英文字幕中双关语的翻译策略 Strategies for Translating Puns in English-Chinese Subtitles.doc

strategies for translating puns in english-chinese subtitles英文字幕中双关语的翻译策略摘要本文旨在研究英文字幕中双关语的翻译策略。随着全球化的发展，越来越多的外国影视剧走进了我们的生活。字幕翻译本身存在一定难度，双关语的语义多重性使其翻译难上加难。本文将双关语分成两个主要阵营进行分析：谐音双关和语义双关。作者首先对双关的定义进行了介绍，其次运用翻译策略对不同类别的双关语进行分析。在本文中，将三种翻译策略：直译、直译加注及意译在不同类别的双关语翻译中的效果均做了分析。 通过对双关语例句的分析，作者发现对于体现不同文化特色和语言特点的双关语， 不但可以使用直译表达作者的观点，在直译无法完整表达双重含义时，还可以通过直译加注进行辅助。 同时，灵活的使用意译甚至新创双关语都是非常有效的手段。本研究表明， 在英语字幕的双关语翻译分析中， 不能一味使用一种翻译策略，在翻译时，需要判断对隐含意义和双关语词汇的取舍保留, 对重创双关语的必要性进行判断，需要时增加必要的注释，才能得出高质量的译文。希望对日后字幕翻译工作有所帮助。关键词：双关语；字幕翻译；翻译策略abstractthis paper focuses on the translation strategies in english-chinese subtitles translation. with the development of globalization, more and more foreign films and episodes come into our life. subtitles translation is quite difficult itself; the semantic multiplicity of puns makes it more difficult. this study analyzes two major categories in puns: homophone and homograph. the author first defines the word “pun” and then uses 3 major translation strategies to analyze the examples. in this study, there are three translation strategies under discussion: literal translation, literal translation plus explanation and free translation. the author analyzes the different effects on different categories of puns. by the analysis of the pun sentence, the author found the translator could flexibly use translation strategies to deal with the pun words which reflect the different culture and language features. in translation, the translator could use literal translation to express the original point of view, and if the literal translation cannot express the literal meaning and connotative meaning at the same time, the translator could also use literal translation plus explanation to help the audience to understand the puns. meanwhile, if using free translation flexibly, even recreation of the puns when necessary is also proved very effective to translate the puns. this study shows that the translator should not stick to one single strategy in pun translation. the translator needs to consider several factors in translation. for example, the translator needs to judge whether to preserve the connotative meaning and pun words, to judge whether it is necessary to recreate the pun words in the target language, and add the explanations when necessary. all these factors need to be considered before the translator get the high quality translation. the author hopes that this paper could be helpful to pun translation in future subtitles translating work.key words: pun; subtitles translation; translation strategytable of contentspages1. introduction 62. rationale73. data description94. puns in subtitles10 4.1 definition10 4.2 categories115. translation of puns11 5.1 techniques of translation11 5.2 translation of homophones12 5.3 translation of homographs146. results and suggestions 19 6.1 results of data analysis19 6.2 suggestions217. conclusion23bibliography24appendix 25strategies for translating puns in english-chinese subtitles1. introductionnowadays, with the development of globalization, more and more foreign films and episodes come into our life. and it is the translated subtitle that enables us to enjoy the original flavor of a hollywood film like true lies starred by arnold schwarzenegger. this new area of translating, as an important form of cross-cultural translation, is taken more seriously. the subtitle translating is not only the conversion of the languages, more importantly, it is the exchange of different cultures.in my experience of subtitles translation, the most common problem lies in pun translation, which usually takes the translator a lot of time to reach the correct understanding and to choose the proper translation strategy. how could i make sure which translation is the right and best one? usually i spend a lot of time to watch the episode; moreover, i would search it on google. it usually takes me quadruple time to watch the episode. i watch it several times just want to figure out should i express from a different angle? or would the audience understand my translation? if i am not sure about my judgment, i would search on google for more options. all these works are time-consuming jobs. this paper is to explore the translation strategies in english-chinese subtitles translation. it starts with the definition of pun and its forms. the author will describe the main theories relate with the study. in the second chapter, with the support of the fundamental principle of translation theory, the author illustrates with several examples on different strategies in translating puns and analyzes the different results. by analyzing the different strategies, the author aims to summarize how to apply these strategies to pun translation as well as giving suggestions to the practice of pun translation in chapter six. in chapter seven, the author will summarize the whole research. the scope of the paper mainly covers practical examples from english subtitles, translation principles and techniques based on the studies of translation.2. rationaletranslating subtitle is a newly-emerging translation sphere. and as more and more foreign episodes are becoming a popular public culture, the episode subtitles translating should and would be put into a cross-culture background. so, in translating, we need to take into account the cross-cultural factors. （邢莉娟，2005）a pun (/wiki/pun) is a phrase that deliberately exploits confusion between similar-sounding words for humorous or rhetorical effect (wikipedia). in websters third new international dictionary, the definition of pun is “the humorous of a word in such a way as to suggest different meanings or applications or of words having the same or nearly the same sound but different meanings: a play on words” (1981). according to the above two definition, it is clear that the pun translation is a quite difficult in translating. tan xing and tan honghui believe the pun translation is the most difficult part in english-chinese translation. (谭兴 谈宏慧，2008) since the main purpose is to convert the source language into target language which could be understood by chinese people. its a vital issue that the good translation should be understood by its target user. and the proper pun translation is an essential one in subtitle translating.since the main purpose of translation is to deliver the message, the author believes that the translator could try to study the subtitling from functional equivalence theory. functional equivalence theory is an important theory proposed by american translation theorist eugene a. nida in 1969. he believes a translation of dynamic equivalence aims at complete naturalness of expression, and tries to relate the receptors to modes of behavior relevant within the context of his own culture; it does not insist that he understand the cultural patterns of the source-language context in order to comprehend the message. based on this theory, relationship between the receptor and the message should aim at being the same as that between the original receptor and the source language message ( li su-ju, 2006) .according to the function equivalence, it is the translators job to make sure that the meaning of original language is the same with the one of target language. this theory helps the translator to focus on the aim of the translation. as a method of information transmission, it is the aim of translation to express the information in one language which was original expressed in another language. the translation could make the person who do not understand the another language could get the same information as the original language reader. (金隄,1998) that means if the purpose of one sentence is making people laugh, then the goal of the translation is to achieve laugh. such equivalence is also reflected through the process of achieving the goal. that is to say, when translating one sentence from one language to another, such equivalence is reflected through the word chosen by translator and the meaning expressed through the combination of the words. in the pun translation, the aim of pun translation should be function equivalence. (牟丽,2002) the core theory of functional translation is skopostheory, which is the first principle that every translator should follow up. it was developed in germany. based on skopostheory, the expected communication function should be achieved. similar as the example the author mentioned above, if the original sentence is making people think deeper, then translation should also be. the main purpose of translation is culture communication. the source language would enrich the culture of the target language through such communication. so the author believes that the purpose of the audience to watch the foreign films is the same. according to the skopostheory, every translation action has its own purpose, and the translator should choose the proper method to achieve the goal. and ding feifei believes that the translation is the transmission of the knowledge, not the language coding. so even the translator cannot achieve the perfect integrate, he/she also should use the compensation method to express the original meaning. (丁菲菲,2004)there are at least three techniques we can use in pun translation: literal translation, free translation and literal plus free translation. in pun translation, the translator needs to judge when and how to use the techniques. it is definitely that we should keep most of the culture feature at the same time our audience could accept and understand. but the translator would also face some problems when judging these three techniques. one of the problems would be whether to preserve all the meanings? the author believes that all the translator would like to translate as much meanings as they can. but sometimes, for example because the limitation of the subtitles, the translator cannot express all the meanings in just one subtitles. then at least one meaning should be abandoned. the second problem is whether the explanation could exist in the translation. subtitles translation is different with the article translation. the subtitles could only be seen in limited time. and there is no much room for a lot of explanation either. the author believes that the third problem is whether to recreate the humor or abandon the puns. recreation is not an easy job and it brings some risk. these three translation techniques are concluded by the predecessors in translation. some translator would prefer to use one or another. but the author believes that the translator should not stick to one single technique in pun translation. the translator needs to consider several factors in translation. for example, the translator needs to consider the acceptance of the translation, to judge whether to preserve the connotative meaning and pun words, and to judge whether it is necessary to recreate the pun words in the target language. all these factors need to be considered before the translator get the high quality translation. the author believes that the translator should apply these three techniques flexibly. in the following chapter, the author will analyze how to apply these techniques in different situations.3. data descriptionthe data of this paper consist of 30 puns. all of them are from popular films and episodes. every sentence in the data contains at least one pun. this paper would choose 30 puns from the following films and episodes.the 6 films included romeo and juliet, voice of music, world is not enough, forrest gump, the hudsucker proxy and legally blonde. all of the above films are very popular in the world. all of them are translated in chinese and exert a significant influence on the whole generation. the author would choose 13 puns from the above films. the english subtitles and chinese one are from dvd. there are at least three chinese translations of the puns in voice of music, the author would choose two of them to analysis.the 7 episodes included friends, conan doyle: a scandal in bohemia, will and grace, prison break, studio 60 on the sunset strip, doctor who 2005 and eureka. most of them are very popular in chinese community. and their subtitles have been downloaded thousands of times. the author would choose 17 puns from the above episodes. the english subtitles are from the famous subtitle website surfthechannel. the chinese subtitles are from famous internet subtitles team sfil-ydy and frm.4. puns in subtitles4.1 definitionpun, as a form of word play, is widely used in english subtitles to create a bit of humor. although its very interesting, its actually not easy to translate it into chinese because the translator needs to deal with two or three meanings at the same time. therefore the pun translation is quite a tough job. the following discussion will mainly focus on the pun translation. according to hongyuns (洪云:2002)definitions, there are 2 types of pun: homophone and homograph. in the following analysis, the author will categorize 30 examples into above 2 types, and analysis their translation. in order to provide good translations for chinese audience, it is necessary to find proper translation strategies. the author is going to make a decision whether they are proper or not according to the following rule: the translation can be well understood by common audience.4.2 categorieshomophone puns use like sounds but with different spellings and meanings. examples of homophones are scent pun on sent, beet pun on beat, a salt pun on assault and buy pun on bye.in addition to the homophone, the homograph also appears frequently in english subtitles. homograph puns exploit different words (or word meanings) which are spelled the same way. for example, in english the word bass (fish) and the word bass (in music) have identical spellings but different meanings and pronunciations. we can use the word bass twice in this sentence the fisherman threw the bass onto a bass drum. there are two different meanings but the spells are same.5. translation of puns5.1 techniques of translationin the following analysis, the author is going to analysis the mentioned examples in two categories: homophone and homograph. in order to provide good translations for chinese audience, it is necessary to find proper translation strategies. the author is going to make a decision whether they are proper or not according to the following rule: the translation expresses the literal meanings as well as the implied meanings. speaking of translation, there are at least three techniques we can use in translation. there are literal translation, free translation and literal plus free translation. but puns are special. pun is humorous use of word to suggest different meanings, or of words of same or similar sound with different meanings. that is to say, at least two meanings we need to deal with. in this paper, the author would also use these three techniques to analysis the 30 puns. and each pun would be analyzed in this study in these three translation techniques: literal translation, free translation, literal plus free translation.5.2 translation of homophonesthere are 6 homophone examples. example 1 is a song from the film the sound of music. one day maria takes the trapp children out for a day of fun. she teaches them the basics of singing in an easy-to-remember way. the word doe and do are the same in sound. the word doe means female deer, whereas do is the first note of musical scale. for the same reason, the second note of musical scale re is pun on ray, which refers to a thin beam of light; mi is pun on me; fa is pun on far; sol is pun on sew; and ti is pun on “tea”. these lyrics include 6 puns. the translator has to translate the musical scale while keep the style. in the dvd translation, the translator literally translates the first lyrics into chinese as “do，一头鹿，一头小母鹿”. this translation keeps the original meaning so the audience could get to know the culture in an outlandish manner. we can see from this example that although literal translation could let the audience understand the culture, the connection between the homophone words are lost. to chinese audience, it is not pun anymore. from the above example, we can see the literal translation could lose the connection between the pun words. that would make literal translation plus explanations be the solution in homophone translation. example 15 and 17 are the example of literal translation plus explanations. in example 15, “2-i” is pun on “2 eye”. in case the audience got confused, the translator adds one explanation (与双眼同音) to the literal translation. in example 17, odor is pun on order. on the court karen walker played tricks on her lawyer will. and the odor is the result of her tricks. usually we can hear judge shouting order in the court to keep the order. to preserve the puns, the translator uses literal translation plus explanation: (戏谑法庭用语 保持秩序). from the above 2 examples, we can see the literal translation plus explanations could preserve the connection between pun words. but now we are talking about pun translation in subtitles. too much explanation would disturb the audience since the subtitles are on the screen and the audiences need to watch the screen. now we can see that both above translation strategies have disadvantage: lose the connection between pun words and disturb the audience watching the screen. is there other strategy could avoid these two disadvantages? free translation maybe the one. example 2, 3 and 27 are the example of free translation. in example 2, wearing is pun on hudsuckers given name: waring. mr. hudsucker is the original president