An Analysis of the Translation of Cultural Humor in the Novel “Huo Zhe”

Abstract

Verbal humor is often found in literary works, but not all the translations of verbal humor in the TL (target language) can adequately convey the sense of humor that contained in the SL (source language). Different cultures and languages cause difficulties in the translation, and usually different types of verbal humor do not always match the same translation strategies and methods. In the process of translating verbal humor, what is essential is successfully conveying the exact information and the same or similar effect of humorous. Thus, functional equivalence theory is needed in the process of translating verbal humor to achieve the formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence on verbal humor. This article uses a Chinese novel which has been translated into Indonesian, “Hidup” as a research subject. It found that in this novel contained three types of verbal humor: universal humor, linguistics humor, and cultural humor. Among them, the translation of cultural humor is the most difficult to achieve functional equivalence. Thus, this article studied the translation methods for cultural humor. The findings revealed that it was not always successful because the translation methods mismatch with the types of verbal humor. Therefore, this article proposes some suggestions for translation methods for unsuccessful cases in cultural humor.