humor translation

1. Giacinto Palmieri
(University of Surrey)

3.  Introduction to my research
◦ Subject of study (bilingual stand-up comedy)
◦ Oral self-translation
◦ Methodology
◦ Presentation of some results
 Discussion on humour translatability

4.  Comedians perform in two languages
 Migration
 Globalisation of the comedy market

5.  Do comedians translate between the two
languages?
 Does this translation “work”?
 (Implications on performance)
 (Negotiation of identity)

6. Written texts…
 are just preparatory / mnemonic tools
 are not intended for public consumption
 are often just “bullet points”
 even when “word by word”, they soon become
“stale”
 still leave room for improvisation and
audience interaction
 might not even exist at all

7.  It is not interpreting
 The source text is “in the mind” (mental text)
 It can only be self-translation

8.  Assumed translation (Toury 1995)
 The assumer is the (putative) translator
 Phenomenological approach (IPA)
 7 in-depth semi-structure interviews with
bilingual comedians
 Main focus on English and Italian

9. “Most of my material works equally well in a
language as in the other” (Romina Puma)
“I found that the difficulties [in translating
jokes] were minimal, even for my level of
competence in English” (Francesco De Carlo)

10. “Everybody keeps telling me: how can you
translate your jokes in English? For me it looks
like the least of all difficulties” (Francesco De
Carlo)

11.  Wordplay
 Culture specificity

12.  Participants don’t translate wordplay
 Assumed translation (by the translator)
makes wordplay “untranslatable”

13.  The case of “The Big-Bang theory” (Balirano
2013)
 The case of “My Big Fat Greek Wedding”
(Chiaro 2007)

14.  The more culture-specific a joke, the funnier
 The more culture-specific a joke, the more
difficult to translate
 Funniness and translatability are inversely
correlated

15.  Translated jokes can be made equally (target)
culture specific
 Example: Giada Garofalo’s “Specsavers joke”

16.  Plausibility
 Referential fidelity

17. “I went to the Kennedy Assassination Museum.
They have the window set up to look exactly
like it did on that day. And it’s really accurate,
you know. ’Cause Oswald’s not in it.”

18. “I went to the Piazza Fontana Bombing Museum.
And it’s really accurate, you know. ’Cause Pietro
Valpreda not in it.”
BLOCKED!
Plausibility!
Referential fidelity!

19. This translation was actually used by comedian
Daniele Luttazzi for the TV program “Satyricon”
(2001)
But Luttazzi was a plagiarist, hence:
 No plausibility concern
 No referential fidelity concern
 (Ill-gotten) authorial freedom

20.  Their translation is covert
 They are self-translators
Hence:
 No plausibility concern
 No referential fidelity concern
 (Honestly gained) authorial freedom

21.  Example: Samuel Beckett’s self-translations
(Fitch 1988)
 Self-translators feel more free

22.  Self-translating comedians are successful
humour translators
 They enjoy great freedom
 With the exception of wordplay, humour
seems to be translatable (if translators are
free to adapt it to the target culture)
 The perception of untranslatability might
derive from the factors limiting this freedom

23.  Dr Dimitris Asimakoulas
 Dr Constance Bantman

24.  Anon. (2011) Luttazzi's Plagiarized Jokes (I Plagi), My Voice, viewed 20 June 2015,
http://ntvox.blogspot.co.uk/2008/02/luttazzis-plagiariezed-jokes.html
 Balirano, G. (2013) 'The strange case of The Big Bang Theory and its extra-ordinary
Italian audiovisual translation: a multimodal corpus-based analysis', Perspectives, 21 (4),
pp. 563-576.
 Chiaro, D. (2007) 'The effect of translation on humour response: the case of dubbed
comedy in Italy' in Doubts and Directions in Translation Studies: Selected Contributions
from the EST Congress, Lisbon 2004. John Benjamins Pub Co, pp. 137-152.
 Delabastita, D. (1993) There's a Double Tongue: An investigation into the translation of
Shakespeare's wordplay, with special reference to Hamlet. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
 Fitch, B.T. (1988) Beckett and Babel : an investigation into the status of the bilingual
work. Toronto ; London: University of Toronto Press.
 Reiss, K., Vermeer, H.J., Nord, C. & Dudenhöfer, M. (2013) Towards a general theory of
translational action : skopos theory explained. Manchester, UK: St. Jerome Publishing.
 Toury, G. (1995) Descriptive translation studies--and beyond. Amsterdam;
Philadelphia: John Benjamins Pub. Co