This thesis explores the translation of humor in the children’s literature of English and their Korean translations. The bipolar translation strategies of ‘domestication’ and ‘foreignization’ are applied as parameters in identifying the degree of translator intervention, hypothesized influencing on the translation for different age groups of children.
Humor is thought to be one of the daunting jobs for translators since it is intensely interwoven with culture and background knowledge. The primary function of humor is to make the listener laugh, and so the purpose of its translation is. This study categorized humor into linguistic and non-linguistic, and subcategorized them into total of eight: word play, intentional errors in spelling and grammar, slangs, naming, parody, situation, knowledge-clash, and hostility.
Translation strategies are consisted of ST transfer, ST footnote, TT replacement, ST explanation, and ST omission. Out of the five strategies, three of them, ST footnote, TT replacement and ST explanation are considered as the domestication strategy while ST transfer as the foreignization one.
Humorous children’s literature such as ‘Captain Underpants’ and ‘Wimpy Kid’ series whose main purpose is to bring laughter to children is chosen as the data of the study. Eight English texts of humorous children’s literature were selected based on their popularity and publication dates and their Korean translations were also chosen.
The results showed that, out of the eight humor types, six of them, word play, error in spelling and grammar, slang, naming, situation and knowledge clash had significant correlations with translation strategies. And ST transfer and TT replacement strategies were proven to be statistically significant in humor translation of children from age 8 to 13. Domestication and foreignization strategies were found to be used preferably according to the grade levels.