On the Feasibility and Strategies of Translating Humour

Abstract

It is not always possible to translate something such that there is dynamic equivalence. However, there are two kinds of translations to choose from: 1) translation with the goal of dynamic equivalence and 2) translation with the goal of education. It is possible to translate something so that the effects are also translated. If this is impossible, however, it is still possible to do a translation in order to let the reader know that there is something in another language and that it is something like your translation. Using explanation and/or awkward language means sacrificing the dramatic effect, but it is useful for cross-cultural purposes. When translating such intricate pieces as poetry or humor, the second type of translation may be all that can be hoped for. In The Theory and Practice of Translation, Eugene Nida and Charles Taber have outlined what seems to be a reasonable method of translating from one language to an-other. They indicate that the "old focus" includes the form of the message, stylistics, rhythm, rhyme, and other rhetorical devices. They imply that this old focus is insufficient : the focus should be on the content. They write : "Anything than can be said in one language can be said in another, unless the form is an essential element of the message!". Because languages vary, they believe that it is essential to change the form of the message in order to preserve the content of the message. Using this approach, one may forget important possibilities. The listener or reader is affected by the power of rhetorical devices, not just content. I also believe that although the surface form of a message may change, the extent of this change is a language-specific question and it is not necessary in all cases to obliterate the original structure. Nida and Taber have made a number of good points. The translator should preserve meaning as a priority and style as secondary. However, in terms of contexts more literary than the Bible, such as poetry, drama, and humor, the form of the language is an integral part of its original appeal. In poetry, form is as essential to preserve as content. If the form is not preserved, then neither is the poetry. Susan Bassnett-McGuire writes : "... the degree to which the translator reproduces the form, metre, rhythm, tone, register, etc. of the SL (source language) text, will be as much determined by the TL (target language) system as by the SL system and will also depend on the function of the translation". One of the more difficult things to translate is poetry. After many attempts to translate a poem by Anna Akhmatova, and a consolidation of efforts, the final version was proudly presented to a group of translation students, among them speakers of both English and Russian. The final version was judged as having none of the original flavor; the gloss was said to be better than the translation ! So there is really no way for a non-native speaker to translate poetry because he cannot feel the effects. Haj Ross puts much effort into describing the precise phonetic construction of poetry. If indeed this is the case, it would be very difficult and rarely worth the effort to produce a translations. The way to deal with poetry, then, seems to be the direct translation. That is, pro-duce a gloss of the poem, beside which lies a syllable and rhyme structure to indicate what the original was like.