Acknowledgments ii

Abstract..1

摘 要 2

1. Introduction 4

1.1 Research background.. 4

1.2 Purpose and significance of the study.5

1.3 Research methodology and data collection..5

2. Literature Review 6

2.1 The definition and classification of pun.6

2.2 Previous researches on pun translation.. 7

2.3 Delabastita's theory of puns translation. 7

3. A Comparative Analysis on Zhang's and Chao's Pun Translation.. 10

3.1 Pun translations of "time".. 10

3.2 Pun translations of "Oyster"..11

3.3 Pun translations of "lesson" - "lessen".12

3.4 Pun translations of "pig" - "fig".. 13

3.5 Commonalities and discrepancies between Zhang's and Chao's pun translation.. 14

4. Possible Reasons for the Commonalities of Zhang's and Chao's Pun Translation.16

4.1 Dissimilarity in linguistic systems. 16

4.2 Dissimilarity in cultural backgrounds..17

5. Possible Reasons for the Discrepancies of Zhang's and Chao's Pun Translation18

5.1 Dissimilarity in their conceptions of translation.18

5.2 Dissimilarity in their conceptions of pun19

5.3 Dissimilarity in functions and purposes..19

6. Conclusion21

References. 22
第 4 页 共 22 页1. IntroductionThe use of the pun has been seen in literary works for ages. The pun can be concerned as acommunicative method with cognitive and pragmatic characters rather than a mere rhetorical device of wordplay in literary works. This chapter will start with the research background, then discuss purpose andsignificance of this study, and last research methodology and data collection..1.1 Research backgroundAlice’ s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) is the most notable book, written by Lewis Carroll who is asuccessful author of children's books of the 19thcentury, gains worldwide popularity. A great deal of wordsplay is one of the reasons for its popularity, producing a witty and hilarious style. On condition that the use andmeaning of puns are specific and idiomatic to a particular language and its culture, translators may find itdifficult to discover a corresponding equivalence in the target language. In this case, the translation of pun inAlice’ s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) has been generally regarded as highly challenging translation task.In the year of 1922, Yuan Ren Chao introduced Alice’ s Adventures in Wonderland to China initially, andthe vernacular style translation won Chinese readers' appreciation. He fulfilled the seemingly impossiblemission and his version has been popular till now. With Yuan Ren Chao's admirable wisdom and profoundknowledge, in a wide variety of fields, his translation of Alice has creatively and faithfully reconstructed awonderland for its "lasting success". Since then, Alice’ s Adventures in Wonderland got great more attentions,being re-translated into more than 80 Chinese versions by years. At the same time, as one of the remarkablecharacteristics, pun translation of this work has been focused and analyzed recently.Although there are plenty of theories on pun translation, this thesis is going to chose Dirk Delabastita(1960), an important translation theorist, using his pun translation theory as the theoretical basis. DirkDelabastita systematically introduced five classifications of pun and eight pun translation strategies, making agreat contribution to the study and practice of pun translation. His translation theory has been applied andstudied at home and abroad in varied fields with its applicability and practicability.After Zhang Nanfeng (张南峰，2003) initially introduced Delabastita's translation theory to China, itgradually gained attention by contemporary Chinese translators. His theory is mainly applied to the applicationof pun translation strategies on advertisements, subtitles, literary works and analysis on translators' concepts oftranslation. For example, Tan Shenglan studied David Hawkes' translation views by his pun translation onpersonal names of Hongloumeng from the perspective of Delabastita's pun translation theory（谭胜兰，2009） .