Uniwersytet Gda ński Michał Bocian Nr albumu: 117218 Function, Humour, Culture – a Tripartite Approach to Translating Martin Amis’s Yellow Dog M.A. thesis written under the supervision of Prof. Wojciech Kubi ński, Ph.D., Hab. Gda ńsk, 2007 r. Uniwersytet Gda ński Michał Bocian Nr albumu: 117218 Funkcja, humor, kultura – trójdzielne podej ście do przekładu powie ści Martina Amisa pt. Yellow Dog Praca magisterska napisana pod kierunkiem naukowym dr hab. Wojciecha Kubi ńskiego prof. UG Gda ńsk, 2007 r. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................................ 1 CHAPTER 1...................................................................................................................................................... 4 1.1 TRANSLATING AS A DECISION -MAKING PROCESS ...................................................................................... 4 1.1.1 The intellectual struggle of decision making.................................................................................... 4 1.1.2 Translation as a game of decisions and choices .............................................................................. 5 1.1.3 The role of knowledge and experience in the decision process........................................................ 6 1.1.4 Decision making strata: macro- and microcontext .......................................................................... 8 1.1.5 Norms in decision making ................................................................................................................ 9 1.2 THE FUNCTIONALIST TRADITION IN TRANSLATION.................................................................................. 11 1.2.1 Identifying the functions of the source text and target text....................................................... 11 1.2.2 The referential function ............................................................................................................... 13 1.2.3 The expressive function ............................................................................................................... 15 1.2.4 The appellative function .............................................................................................................. 17 1.2.5 The phatic function ...................................................................................................................... 18 1.3 THE ROLE OF NORMS AND CONVENTIONS IN THE FUNCTIONAL APPROACH .............................................. 20 1.3.1 Genre conventions.......................................................................................................................... 20 1.3.2 Style conventions ............................................................................................................................ 21 1.3.3 Translation conventions ................................................................................................................. 23 1.4 THE SKOPOS THEORY .............................................................................................................................. 24 1.4.1 The definition.................................................................................................................................. 24 1.4.2 Commission in translating. The notion of translation brief...................................................... 25 1.4.3 The role of translator dictated by the theory of skopos ............................................................ 26 1.4.4 Assigning the skopos of the translation...................................................................................... 26 1.4.5 The relation between the sender and the text............................................................................. 27 1.4.6 The relation between the sender and the reader ....................................................................... 28 1.4.7 Establishing the decoding abilities of the target text reader ................................................... 28 1.4.8 The relation between the fictional world and the real world ................................................... 29 CHAPTER 2.................................................................................................................................................... 31 2.1 IN SEARCH OF A TAXONOMY OF HUMOUR ............................................................................................... 31 2.2 HUMOUR IN THE FRAME OF COGNITIVE LINGUISTICS .............................................................................. 33 2.2.1 The idea of salience in approach to humour.............................................................................. 33 2.2.2 Interlingual asymmetry and wordplay in translation................................................................ 34 2.2.3 Wordplay as tension between the domains of human knowledge and experience .................. 35 2.3 WORDPLAY AND IDIOMS IN TRANSLATION .............................................................................................. 36 2.3.1 Contextual use of idioms in wordplay ............................................................................................ 36 2.3.2 Techniques for translating idiom-based wordplay .................................................................... 38 2.4 HUMOUR WITHIN THE SCOPE OF PRAGMATICS ......................................................................................... 40 2.4.1 Coherence ...................................................................................................................................... 41 2.4.2 Implicature ..................................................................................................................................... 41 CHAPTER 3.................................................................................................................................................... 44 3.1 BETWEEN THE POLES OF FAMILIARITY AND FOREIGNESS OF THE CULTURAL EXPERIENCE ....................... 44 3.1.1 Two basic concepts in the cultural approach to translation..................................................... 44 3.1.2 The degree of the translator’s (in)visibility............................................................................... 45 3.1.3 The illusive nature of foreignisation .......................................................................................... 46 3.1.4 The release of a domestic remainder.......................................................................................... 47 3.2 CULTURE -SPECIFIC ITEMS IN TRANSLATION ............................................................................................ 48 3.2.1 The definition of a culture-specific item......................................................................................... 48 3.2.2 Types of culture-specific items ....................................................................................................... 49 3.3 A TAXONOMY OF PROCEDURES EMPLOYED IN THE TRANSLATION OF CSI S............................................. 51 3.3.1 Foreignising procedures ................................................................................................................ 51 3.3.2 Domesticating procedures.............................................................................................................. 52 3.3.3 Other procedures............................................................................................................................ 53 CHAPTER 4.................................................................................................................................................... 55 4.1 THE REALISATION OF FUNCTIONS IN FOUR TEXT SUBTYPES ............................................................... 55 4.1.1 A nursery rhyme ........................................................................................................................... 55 4.1.2 A song............................................................................................................................................ 57 4.1.3 A news item................................................................................................................................... 58 4.1.4 An e-mail....................................................................................................................................... 61 4.2 TRANSLATION PROBLEMS IMPLICIT IN THE EXPRESSIVE FUNCTION ................................................... 63 4.2.1 Slang and the taboo........................................................................................................................ 63 4.2.2 Unusual (infrequent) collocations and original metaphors ........................................................... 75 4.3 Unconventional syntax ...................................................................................................................... 84 4.4 THE METALINGUISTIC FUNCTION – PROBLEMS IN TRANSFER .............................................................. 85 CHAPTER 5.................................................................................................................................................... 87 5.1 WORDPLAY INVOLVING CHARACTERS ’ NAMES AND NICKNAMES ............................................................ 87 5.2 WORDPLAY CAUSED BY GRAPHEMIC AND MORPHOLOGICAL MANIPULATIONS ........................................ 91 5.3 WORDPLAY BASED ON POLYSEMY