Universitatea Dunrea de Jos Galai

Facultatea de Litere

TRANSLATING HUMOUR
Coordonator tiinific,
Conf. Dr. Petru Iamandi
Masterand,
Anca Munteanu
2015

Thesis Aims

to define humour itself and its cultural and linguistic

aspects.
to explore the features of humour as a sociocultural
phenomenon as well as to investigate sociocultural and
linguistic cases of untranslatability.
to explore how humour is translated from English into
Romanian through jokes and puns.
The object of the research is humour translation in
general through jokes and puns.

Defining Humour
Humour is something that makes you laugh or
smile (Ross, 2005:1).
Morreall (1983:1) argues that there is no
general theory for laughter and that we laugh
in such diverse situations that it seems
difficult, if not impossible, to come up with a
single formula that will cover all cases of
laughter.

Defining Humour

According to Merriam Websters online

Dictionary humour is:

the mental faculty of discovering, expressing, or

appreciating the ludicrous or absurdly incongruous;
something that is or is designed to be comical or
amusing.
humor can originate in wordplay, parody, irony, or
simply the unexpected, and it becomes tangible in
the form of laughter and/or amusement;

Theories of Humour
Incongruity theory of humour - the most popular
theory of why we find jokes funny revolves around the
concept of incongruity which deals with the idea that:
we laugh at things that surprise us because they
seem out of place;
they involve ideas that run against our expectations
(a bear walks into a bar, animals talk, etc.)

Theories of Humour
The superiority theory - according to the
theory, these jokes cause us to laugh because
they make us feel superior to other people.
Here is a classic superiority joke:
A woman goes into a cafe with a duck. She puts the
duck on a stool and sits next to it. The waiter comes
over and says: Hey! That's the ugliest pig that I have
ever seen. The woman says: Its a duck, not a pig.
And the Waiter says: I was talking to the duck.

Theories of Humour
According to superiority theory of humour, we laugh because these
types of situations make us feel superior to other people. The
person who tripped over the banana skin, or was the recipient of the
custard pie, has been made to look silly and that makes us feel
good. In fact, it makes us feel so good that we laugh.

Forms of Verbal Humour

Cultural jokes - rely on stereotypical descriptions of
nation, ethnicity, social group, political and religious
affiliation in order to cause amusement/laughter;
Two immigrants arrive in the United States and are discussing the
difference between the Old Country and the U.S. One of them says
that he's heard that people in the U.S. eat dogs, and if they're going
to fit in, they better eat dogs as well. So they head to the nearest
hot dog stand and order two 'dogs.' The first guy unwraps his, looks
at it, and nervously looks at his friend. "What part did you get?"

Forms of Verbal Humour

Linguistic jokes (puns) - make use of words
meaning something linguistic and which are
similar to the words they rhyme with.

Example:

So what if I don't know what apocalypse means!? It's not

the end of the world!
I wasn't originally going to get a brain transplant, but then I
changed my mind.

Puns

Definition: the usually humorous use of a word in such a

way as to suggest two or more of its meanings or the
meaning of another word similar in sound.

Dealing with puns

1.
pun pun: the ST pun is translated by a target-language pun, which may differ more or less
widely from the ST pun in terms of formal or semantic structure or of textual function;
2.
pun non-pun: the ST pun may be replaced by a non-punning phrase which can relay both
meanings of the source pun or just one;
3.
pun related rhetorical device: the ST pun is replaced by a wordplay-related rhetorical device
(repetition, alliteration, rhyme, irony, paradox, etc.) in order to recreate the effect of the ST pun;
4.
pun : the ST fragment where the pun occurs is omitted;
5.
pun ST = pun TT: the translator relays the ST pun in its original formulation, i.e. without actually
translating it;
6.
non-pun pun: the translator introduces a pun when translating a ST passage where none
occurred, possibly in order to compensate for a previous or subsequent loss, or for some other reason;
7.
pun: new textual material is added which includes a pun, probably also to compensate for
a loss;
8.
editorial techniques, such as explanatory footnotes or endnotes, translators comments in a
prologue or foreword, etc..

Dealing with puns

Analyzing the next pun, considering the SL English and TL Romanian
can lead to the next translation:
Example 1

I tried asking my dentist out but she brushed me off. Don't worry it was her floss.
Am ncercat s-i dau ntlnire dentistei dar mi-am luat-o n frez. Nu-i nimic, a
fost pierderea ei.
In this case we have a fixed expression, i. e. idiom to brush me off
carrying the meaning to collect or dispose of something by using a brush.
The translation method proposed for this pun, is omission when the
idiom is preserved in terms of its contents but with the loss of wordplay. Hence,
the meaning of the idiom is explained in translation instead of transferring the
idiom itself.

Dealing with puns

Example 2

Proper punctuation can make the difference between a sentence that's wellwritten and a sentence that's, well, written.
Punctuaia corect poate face diferena dintre o propoziie bine scris i o
propoziie, bine, scris.
This example illustrates wordplay ; resemblance of the words well
written vs. well, written provides us difference in a punctuation sign which changes
the meaning. The translator applies one of Delabastitas suggested methods:
->PUN to PUN when the source text pun is translated by a targetlanguage pun, which may be more or less different from the original wordplay in
terms of formal structure, semantic structure, or textual function.
In TL(Romanian language), pun translation has the same meaning with
the SL (English), same changes of punctuation were made in TL as well.

Dealing with puns

Example 3.

Why are families like fudge?

They are mostly sweet with a few nuts in it.
Considering the above joke as a family joke, an analysis reveals the
following lexico-grammatical choices. The clause structure illustrates that it is an
informal situation that uses the interrogative. This interrogative (Why?) is an
imperative in the sense of Let me tell you a joke! or Let me tell you why families
are like fudge. There is no problem in translating this interrogative into Romanian.
But there is a difficulty at the lexical level. The English joke playfully compares
families and fudge. The English word fudge, meaning a so creamy light brown
sweet made of sugar, milk, butter, is encoded in the English semiotic system and
belongs to British culture. This feature cannot be realised in Romanian

Dealing with puns

A possibility of translation is to render only the communicative meaning
and disregard the semantic and syntactical content of the source joke altogether.
In that case, we would have to find something that works naturally both at the
language level (embedded in the lexical system) and at the cultural level (being
cultural specific and playing on a well-known idiom). A possible solution might then
be:
Care e asemnarea dintre o familie i o turm de oi: majoritatea sunt albe dar
mai scap i cte una neagr.
[Why is a family like a flock of sheep? Its mostly white sprinkled with a few black
ones].
It should be mentioned that, like in English, to be the black sheep of the
family is a set phrase in Romanian. However, this second solution is open to
criticism: it does not render the originality, spontaneity, and sparkle of the sourcelanguage text

Dealing with puns

A possibility of translation is to render only the communicative meaning
and disregard the semantic and syntactical content of the source joke altogether.
In that case, we would have to find something that works naturally both at the
language level (embedded in the lexical system) and at the cultural level (being
cultural specific and playing on a well-known idiom). A possible solution might then
be:
Care e asemnarea dintre o familie i o turm de oi: majoritatea sunt albe dar
mai scap i cte una neagr.
[Why is a family like a flock of sheep? Its mostly white sprinkled with a few black
ones].
It should be mentioned that, like in English, to be the black sheep of the
family is a set phrase in Romanian. However, this second solution is open to
criticism: it does not render the originality, spontaneity, and sparkle of the sourcelanguage text

CONCLUSIONS
After a detailed analysis of theoretical material on humour and its
translation, as well as some ways of expressing this concept through jokes and
puns the following conclusions can be drawn:

Humour is a complex and highly culturally restricted phenomenon

that requires social competence, intellectual operations and
linguistic knowledge in order to grasp it;
The translator of humour often impacts with the dilemma of form
and meaning. Yet, in humour translation the vital element is comic
effect, thus very often the form is resigned in the favour of
meaning. Some of the selected examples(jokes or puns) were
translated in a way when the form was absolutely changed in the
target language; the others were formed by the examples
translated preserving more or less similar form.

References

Delabastita, Dirk. (2002). A Great Feast of Languages, Translating humour,

Manchester: St. Jerome.
Morreall, John. (1983). Taking Laughter Seriously. Albany, NY: State University
of New York.
Popa, Diana E. (2005). Jokes and translation. In Perspectives: Studies in
Translatology 13: 1, pp.48-57.
Ross, Alison. (2005), The Language of Humour, London and New York:
Routledge.
http://www.ahajokes.com/ethnic_jokes.html
http://www.richardwiseman.com/LaughLab/super.html

Thank you for your attention!