Humor, Translation, and Bilingual Issues

1
Humor, Translation, and Bilingual Issues

• by Don L. F. Nilsen
• and Alleen Pace Nilsen

2
Problems in Translating Jokes

• Before the joke can be discharged in all its
  swiftness there is much to be apprehended about
  cultural and social facts, about shared beliefs
  and attitudes, about pragmatic bases of
  communication.
• We share our humour with those who have shared
  our history and who understand our ways of
  interpreting the experience. There is a fund of
  common knowledge and recollection, upon which all
  jokes draw with instantaneous effect.
• (Nash 1985 9)
• (Chiaro 2008 585)

3
Translation in Quentin Tarantinos Pulp Fiction

• VINCENT You know what they call a Quarter
  Pounder with cheese in Paris?
• JULES They dont call it a Quarter Pounder with
  cheese?
• VINCENT No man theyve got the metric system
  they dont know what the fuck a Quarter Pounder
  is!
• JULES So what do they call a Quarter Pounder
  with cheese?

4

• VINCENT They call it a Royale with cheese.
• JULES Royale with cheese.
• VINCENT Thats right.
• JULES What do they call a Big Mac?
• VINCENT A Big Macs a Big Mac only they call it
  Le Big Mac
• JULES Le Big Mac. What do they call a Whopper?
• VINCENT I dont know. I never went to a Burger
  King. You know what they put on French Fries
  instead of Ketchup?
• JULES What?
• VINCENT Mayonnaise.
• (Chiaro 2008 586)

5
A Riddle

• If you are Swedish, you stroke it.
• If you are Spanish you beat it.
• If you are German, you cover it in food.
• If you are British, you use it as an excuse not
  to have sex. What is it?
• A Personal Computer.
• NOTE PCs in Spain often suffer violence, with
  57 percent of owners admitting to hitting them.
  Germans are unamused by PCs only one in six has
  enjoyed a laugh with their PC.
• (Davis 2008 561)

6
Untranslatable Canadian Joke

• Je suis allé dans un magazin Newfie et jai
  demandé un robe de chambre.
• Le Newfie ma demandé Quelle grandeur la
  chambre?
• (Davies 2008 163)

7
FRENCH

• What has fifty legs and cannot walk?
• Half a centipede. (Laurian Nilsen 6)
• TRANSLATION
• Quest-ce qui a cinq cent pattes et qui ne peut
  pas marcher?
• La moitié dune mille-pattes
• NOTE A French centipede is a mille-pattes
  (thousand-feet) (Chiaro 2008 575-576)

8
Formal Equivalence vs. Connotative Equivalence

• Werner Koller would say that translating the
  English centipede into the French
  mille-pattes is apt in terms of reference, but
  becomes inept when the English and French words
  are analyzed because mille-pattes is more
  hyperbolic than is centipede.
• (Chiaro 2008 576)

9
An English Sick Joke in France

• Mummy, Mummy, is it still a long way to France?
• Shut up and keep swimming!
• Maman, Maman, est-ce que lAngleterre loin?
• Tais-toi et continue à nager!

10
Discussion

• Notice that in the translation, England is
  substituted for France.
• As one of Delia Chiaros French colleagues
  pointed out to her, Why would someone French
  want to go to England?
• (Chiaro 2008 587)

11
German Humor

• Between 1931 and 1936 The Jack Pearl Show was on
  radio. Baron von Munchausen was the central
  figure in a running skit.
• The Baron spoke with a strong German accent that
  contrastted with the ordinary language of Charlie
  (Sharlie).
• (Nilsen Nilsen 102)

12

• BARON Und dere in frundt of me wuz a green
  elephant.
• SHARLIE Now wait a minute, Baron do you mean
  to tell me you actually saw a green elephant?
• BARON (with great indignation) Vas you dere,
  Sharlie?
• (Nilsen Nilsen 102)

13
Irish and Jewish Humor

• Since Irish humor developed out of the oral
  tradition (the telling of jokes and stories in
  Irish pubs), it is very epiphinal in nature.
• Like Jewish humor, Irish humor developed out of
  pain and tragedy that resulted in a diaspora.
• (Nilsen Humor in Irish Literature xv)

14

• Irish humor, like Jewish humor, contains much
  wordplay, and like Jewish humor, much of Irish
  wordplay is bilingual and/or bicultural, relating
  to both the Gaelic/Celtic and to the English
  language and culture.
• Many Irish, like many Jews, are trying to
  reestablish their roots, and it is the humor in
  Irish written and oral literature that is helping
  them to do so.
• (Nilsen Humor in Irish Literature xv)

15
Italian Humor

• In the late 1970s, comedian Don Novello spoke
  with an Italian accent and dressed in clerical
  garb when doing comedy skits about Farther Guido
  Sarducci.
• He was a hit on Saturday Night Live and on The
  Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, but when he went
  to the Vatican to pose for publicity photos he
  was arrested for impersonating a priest.
• (Nilsen Nilsen 115)

16
An Irish Joke in Italy

• What do they write on the bottom of Guinness
  bottles in Ireland?
• Open at other end.
• TRANSLATION
• Che cosa scrivono sul fondo delle lattine di Coca
  Cola che si trovano nei distributori di bibite
  nelle caserme dei carabinieri?
• Aprire dallaltro lato.
• (Chiaro 2008 583)

17
Discussion

• The Irish are the butt of English stupidity
  jokes, so a different stupidity group needs to be
  used in Italian.
• In Italy, the stupidity group is not ethnic, but
  is professionalthe carabinieri (one of Italys
  police forces).
• There is no national drink in Italy.
• Furthermore, Italians consume alcohol usually at
  meals and from glasses, not bottles.
• So Coca Cola is used instead of Guinness.
• Finally, Italians see a bottle as having a top
  and a bottom, so bottle had to change to can.
• (Chiaro 2008 583)

18
Now reread the joke and the translation!

• What do they write on the bottom of Guinness
  bottles in Ireland?
• Open at other end.
• TRANSLATION
• Che cosa scrivono sul fondo delle lattine di Coca
  Cola che si trovano nei distributori di bibite
  nelle caserme dei carabinieri?
• Aprire dallaltro lato.
• (Chiaro 2008 583)

19
ITALIAN

• Whats black and white and red all over?
• A newspaper.
• TRANSLATION
• Che cosa è nero, bianco e rossa ovunque?
• A. LUnità, or (a Communist newspaper)
• B. Una zebra con labronzatura (a zebra with a
  sunburn)
• NOTE The first red retains the read
  association, while the second red does not.
• (Chiaro 2008 580)

20

• Neither of these translations encapsulate the
  semantic ambivalency attached to the words
  red/read. Nevertheless, solution A does
  capture the read element of the original riddle
  coupled with the metaphorical value of the colour
  term red attached to a popular left wing
  newspaper LUnità.
• Since this is a childrens riddle, the first
  answer is inappropriate because children wouldnt
  know about LUnità.
• Furthermore the second answer has the kind of
  silliness that would be found in a childrens
  riddle.
• (Chiaro 2008 580)

21
JAPANESE

• JACOB MEY Is there a toilet around here?
• ATTENDANT You want to use?
• JACOB MEY (somewhat astonished) Sure I do.
• ATTENDANT Go down the steps.
• NOTE In Japan there are Western toilets and
  Japanese toilets. There are also male toilets
  and female toilets
• (Mey 264-265)

22
NATIVE AMERICANS

• In American conversations, when the speaker is
  ready to relinquish the floor, he usually waits
  about one and a half seconds.
• In Athabaskan conversations, silence is used to
  organize thoughts and develop effective sentence
  structure.

23

• So when an Athabaskan is talking with a
  non-Indian, the Athabaskan never gets the floor.
• The Athabaskan feels he has been interrupted and
  the English speaker feels the Athabaskan never
  makes sense, never says a whole coherent idea.
  (Scollon and Scollon 25)

24
Polish Jokes in America

• Do you know why they dont give Poles a coffee
  break?
• It takes too long to retrain them.
• What is stamped at the bottom of Coca Cola
  bottles in Poland?
• Please open at the other end.
• (Dundes (1987) 135)

25
Russian Humor

• Russian immigrant yakov Smirnoff entertained
  Americans through the cold war and beyond with
  such jokes as,
• I have a Russian Express Card. It says, Dont
  Leave Home! and
• One of the biggest differences between America
  and Russia is that in America you can always find
  a party, but in Russia, the party always finds
  you.
• (Nilsen Nilsen 115)

26

• The editors of a Soviet newspaper were arrested
  and possibly executed because they published
  Stalins name as Sralin, which in Cyrillic
  means shit.
• Was this a Freudian slip
• Or an accident
• Or a slur? (Davies 2008 171)

27
Scandinavian Humor

• Garrison Keillor exploits Scandinavian
  stereotypes in his Lake Wobegon.
• Swedish flu is the usual flu with chills, fever,
  diarrhea, vomiting, and achiness, but its
  accompanied by on overpowering urge to put things
  in order. (Nilsen Nilsen 116)

28
!Scottish Humor

• Whats the difference between a poor Scotsman, a
  rich Scotsman, and an old Scotsman?
• A poor Scotsman has a can o pee under his bed.
• A rich scotsman has a canopy over the bed.
• And an old Scotsman can na pee at all.
• (A Sandra Nagy Joke)

29
!BILINGUAL HUMOR WEB SITES

• INTERNATIONAL AND CROSSCULTURAL HUMOR
• DANISH HUMOR RESOURCES (JOSEF WEITEMEYER)
• www.humor.dk
• HUMOR IN INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION (WENDY
  LAWSON)
• www.beyondajoke.co.uk
• INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR HUMOR STUDIES (MARTIN
  LAMPERT)
• www.humorstudies.org
• INTERNATIONAL STUDIES IN HUMOR RESEARCH
  (WILLIBALD RUCH)
• http//www.uni-duesseldorf.de/WWW/MathNat/Ruch/Sec
  retaryPage.html

30
!!!Related PowerPoints

• African-American Humor
• Indian Humor
• Jewish Humor
• Spanish-American Humor

31

• References 1
• Alexieva, Bistra. There Must be Some System in
  This Madness Metaphor, Polysemy, and Wordplay in
  a Cognitive Linguistics Framework. in Traductio
  Essays on Punning and Translation Ed. Dirk
  Delabastita. Manchester, England St. Jerome,
  1997.
• Antonini, Rachele. The Perception of Subtitled
  Humor in Italy. in Chiaro (2005) 209-225.
• Ballard, Wordplay and the Didactics of
  Translation. in Delabatista (1996) 333-346.
• Bucaria, Chiara. The Perception of Humour in
  Dubbing vs. Subtitlilng The Case of Six Feet
  Under ESP Across Cultures 2 (2006) 36ff.
• Chiaro, Delia, ed. Humor and Translation.
  Special issue of Humor International Journal of
  Humor Research 18.2 (2005), 135-234.

32

• References 2
• Chiaro, Delia. The Implications of the Quality
  of Verbally Expressed Humour and the Success of
  Screen Comedy. Antares Umorol-O Nouva Stiinta
  (2003) 14-20.
• Chiaro, Delia. Investigating the Perception of
  Verbally Expressed Humour on Italian TV. ESP
  Across Cultures 1 (2004) 35-52.
• Chiaro, Delia. The Effect of Translation on the
  Humour Response The Case of Dubbed Comedy in
  Italy. in Translation Studies Doubts and
  Directions. Eds. Yves Gambier, Miriam Shlesinger,
  and Radigundis Stolze. Amsterdam, Netherlands
  John Benjamins, 138-152.
• Chiaro, Delia. Servizio Completo? On the
  (Un)translatability of Puns on Screen. in La
  Draduzione Multimediale Quale Traduzione per
  Quale Testo? Eds. Rosa Maria Bolettieri
  Bosinelli, Christine Heiss, Marcello Soffretti,
  and Silvia Bernardini. Bologna, Italy CLUEB,
  2000.
• Chiaro, Delia. Verbally Expressed Humor and
  Translation in Chiaro (2005) 135-146 also in
  Raskin (2008) 569-608.

33

• References 3
• Davies, Christie. European Ethnic Scripts and
  the Translation and Switching of Jokes. in
  Chiaro (2005) 147-160.
• Davies, Christie. Undertaking the Comparative
  Study of Humor. in Raskin 2008 157-182.
• Davis, Dineh. Communication and Humor. in
  Raskin 2008 543-568.
• Delabastita, Dirk. Cross-Language Comedy in
  Shakespeare. in Chiaro (2005) 161-184.
• Delabistita, Dirk. Theres a Double Tongue An
  Investigation into the Translation of
  Shakespeares Wordplay, with Special Reference to
  Hamlet. Amsterdam, Netherlands Rodopi, 1993.
• Delabistita, Dirk, ed. Traductio Essays on
  Punning and Translation. Manchester, England St.
  Jerome/Presses Universitaire de Namur, 1997.

34

• References 4
• Delabistita, Dirk, ed. Wordplay and Translation.
  A Special Issue of The Translator 2.2 (1996).
• Denton, John. How A Fish Called Wanda became
  Un Pesce di Nome Wanda. Il Traduttore Nuovo 44
  (1994) 29-38.
• Dundes, Alan. Cracking Jokes Studies of Sick
  Humor Cycles and Stereotypes. Berkeley, CA Ten
  Speed Press, 1987.
• Kao, George. Chinese Wit and Humor. New York, NY
  Sterling Publishing Company, 1975.
• Laurian, Anne-Marie. Humour et Traduction au
  Contact des Cultures. in Laurian and Nilsen
  (1989) 5-14.
• Laurian, Anne-Marie, and Don L. F. Nilsen, eds.
  Humor et Traduction/Humor and Translation a
  Special Issue of Meta Journal des
  Traductors/Journal of Translators 34.1 (1989).

35

• References 5
• Mateo Martinez-Bartolomé, Marta. La Traducción
  del Humor Las Comedias Inglesas en Español.
  Oviedo, Spain Universidad de Oviedo, 1995.
• Mey, Jacob L. Pragmatics An Introduction, 2nd
  Edition. Oxford, England Blackwell, 2001.
• Mey, Jacob L. Whose Language? A Study in
  Linguistic Pragmatics. Amsterdam, Holland
  Benjamins, 1985.
• Nash, Walter. The Language of Humour Style and
  Technique in Comic Discourse. London, England
  Longman, 1985.
• Nilsen, Alleen Pace, and Don L. F. Nilsen.
  Encyclopedia of 20th Century American Humor.
  Westport, CT Greenwood/Oryx, 2000.

36

• References 6
• Nilsen, Don L. F. Humor in Irish Literature.
  Westport, CT Greenwood, 1996.
• Pisek, Gernard. Wordplay and the
  Dubbing/Subtitler. Arbeiten aus Anglistik und
  Amerikanistik 1 (1996) 37-51.
• Raskin, Victor. The Primer of Humor Research. New
  York, NY Mouton de Gruyter, 2008.
• Ruch, Willibald, et. al. Cross-National
  Comparisons of Humor Categories France and
  Germany. HUMOR International Journal of Humor
  Research 4 (1991) 391-414.
• Raskin, Victor, ed. Primer of Humor Research. New
  York, NY Mouton de Gruyter, 2008.

37

• References 7
• Schmitz, J. R. Humor as a Pedagogical Tool in
  Foreign Language and Translation Courses. HUMOR
  International Journal of Humor Research 15.1
  (2002).
• Scollon, Ron and Suzie B. K. Scollon. Narrative,
  Literacy and Face in Interethnic Communication.
  Norwood, NJ Ablex, 1981.
• Vaid, Jyotsna. New Approaches to Conceptual
  Representation in Bilingual Memory The Case for
  Studying Humor Interpretation. Bilingualism
  Language and Cognition 3.1 (2000) 28-30.
• Zabalbeascoa, Patrick. Humor and TranslationAn
  Interdiscipline. in Chiaro (2005) 185-208.
• Ziv, Avner. National Styles of Humor. Westport,
  CT Greenwood, 1988.