摘要

  我们总是在日常生活中使用着幽默，幽默令我们的生活更加多姿多彩，而不是苍白的对话。该论文主要讲了中英文对幽默的不同理解和这背后的文化因素，以此我们能够更加轻松的消除误解和文化障碍。我可以通过对成书的研究和观察不同文化背景人之间的交谈，以及查看实际运用的笑话和恶作剧得出一个大概的结论，并且可以提出一些对应的翻译理论。虽然这在实际中并不好操作，并且随着时间的前进，幽默总是在不断变化的，所以我们总是要不停地做出更新和改进。

关键词：幽默; 文化因素;翻译理论

Abstract

Humor functions in our conventions and makes our life far more colorful rather than merely communicate straightforwardly and palely. This paper mainly covers the different ways of interpreting humor between English and Chinese and the hidden cultural factors distinguish them. Therefore we will be able to pass the misunderstanding beneath us and break the intercultural barrier with less effort. With searching written papers and former materials as well as observing the daily manners between people from intercultural background , and let’s not to forget where practical jokes and conversational pranks gone trough ,I shall be able to come a rough conclusion on the purpose mentioned above. And it can result in some sort of translation theories to cope with though it may turn out to be not that practical. And we all have to bear the thought that humor gets evolved when we move on our lives, so it is never and end by updating research and comparison in humor issue.

Key words: humor; cultural factors; translation theories

1.    Introduction
“A nation without humor, its culture will gradually become artificial, lives beguiling, thought pedantic, literature sere, heart of human stubborn” was cited by Lin Yutang，a outstanding master of humor. Humor is an important component of human language and culture, a way of expressing the thoughts, attitudes and values of human. It lessens the intension and smoothes the interrelation of human as well as creates a good opening for the serious matters. In the 18th century, humor as a distinctive element appeared in drama, poetry and novel. From then on, humor has become a symbol of wisdom and beauty and enjoyed popularity around the world.
The nature of humor is universal and culture-specific. Therefore, sometimes researchers consider humor a key to the door of other worlds of culture, religion, customs and so on.  Humor penetrates every perspective of our social life and since china entered WTO, hosted Olympics ,marked as an emerging economic power , cross-cultural communication plays a more keen role as times goes by. To understand the difference of English and Chinese humor contributes better of communicating and avoids misunderstanding in a great extend. With different cultural backgrounds, different language use, peoples’ different customs and rationales, humor can be very different in different countries, which presents a major obstacle for communication and humor translation.