they are generally considered as the four funniest seasons of the entire Modern Family sitcom, according to the ratings survey conducted by several major US TV stations such as ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, etc. and the reviews from their followers. Humorous lines in these examples refer to the lines that occur with the canned laughters in sitcoms; and they are supposed to create the effect of humor for audiences who are native English speakers.

In Humor as a Pedagogical Tool in Foreign Language and Translation Courses by John Robert Schmitz, he “propose, for the purpose of language teaching, the division of humorous discourse into three basic groups: universal (or reality-based) joke, cultural (or culture-based) joke, and linguistic (or word-based) joke” (JR Schmitz 2002). This paper will follow this classification criteria, and discuss the translation strategies used in the Chinese subtitle translation that aim at reproducing the original humor.

3.3.1 Universal humor

According to JR Schmitz, universal humor “obtains mainly from the context and the general functioning of the world” (JR Schmitz 2002) In other words, it relies on audiences’ common knowledge and real-life experiences and “would continue to be humorous in translation from English into other languages”.

The most frequently-used strategy for universal humor seems to be literal translation, which means direct or word-for-word translation. Since universal humor doesn’t require audiences’ specific cultural knowledge or education background to understand, simply translating the literal meaning of the original humorous lines would be enough to convey the hidden humor. Sometimes, free translation is also applied in translating some universal humor.

3.3.1.1 Literal translation

Example 1:

Phil is suffering pain in his body.

Phil: Oh! That’s bad!

Claire: Oh, honey.

Phil: I’m fine. No, I’m fine. I’m just…okay, that’s cancer!

Claire: Maybe it’s just a kidney stone.

Phil: “just,” Claire?

Alex: What’s going on?

Phil: It’s nothing. Don’t touch me.

Claire: I bet it’s just a kidney stone.

Phil: “just” again! Someone get your mom a glass of water and a piece of gravel from the drive way and see how she likes it.

菲尔感觉很痛。

菲尔： 哦！好疼！

克莱尔： 亲爱的。

菲尔： 我没事儿，真没事儿。我只是……好吧，一定是得了癌症！

克莱尔： 也许只是颗肾结石。

菲尔： “只是”？！克莱尔！

艾利克斯： 发生什么事儿了？

菲尔： 没事儿，就是别碰我。

克莱尔： 我敢肯定只是一颗肾结石。

菲尔： 又说“只是”？！你们谁下去给你妈倒杯水，再从车道上捡颗石子儿，看她觉得滋味如何。

(Season 1, Episode 11)

People who have some common medical knowledge will know that kidney stones typically leave the body in the urine stream, and if stones grow to sufficient size, they can cause blockage of the ureter, which will lead to great pain. Therefore, when Claire constantly uses the word “just”, Phil feels that she thinks the pain is not a big issue, so he says “Someone get your mom a glass of water and a piece of gravel from the drive way and see how she likes it” to express his anger. He thinks that if Claire could experience it by herself, she would grow some sympathy towards him. This universal humor is based on common medical knowledge, and using literal translation here could convey the original meaning to the fullest extent.

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