The translation of humour based on culture-bound terms in Modern Family. A cognitive-pragmatic approach

  1. Francisco Javier Díaz Pérez 1
  1. 1 Universidad de Jaén, España
Revista:
MonTI: Monografías de traducción e interpretación
  1. Martínez Sierra, Juan José (coord.)
  2. Zabalbeascoa Terran, Patrick (coord.)

ISSN: 1889-4178 1989-9335

Any de publicació: 2017

Títol de l'exemplar: The Translation of Humour/La traducción del humor

Número: 9

Pàgines: 49-75

Tipus: Article

DOI: 10.6035/MONTI.2017.9.2 DIALNET GOOGLE SCHOLAR lock_openRUA editor

Altres publicacions en: MonTI: Monografías de traducción e interpretación

Resum

If the translation of humour may become problematic for a translator, this is particularly so in those cases in which humour is based on culture-bound terms which are not shared by the target culture. The main aim of this paper is to analyse the solutions adopted by the translators into Spanish to deal with culture-specific jokes in the first two seasons of the American TV series Modern Family. Both the DVD dubbed and subtitled versions have been focused on. The approach adopted in this paper is Relevance Theory. From the perspective of this theoretical framework, the translator will resort to different solution-types to try to recreate the cognitive effects intended by the source communicator with the lowest possible processing effort on the part of the target addressee. Different aspects related to the translator’s metarepresentation of the target audience’s cognitive environment, among other factors, will determine his/her choice of solution-type.

Referències bibliogràfiques

  • Chiaro, Delia. (1992) The Language of Jokes. Analysing Verbal Play. London & New York: Routledge.
  • Chiaro, Delia. (2008) “Verbally expressed humour and translation.” In: Raskin, Viktor (ed.) 2008 Primer of Humor Research. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, pp. 569-608.
  • Díaz-Cintas, Jorge & Aline Remael. (2014) Audiovisual Translation: Subtitling, 2nd ed. London & New York: Routledge.
  • Díaz-Pérez, Francisco Javier. (2013) “The translation of wordplay from the perspective of Relevance Theory: Translating sexual puns in two Shakespearian tragedies into Galician and Spanish.” Meta 58:2, pp. 279-302.
  • Díaz-Pérez, Francisco Javier. (2014) “Relevance Theory and translation: Translating puns in Spanish film titles into English.” Journal of Pragmatics 70, pp. 108-129.
  • Díaz-Pérez, Francisco Javier. (2015) “From the other side of the looking glass: A cognitive-pragmatic account of translating Lewis Carroll.” In: RomeroTrillo, Jesús (ed.) 2015 Yearbook of Corpus Linguistics and Pragmatics 2015: Current Approaches to Discourse and Translation Studies. Heidelberg: Springer, pp. 163-194.
  • Franco Aixelá, Javier. (1996) “Culture-specific items in translation.” In: Álvarez, Román & M. Carmen África Vidal (eds.) Translation, Power, Subversion. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 52-78.
  • González Davies, María & Christopher Scott-Tennent. (2005) “A problem-solving and student-centred approach to the translation of cultural references.” Meta 50:1, pp. 160-179.
  • Gutt, Ernst-August. (1998) “Pragmatic aspects of translation: Some relevance-theory observations.” In: Hickey, Leo (ed.) The Pragmatics of Translation. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, pp. 41-53.
  • Gutt, Ernst-August. (2000) Translation and Relevance. Cognition and Context. Manchester: St. Jerome.
  • Gutt, Ernst-August. (2004) “Challenges of metarepresentation to translation competence.” In: Fleishcmann, Eberhard; Peter A. Schmitt & Gerd Wotjak (eds.) Translationskompetenz: Proceedings of LICTRA 2001: VII. Leipziger Internationale Konferenz zu Grundfragen der Translatologie. Tübingen: Stauffenburg, pp. 77-89.
  • Gutt, Ernst-August. (2005) “On the significance of the cognitive core of translation.” The Translator 11:1, pp. 25-49.
  • Haywood, Louise; Michael Thomson & Sándor Hervey. (2009) Thinking Spanish Translation. A Course Translation Method: Spanish to English. 2nd ed. London & New York: Routledge.
  • Martínez-Sierra, Juan José. (2006) “La manipulación del texto: sobre la dualidad extranjerización/familiarización en la traducción del humor en textos audiovisuales.” Sendebar 17, pp. 219-231.
  • Martínez-Sierra, Juan José. (2008) Humor y traducción. Los Simpson cruzan la frontera. Castelló: Universitat Jaume I.
  • Martínez-Sierra, Juan José. (2009) “El papel del elemento visual en la traducción del humor en textos audiovisuales: un problema o una ayuda?” TRANS. Revista de Traductología 13, pp. 139-148.
  • Molina, Lucía & Amparo Hurtado Albir. (2002) “Translation techniques revisited: A dynamic and functionalist approach.” Meta 47:4, pp. 498-512.
  • Pedersen, Jan. (2011) Subtitling Norms for Television. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
  • Sperber, Dan & Deirdre Wilson. (1986) Relevance. Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell.
  • Sperber, Dan & Deirdre Wilson. (1995) Relevance. Communication and Cognition. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell.
  • Venuti, Lawrence. (1995) The Translator’s Invisibility. London & New York: Routledge.
  • Wilson, Deirdre. (2012) “Metarepresentation in linguistic communication.” In: Wilson, Deirdre & Dan Sperber (eds.) Meaning and Relevance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 230-257.
  • Wilson, Deirdre & Dan Sperber. (2004) “Relevance Theory.” In: Horn, Laurence R. & Gregory Ward (eds.) The Handbook of Pragmatics. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 607-632.
  • Yus, Francisco. (2003) “Humour and the search for relevance.” Journal of Pragmatics 35, pp. 1295-1331.
  • Yus, Francisco. (2012) “Relevance, humour and translation.” In: Walaszewska, Ewa & Agnieszka Piskorska (eds.) Relevance Theory: More than Understanding. New Castle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 117-145.
  • Yus, Francisco. (2016) Humour and Relevance. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
  • Zabalbeascoa, Patrick. (2000) “From techniques to types of solutions.” In: Lonsdale, Allison B. & Dorts Ensinger (eds.) Investigating Translation: Selected Papers from the 4th International Congress on Translation, Barcelona, 1998. Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 117-127.
  • Zabalbeascoa, Patrick. (2005) “Humor and translation - an interdiscipline.” Humor 18:2, pp. 185-207.