【作者】 董海雅；

【导师】 冯庆华；

【作者基本信息】 上海外国语大学 ， 英语语言文学， 2007， 博士

【摘要】 作为媒体时代喜剧的一种主要形式,电视情景喜剧以频繁的喜剧冲突、幽默的人物对白以及鲜明的人物塑造广受人们喜爱。近年来,国外情景喜剧通过不同方式引入我国,在我国本土产生了巨大影响。情景喜剧的幽默如何能够跨越地域、语言和文化的障碍,使身处另外一个社会文化群的观众频繁发笑,则是本研究的主要出发点。“喜剧不旅行”这句话在戏剧界广为流传。尽管这并非绝对的真理,却多多少少道出了幽默在跨文化传递过程中遭遇的艰难和挑战。古往今来,关于幽默的研究汗牛充栋,然而从翻译视角对幽默,尤其是电视幽默进行的专题研究并不多见。传统的幽默研究或翻译研究侧重于书面或口头语言文字类幽默,对通过电视多元符号构建的电视幽默关注甚少。而在当今的社会,一个不容忽视的客观事实是,幽默早已不仅局限于传统的文字形式与人们日常的会话交流中,而是开始大量出现在视听媒体等新兴传媒方式中。在构成与传播方式上,情景喜剧的幽默与传统幽默有较大差异,待研究的幽默文本不再是传统上的单维静态文本,而是融合视觉与听觉多元符号的动态幽默文本。同时,受译制模式的制约,情景喜剧幽默的翻译并不等同于书面文学翻译,其在跨文化传递中的复杂性、多元性、翻译目标以及可行的翻译策略均值得我们进行深入研究。基于此,本文对翻译视角下情景喜剧的幽默类型以及跨文化旅途中的种种制约因素进行深入而细致的研究,并通过自行收集的语料和数据对翻译现象提供有力的支撑。在选材时,考虑到剧目的知名度、题材的广泛性与时代性、以及译制手段的多样性,本研究例证主要集中于五部著名的美国情景喜剧的汉译作品。论文共由七章组成。第一章是绪论,主要交代了论文的起因、之前的研究综述、本研究的目标、方法和研究范围。通过审视影视翻译研究与幽默翻译研究的现状,指出从跨文化角度对情景喜剧幽默翻译进行研究的必要性及意义。第二章首先总结了情景喜剧不同于其他剧目种类或书面文学作品的独特性。罐装笑声、频繁的喜剧冲突、以及口语化、个性化、幽默化的喜剧对白都成为情景喜剧的显著特征。同时,本章对情景喜剧的两种主要译制模式进行比较,指出传播中时空的有限性以及幽默的多元表现形式对情景喜剧翻译造成种种制约和挑战。我们认为,情景喜剧的翻译具有特殊的翻译目的和原则,翻译过程中应优先考虑译作的幽默性以及观众对幽默产生的瞬时反应。论文第三章进一步区分了情景喜剧所蕴含的电视幽默与传统幽默的差异,指出其在构成方式以及表现形式方面所具有的多元性,剧中人物的对白(言语手段)并非只是单纯构建幽默情景或实现语言变异的唯一途径,而是在与电视多种表现手段(如色彩形象、音乐、情景布置与摆设等)以及人物的肢体动作、语音、语调、节奏等诸多要素的共同作用下在一个立体的空间内发挥幽默效果,使幽默更具有直观性和感染力。视觉、听觉、言语、非言语这四个传播通道上的信息都成为情景喜剧幽默的表现手法,因而成为翻译的主要对象。情景喜剧中能引起观众发笑、或伴随言语幽默而产生幽默效果的非言语因素,其重要作用以及所具有的文化内涵均要引起译者的重视。我们指出,视觉类与听觉类的非言语因素对于情景喜剧言语幽默的翻译起到或促进或制约的双重作用,不宜一味地突出其制约作用。非言语幽默与言语幽默在一部剧中所占的比例无疑会影响译制的难易。鉴于情景喜剧幽默的多元构成方式,本章还借鉴王南、Zabalbeascoa以及Diaz-Cintas等国内外学者从翻译视角对幽默类型的已有分类,尝试性地对情景喜剧的幽默类型进行新的分类,分别是视觉类非言语幽默、视觉类文字幽默、听觉类非言语幽默、言语幽默以及复合型幽默。尽管这五种幽默类型并非都需要译者的直接翻译,却都可能对情景喜剧译制中幽默效果的发挥与传递产生作用。本章通过情景喜剧的大量实例对以上幽默类型及其对译制的影响一一进行详细分析。此外,本章的最后一部分从幽默对语言自身变异所依赖的程度以及加载于翻译上的难度等方面出发,将情景喜剧的言语幽默主要分为三类,一是独立于语言特性之外的情景或概念类幽默,二是文字游戏类幽默,三是文化专属类幽默。不可否认,语言与文化之间的紧密性难以分割,以上三个层次的划分并不是绝对的,也非彼此排斥,而是相互渗透和联合,常常共同出现在特定情景的幽默对白中。论文指出,建立在文化和语言共性上的情景或概念类幽默对翻译的制约最少,而后两种类型的言语幽默则因牵涉文化和语言的差异而使其跨文化之旅困难重重。对于后两种言语幽默,本文在第四章至第六章通过实例以及数据统计进行了详细剖析。在频频使观众发笑的情景喜剧中,许多幽默都建立在幽默的发出者与接收者之间共同熟悉的话题或知识基础上,这就要求需要幽默的潜在接收者具有识别并欣赏幽默所必需的认知能力。我们在第四章分析了影响幽默感受的三个互相作用的要素:即语言知识、社会文化知识以及逻辑思维联想能力。而在情景喜剧的跨文化之旅,幽默能否成功地跨越地域与文化界限,在译语文化中仍能发挥作用,则会受到多种因素的制约,除了语言体系、译语观众文化认知等方面的差异之外,还会受到译制模式、观众的接受心理、译语与源语文化之间的幽默传统、幽默主题等方面差异的制约。论文第五章重点探讨美国情景喜剧中文字游戏类言语幽默的汉译。本章首先在所研究的框架内对这一概念进行了界定,之后侧重考察在五部情景喜剧中使用较为广泛、并与英语语言特征结合最紧密的五类常用文字游戏,双关语则是其中的重中之重。由于英汉两种语言文字之间存在巨大差异,要在汉语中找到源语文字游戏的形式和效果相似的对等物则是一个遥远的理想,并不现实,因而译者只能灵活借鉴其他变通手段,着眼于汉语语言体系的文化群,优先考虑如何保留英语文字游戏所具有的幽默效果。本章通过大量实例对文字游戏类言语幽默在跨文化过程中的翻译策略进行了描述性的探讨。论文第六章主要从文化缺省的角度入手,剖析第三类言语幽默——文化专属类言语幽默在译制中的传递和重构,主要聚焦于典故和仿似所构建的互文性幽默。毋庸置疑,情景喜剧本身就是一种文化产品,带有鲜明的源语文化痕迹。本研究所涉及的五部美国情景喜剧的幽默对白中,不乏大量以观众的文化背景知识为致笑基础的文化性幽默。为了达到简洁的目的,以及快速引发源语观众联想的喜剧效果,情景喜剧中经常使用大多数观众所熟悉的典故与仿似,涉及源语文化习俗、历史、当代政治、体育、文学作品、音乐、电影作品等多领域的人物和事件。此类幽默往往并无复杂的语言结构和难解的语义内容,却对观众的社会文化背景知识有较高的要求。幽默效果传递的成功与否很大程度上依赖于观众在大脑中储备的文化认知图式。缺乏相应的背景知识,则意味丧失了理解源语的幽默所需要的桥梁。在进行跨文化传递时,源语文化专属类幽默不得不面对交际对象以及文化语境的转变,文化缺省难以避免。论文通过有说服力的例证指出,要想减少情景喜剧对译语观众的文化负荷,而又能使翻译后的作品也能引起译语观众的笑声,译者有必要根据文化专有性幽默词语在其所在语篇的具体作用以及译语观众的文化背景认知,在译语语篇中对可能阻碍观众理解的源语文化专有项进行积极的顺应和重构。倘若译者只是简单地把源文本中的文化框架投射到译语环境中,则就会导致译作对观众产生消极影响,引起文化冲击,也会抹杀原来的幽默在译语文化的幽默特性。本章还归纳了美国情景喜剧文化专属性幽默在汉译时常见的五种文化顺应及重构方法,通过实例对注释法、文内明示、非文化专有项释义法、创造改编以及替代法进行逐一剖析。在本章最后一部分,我们还从每部美国情景喜剧任意抽取二十集,通过数据统计和分析的手法,考察以上策略在情景喜剧文化专属类言语幽默译制中的实际应用差异,剖析不同翻译策略的使用频率对于幽默效果传达的影响。数据统计有助于我们了解每一部剧中文化专属项的密集程度,探讨翻译策略的使用频率与译制模式、剧目幽默主题、译者的翻译意识、以及幽默重构的可行性等因素之间可能存在的关联。第七章是结语,对论文的研究进行了简单回顾,重申了研究意义及应用价值,最后指出了论文的局限之处以及进一步的发展空间。更多还原

【Abstract】 In the comedic genre of the media era, the situation comedy (sitcom) on TV has won popularity with a wide audience for its amusing, yet dramatic twists, humorous lines and vivid characterizations. In recent years, an increasing number of sitcoms from foreign countries, particularly the United States, have been presented to a Chinese audience through dubbing and subtitling. These translated sitcoms have aroused great interest and attracted an enthusiastic following in China. It’s the point of this dissertation to study how and to what extent that humor in sitcoms can overcome the linguistic and cultural barriers when they are translated into other languages. It also aims at finding whether the dubbed or subtitled sitcoms can successfully elicit a good laugh from the target audience, who not only speak a different language but may not be well acquainted with the source culture. When it comes to comedy, there is an old saying about it:“Comedy travels badly.”Although not absolute, it reveals the hardships and challenges that humor must endure in its journey to another culture.Plenty has been said about humor by scholars of the world in various fields. Traditional humor study focuses on the written or the verbally expressed humor but little attention has been given to humor on the TV screen, which is characterized by a multi-semiotic constitution. Presently there is an undeniable trend to find humor no longer confined to literature or simple, daily conversation, but it is more frequently seen in the audiovisual media. Audiovisual humor differs from traditional humor in many ways, for instance, in its set-up and the way it communicates with the audience. Likewise, due to the restraints imposed by the dubbing and subtitling process, translating humor in sitcoms is more complicated and has a more diverse set of challenges than translating humor from written texts. Its aim and scope, as well as the feasible strategies in the trans-cultural communication are worth more attention and further exploration.This dissertation is an in-depth study of the classification of humor in sitcoms from the perspective of its relation to translation, and the factors that hamper effective transmission and the perception of the humor by the audience. Strong support is provided through first-hand data observed and collected by the author directly from the Chinese translations of five popular American sitcoms: Growing Pains, Will and Grace, Seinfeld, Friends and Everybody Loves Raymond. These sitcoms were chosen mainly for their overall popularity, diversity in themes, and the different modes of audiovisual translation.The whole dissertation is composed of seven chapters. Chapter One introduces the causes, significance, aim and means of the study. After reviewing the current research done in the field of humor translation and audiovisual translation, it points out that study of on- screen humor translation has been a long-neglected field. In this regard, it reiterates the necessity and importance of the study of humor translation in sitcoms from the trans-cultural perspective.Chapter Two first summarizes the distinguishing features of the sitcom that make it different from other TV genres and literature works, including canned laughter, frequent amusing conflicts, humorous and colloquial lines which reflect diverse personalities. Different from the traditional humorous texts on one dimension, the humor-intensive sitcoms are characterized by the vivid transmission of verbal and non-verbal signs on visual and auditory channels. Its distinguishing external feature is canned laughter at a regular interval. The translation of humor is further complicated by two major modes of audiovisual translation---dubbing and subtitling. The translator of sitcoms has to comply with the spatial and temporal restraints and meet the requirements of immediate comprehensibility and synchronization. As sitcoms are mainly produced to amuse the audience, it is the humorous effect rather than the semantic information contained in the dialogues that plays a central role. Therefore in dubbing or subtitling, top priority should be given to the reproduction of the original comic effect and its likelihood to amuse the target audience. We believe that familiarity with the mechanics and features of humor in a sitcom would help a translator to facilitate the travel of humor in another language and culture.Chapter Three further distinguishes humor of sitcom from the traditional humor in terms of its poly-semiotic components. Verbal humor (mainly the dialogue between characters) is not the only means to set up humorous scenes or to produce the linguistic variations, rather it is just one of the many components that make the sitcom amusing. Other audiovisual means that also contribute to the overall humor of a sitcom are funny moves, gestures, facial expressions, scene set-up, color etc. These serve as visual stimuli while paralanguage, music, sound effects and the like act to stimulate the auditory senses. Humor presented on the TV screen is more vivid, direct and eye-catching than that in traditional literature. Thus the four channels, namely, nonverbal, verbal, audio and visual channels, are in fact equally important when we examine the translation of sitcom humor. All the amusing nonverbal elements, which accompany the verbal humor, should all be taken into account by the sitcom translator. It is also argued in this chapter that the nonverbal elements tend to be double-edged swords - they often facilitate the transmission of a humorous effect but impose constraints on the dubbing or subtitling. Whether the humorous effect is easy to maintain or not also depends much on its proportion to the nonverbal and verbally expressed humor in a sitcom.Based on the contributions made by Wang Nan, Zabalbeascoa and Diaz-Cintas concerning humor translation, we also make a tentative and innovative effort in re-classifying sitcom humor into five types with regards to its poly-semiotic features, namely visual nonverbal humor, visual verbal humor(words on the screen), audio nonverbal humor, verbal humor and complex humor. Although these five humor types do not all necessarily require the direct efforts of a translator in dubbing or subtitling, they all contribute to the building-up and transmission of the humorous effect intended in the original source text. Thus, the failure of the dubbed or subtitled versions to arouse the target audience’s laughter may be caused by many factors other than the translation quality of the verbally expressed humor alone. Each humor type in relation to translation is illustrated in detail by a number of examples from the five sitcoms.The next three chapters of the dissertation focus on verbally expressed humor. We classify verbally expressed humor into three categories according to the extent they depend on linguistic variation and the difficulties they impose on translation. The first category is situational and conceptual humor, which is common and cross-cultural. As humor of this kind is neither culture-specific nor language-specific, it poses the least difficulty for the translation. The second and third categories are wordplay humor and culture-specific humor, and are regarded as most challenging in humor translation. It is undeniable that language and culture are intimately related, therefore the distinction between the above three categories of humor is not totally clear-cut, or exclusive of the other. Rather, they are usually employed harmoniously in each comic scene. Situational and conceptual humor is briefly exemplified in the last section of Chapter Three, while wordplay humor and culture-specific humor is thoroughly examined mainly in Chapters Five and Six respectively.In order to frequently amuse the audience, humor in most sitcoms is based on the shared knowledge between the characters in the play and the audience, thus the perception of humor entails the relevant, cognitive experience to appreciate the humor. In Chapter Four, we analyze three inter-linked factors that influence the perception of humor: linguistic knowledge, social and cultural knowledge, and the ability to associate ideas and to think logically. Lack of any of these factors would probably lead to misunderstanding or confusion among the receivers, and the expected laughter would not forthcoming. These three factors play a very important role in the trans-cultural journey of humor in sitcom. In addition, whether humor in source sitcoms can come across the linguistic and cultural barriers and still be effective in the target language and culture is also determined by other factors like the mode of translation, psychological factors of the audience and the differences in humor tradition and themes between source-language culture and target- language culture. With all of these factors getting in the way, this trans-cultural journey is bound to be a hard one, though not a total“mission impossible.”Chapter Five elaborates on how the wordplay humor in American sitcoms is dealt with in the Chinese dubbed or subtitled versions. First, the concept of wordplay humor is defined within the framework of this dissertation. Then five types of wordplay, particularly pun, are explored with care. Wordplay is widely used in sitcoms and closely attached to the linguistic experience. Due to the big linguistic and cultural gap between English and Chinese, it seems but a dream to find, in Chinese, the equivalent of English wordplay both in form and effect. Therefore, the translator has to adapt the original humor to the target language and culture through flexible means, with a prior consideration of how to maintain the humorous effect intended in the wordplay. The strategies applied in wordplay translation are analyzed and illustrated with corresponding, descriptive examples.From the perspective of cultural default, Chapter Six discusses the reconstruction of culture-specific humor in the translation, with a particular focus on the inter-textual humor made up mainly of allusions and parodies. As we all know, as a product of the culture, sitcom is clearly marked by the culture in which it is produced. Sitcom producers and writers assume their viewers’easy familiarity with contemporary American popular culture as the basis for much of their own humor. Thus, many sitcoms are filled with all sorts of brief references and allusions to persons, historical or modern, events or places, real or fictitious, or even to a work of art. With such humor, the audience will be amused only when they easily recognize the close inter-textual connection between the audiovisual scripts in sitcom and the external world they are familiar with. Usually culture-specific humor is not complex linguistically, but it has a high demand for the background knowledge essential for humor perception. Therefore, whether such humor can travel well in its trans-cultural journey depends to a large extent on the cultural paradigm of the target audience, on their ability to retrieve their knowledge and then associate it with the current culture and events. Absence of the corresponding background knowledge would make it hard to understand the original humor, if rendered literally in the dubbed or subtitled version. When a sitcom is introduced and presented to viewers in a different culture, the culture-specific humor that abounds in it is still expected to be effective and cater to the target culture.Through persuasive examples, this chapter argues that for the purpose of maintaining the humorous effect, it is advisable for the translator to make a creative and flexible reconstruction of the cultural items that might hamper the understanding of the target viewers, according to the translator’s estimation of the specific function of such items in the humorous text, as well as the cultural knowledge of the general target audience. If the translator simply projects the cultural mindset of America into a Chinese translation, then the dubbed or subtitled versions will undoubtedly have a negative effect on the viewers, thus not only causing a cultural“shock”, but also killing the intended effect of the original humor.In this chapter, we also summarize and illustrate five commonly used strategies of cultural adaptation and reconstruction when dealing with the culture-specific humor, such as explicitation, annotation, paraphrase, substitution and creative reconstruction of humorous dialogues. The discussion in this section is strongly supported by data analysis. With the data collected from the twenty randomly-chosen episodes of each sitcom, we try to examine how each strategy is applied differently in the dubbing and subtitling process, and what impact the frequency of usage may have on the humor transmission. The data analysis helps us to determine the proportion of culture-specific humor in a sitcom. It also sheds light on our understanding of the dynamic relationship between the following variables in the translation of sitcom humor: the frequency of each strategy, the mode of audiovisual translation, humor themes, the translator’s competence and audience-oriented consciousness, the feasibility of humor reconstruction in the target text etc.Chapter Seven is the conclusion of the dissertation. It starts with a brief review of what we have studied so far and then reiterates its academic significance and breakthrough. At the end, it points out the area where further research may be carried out.更多还原