For Better or for Worse - The Challenges of Translating English humour into Arabic Dr. Nuri Ageli * E.mail: [email protected] * Dep. of English Language & Literature faculty of Arts - University of Bahrain For Better or for Worse Dr. Nuri Ageli ¤£mD*¥4¡FO :¢üî∏ŸG *wD·°vD*9¡D*Hv£gD*,vg´*¥¡£cD*v£gD*¢<ÌcC~{+vg-HfJbDA*vD*¤GfGbD*fD /Æ´*(*k£0HfAbjD*¢D(*fAb~9(*b£D(*/Æ´*HbE/Æ´*ÍgDb+bEb-bEb´(*b´(°*Í/Æ´*¢<dmJ fEbD*ib+¡~|D*5Hb©É1Ef£~8&°*f_£cDÍg.b»f+bmg~6*HÌ.&b-1£<ÍgJb£~6Hg~|+ f£+¡~6&°*¤0*¡D*Eb~}J&*DH¤~8&°*|Df£AbjD*Hf£-b=ÄD*Hf£D°vD*HfJ¡pD*¤0*¡D*¯Az£D wGE9xD*b£~zD*HibD*Hf£Ax~|D*i*v0¡D*Hf£AbD*i*¡~8&*HfJ4¡gD*H9¡D*¯fjg´*f£Db±*H ¢D(*b/Æ£A/Æ´*b/*¡J¤gD*ib+¡~|D*rx~7HfJy£F(°*fGbD*dF*¡/}+£«Hf~6*42¡GfB4¡D* b£Ab.HbJ¡DfJy£F(°*fD*<gs-¤gD*f£+xD*fD* 9¡D*Áb´*f£DH*vgD*¤GbD*|D* :á«°SÉ°SCG äÉë∏£°üe 413 Issue No. 23 - Summer 2014 For Better or for Worse - The Challenges of Translating English humour into Arabic Dr. Nuri Ageli Abstract: The language of humour is highly motivated and relies heavily on deliberately devised structural complexity and semantic ambiguity. Translators must know the target and source language and culture extremely well. The translator being the mediator is required to create approximately a similar impact and response to that of the original semantic, pragmatic, and cultural features of the original text, but also in the aesthetic and stylistic features represented in a skillfully manipulated ambiguities, puns, rhyming sounds, morphemes, words and context. The purpose of this paper is to investigate and rendering it into Arabic, a language linguistically and culturally different from English. Keywords: Humour, Pragmatics, Semantics, Ambiguity 414 For Better or for Worse Dr. Nuri Ageli 1. INTRODUCTION Meaning in humour is not made clear but it has to be worked out through be amused by things, the way in which cooperation between by the listener, people see that some things are amusing reader and humour producer. or the quality of being amusing” (www. dictionary.cambridge.org). Another Humour can be intentional or accidental (spontaneous). In intentional humour for Applied and Therapeutic Humor as the capacity to perceive, appreciate, or more of Grice’s (1975) maxims of the or express what is funny, amusing, incongruous, and ludicrous. the humorous effect. The language of humour is the result of Accidental humour, on the other hand, conscious and deliberate planning and design; it relies heavily on puns and serious and information conveying) ambiguity whether spoken or written to in which the infringement of the produce a dramatic effect on the reader maxims of the Cooperative Principle or hearer. is spontaneous and unintentional. It Besides, humour is a social collaborative results from the producer’s inability to act in which the teller/writer, the listener/ observe overlapping in the meaning of reader and the humorous utterance semantically related words. The following simultaneously engage in a socio-cultural examples are from Farghal (2006) function, (Farghal 2006:1). For this reason it has been discussed by psychologists, sociologists, and linguists among others. - (In a Bangkok dry cleaners) Drop your This, as Attardo (1994:1) puts it, has often trousers here for best results. resulted, in epistemological hairsplitting. - (In a Rome laundry) Ladies leave your Yet, he concludes that what humour clothes here and spend the afternoon ultimately is depends on the purpose for having a good time. which it is used (Attardo 1994:4). In this Despite the fact that there exists that whose intended effect is evoking universal or globalized humour, it is laughter and which has an effect on the assumed that some languages have their target audience. own characteristics linguistically and culturally that evoke in their audience Humour refers to “a variety of texts but pleasurable and playful response. often with subtle differences: jokes, Menacere, M. (1991: 36) tells us that: jests, witticisms, quips, sallies, cracks, gags, puns, retorts, riddles, one-liners and conundrums” (Schmitz, 2002:3). 415 Issue No. 23 - Summer 2014 target language. These parameters were As individuals view reality differently, it would be impossible to ask two different languages applied to translating some examples to express thoughts in similar manner because of humour from English into German, each one possesses a mode of expression using Italian and French. the linguistic devices available in the language according to its needs. As far as translation of humour from or into Arabic is concerned, there seems to This naturally has its bearing on translation be a dearth of literature on this area. The for in the case of similar cultures and only works I came across are Farghal languages, it is often possible to have an (2006) who, in the introduction of his effective translation’ (Rephelson-West, article on accidental humour in public 1989: 129). notices displayed in English, analyzed two Jordanian jokes in which humour was The translation of English humour created through both script opposition has been dealt with by Leibold (1989) and script overlap. who says that successful translation of Muhawi (2002) deals with equivalence humour is achieved through decoding in translation of the meta linguistic joke the original humorous speech and in a local Arabic dialect as movement recapturing its intentions. Laurian from oral performance, a semiotic system with its own rhetorical conventions, into translating jokes and concludes that some a written text in standard English. He jokesare untranslatable and therefore states that translation must be based on it is necessary to change the reality of the concept of intersemiotic translation what the text refers to in the original. (cf. suggested by Jakbson (1959). Nilsen (1989), Ornstein-Galicia (1989),), Lendvai (1996), and Zabalbeascoa 2. THE PRESENT STUDY (1996) among others). Attardo (2002) applied the General Theory of Verbal The purpose of this paper is to investigate Humor, a revision of Raskin’s (1985) and analyze some aspects of English Semantic Script theory, to the translation of humour. The theory comprised six encountered in rendering it into Arabic, parameters, namely, Language, narrative a language linguistically and culturally strategy, Target, Situation, Logical different from English. Mechanism, and Script Opposition. According to Attardo, to seek equivalence when translating humour, the translator Twenty jokes and humourous statements have been selected from humour websites similarities and differences. Only if a and also from Nash’s The Language parameter did not exist should a translator of Humour. They were categorized abandon it and replace it with that of the according to the source that causes 416 For Better or for Worse Dr. Nuri Ageli humour. For the purpose of translation English stress and intonation in “cat we shall distinguish two main types of drink” above cause the ambiguity, humour, linguistic and cultural. and semantically give it two possible interpretations i.e. a drink for a cat or the It has been found that humour occurs at the way to make a cat drink. This humorous various levels of phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics and culture. of English and translation who were asked The translator would have to decide what to translate it into Arabic. Three of the to keep and when to break away from the translations opted for the interpretation linguistic and cultural domination of the that by putting the cat in the liquidizer source language so that natural discourse it will be able to drink. One translation may be produced and the communicative regarded ‘cat’ as a brand name for a drink objective of the message may be and transliterated it into Arabic letters. preserved. For the purpose of translation One translation opted for the surface we shall distinguish two main types of meaning that we can make a drink for the humour, linguistic and cultural. cat by putting the drink in the liquidizer. 3. Linguistic Humour problematic it is to render into the Linguistic humour may be divided into target language humour that is based on three kinds: phonological, morphological semantic ambiguity. The translations that and semantic and pragmatic. opted for the deep meaning of the text have failed to create the ambiguity – the Linguistic or language based humour is source of humour – and consequently, challenging and requires greater effort they were not funny at all. The reason in processing because of the different for this problem is attributed, as Catford structures of the English and Arabic. (quoted in Bassnet- McGuire, 1980:32) points out, to linguistic untranslatability 3.1 Phonological resulting from the differences between the source language and the target language. Phonological humour ambiguity is created by playing on language sounds, semantically the two interpretations stress, intonation and pronunciation. An above. example would be the following: phonological humour is illustrated in the A: How do you make a cat drink? following joke: (1) B: Easy, put it in the liquidizer. (Nash, 1985) 417 Issue No. 23 - Summer 2014 An American asks a Britisher what Why does Santa Claus go down the he does. The Britisher in his r- less chimney on Christmas Eve? Because it (3) vowel dialect responds “I’m a clerk”. soots him. (2) The American assumes on the basis www.jokes.com of this answer that the Britisher sits round all day going “tick, tock, tick, The problem for the translator into Arabic tock”. here is not so much the cultural aspect of (Nash,1985) the one-liner above since Arabs are now well familiar with the imaginary old man The ambiguity creating humour here with red clothes and a long white beard comes from the British pronunciation of the word “clerk” which is understood to produce the humorous effect implied by the American as “clock”.