英语双关语及其翻译 [4]
论文作者:潘燕琼论文属性:短文 essay登出时间:2009-04-10编辑:黄丽樱点击率:14271
论文字数:6989论文编号:org200904102255414518语种:英语 English地区:中国价格:免费论文
关键词:English punclassificationcharacteristicsfunctiontranslation英语双关语分类本质特点作用翻译
ctive”, therefore, the last sentence can be understood as “she is both attractive and ugly”, while as an adverb, “pretty” means “rather, fairly”, so the sentence also means “she is very ugly”. Tom employs the “pretty” beautifully, it is a polysemy. And we can learn about the humor in the dialogue.
(19) The clerk: Are you engaged?
Augustus: What business is that of yours? However, if you will take the trouble to read the society papers for this week, you will see that I am engaged to Honorable Lucy Popham, youngest daughter of –
The clerk: That isn’t what I mean. Can you see a female?
Augustus: Of course. I can see a female as easily as a male. Do you suppose I am blind?
The clerk: You don’t seem to follow me; somehow, there is a female downstairs, what you might call a lady. She wants to know, can you see her if I let her up.[11]
- G. B. Shaw Augustus Does His Bit
In the play, two puns are employed. First, the phrase “be engaged in sth” means “be occupied or busy”; “be engaged to sb” means “agreed to marry sb”. Second, the verb “see” is understood as “have an interview with sb; meet sb” in the clerk, while Augustus interpret it as “whether he has the power of sight”. “Are you engaged?” here according to the clerk, he wants to ask Augustus whether he is busy or not? But Augustus understands it as “agreed to marry sb”. We can learn from this dialogue sparkling with humorous and wit that Augustus is thinking about women all day long.
(20) The number of attorneys who die without a will is amazing.
Even where there is no will, there is a way. [12]
The first “will” means “statement, document”; the second means “a person’s power can direct his thoughts or influence others”.
Michael Demarest uses this homographic pun to tell us the difference between chronic procrastination and purposeful postponement and make a great satire.
2.2.3 Puns on both pronunciation and meaning
This kind of pun often embodies the special names of figures in the literary work. When the authors want to portray a person, they often employ this kind of pun to give the person a special name in order to reveal the figure’s character, behavior and fate. Lv Xu expounds this kind of pun with originality; he thinks that the use of this kind of pun can be vivid in stressing the figure and portraying the character of the figure. Take the following as an example,
(21) In Shakespeare’s “King Henry IV”, Sir John Falstatff is not a character who thinks and acts in one or the same way. “In appearance, he is kind, noble, wit and brave, however, in fact, he is a selfish, coward, licentious and wicked man – a truly false stuff [13]. And the word “Falstatff” is similar to “false stuff” in pronunciation. Another example goes like this: In Gilbert Highet’s “The Philosopher and the Conqueror”, this sentence “A titter broke out from the elegant Greeks, who were already beginning to make jokes about the cur that looked at the king.”[14] Here “the cur” refers to Diogenes –the philosopher on one hand, Diogenes acted very rudely toward the great conqueror that everyone else respected and admired, and on the other hand, Diogenes is a cynic philosopher. And the origin of the word “cur” is the Greek word kunikos, meaning “a dog”. So “cur” is a typical feature of Diogene, and the image of Diogene is vivid to us. In R.B.Sheridan’s “The School for Scandal”, Lady Sneerwell, Sir Benjamin Backbite and Captain Boastall are famous for their respective features: Sneerwell does w
本论文由英语论文网提供整理,提供论文代写,英语论文代写,代写论文,代写英语论文,代写留学生论文,代写英文论文,留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。