英语幽默欣赏中的文化语义因素

Cultural Semantic Factors in English Humor

利用拉斯金基于脚本的幽默语言理论,从语义学的角度探讨了中国人无法欣赏某些英语幽默这一现象的原因。从语义学的角度提出幽默欣赏中的文化脚本这一概念,并通过实例分析得出结论:无法完成文化脚本的转换是一个民族不能欣赏另一个民族某些幽默的原因。这个结论和以前的观点--幽默的理解必需与语境和百科知识相互联系是一致的。

Chinese people could not understand some English jokes. The present paper attempts to discuss the reason with the script-based semantic mechanisms of humor proposed by Victor Laskin. Since scripts may have cultural meanings, the paper proposes the concept of cultural script from linguistic prospect and draws the conclusion-speakers of a certain language could not catch humor of another nationality because they could not successfully switch between the other nation's cultural scripts. This conclusion is consistent with the previous view that context and encyclopedia must be considered in humor understanding and research. Finally, it suggests that translators must pay attention to these cultural script differences in humor translation, and cultural semantic factors are also important when humor is contrasted across cultures.