Humour Translation in the Age of Multimedia

Margherita Dore, Margherita Dore

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781000205466
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Langues et linguistique
• Subtopic: Traduction et interprétation

This volume seeks to investigate how humour translation has developed since the beginning of the 21st century, focusing in particular on new ways of communication. The authors, drawn from a range of countries, cultures and academic traditions, address and debate how today's globalised communication, media and new technologies are influencing and shaping the translation of humour.

Examining both how humour translation exploits new means of communication and how the processes of humour translation may be challenged and enhanced by technologies, the chapters cover theoretical foundations and implications, and methodological practices and challenges. They include a description of current research or practice, and comments on possible future developments. The contributions interconnect around the issue of humour creation and translation in the 21st century, which can truly be labelled as the age of multimedia.

Accessible and engaging, this is essential reading for advanced students and researchers in Translation Studies and Humour Studies.

1

Humour translation in the age of multimedia

Margherita Dore

1.1 Introduction

Humour is undoubtedly a pervasive phenomenon of human life, and it is therefore not surprising that philosophers, anthropologists, psychologists and linguists have devoted a good deal of time and effort to studying it. To this end, several scholars have combined theories and approaches proceeding from different fields, thus also offering further proof of the interdisciplinary nature of humour studies. Within linguistics, Raskin’s (1985) Semantic Script Theory of Humour (SSTH) has been subsequently revised into Attardo and Raskin’s (1991) General Theory of Verbal Humour (GTVH) (see also Attardo 1994, 2001). Both these theories have correctly been heralded as “the most influential linguistic humour theories of the last two decades” (Brône et al. 2006: 203), as also attested by the many studies in different fields that have applied them. The GTVH in particular has been used to investigate various instances of humorous text, and has even been criticised for the benefit of the advancement of the discipline (see Dore 2019a: 27–30 for an overview). Interestingly, both SSTH and GTVH rely upon concepts such as “incongruity”, “resolution”, “opposition” and “overlapping”, which have been previously conceived to define humour from structuralist, semiotic and cognitive perspectives. These core concepts will be found in many if not all the chapters in this book, thus confirming their inescapable relevance to the overarching understanding of humour and its mechanisms.

Due to its enduring fascination, scholarly research has never ceased to investigate humour and its multifaceted nature. As Chiaro (2017: 3) observes, the mechanisms used to create humour have not really changed over time, and people still use puns, wordplay, satire, parody and so forth to convey it. However, what seems to have changed substantially is how humour is shared and consumed. This has led Chiaro to suggest using the term “McHumour” (2017: 3) to refer to the quick spreading of humour over the Internet (through social media, streaming platforms, etc.) as well as via personal smartphones. Generally speaking, most online (or internet) humour appears to be generated in the US and uses English, thus reinforcing this language’s hegemonic position as a lingua franca (see Chiaro, Chapter 2, Laineste and Voolaid, Chapter 3 and Lako, Chapter 4 in this volume). Much of this internet humour, however, is transferred across languages and cultures, even though many people “may not be aware of the fact that we live in a verbally translated world” (Chiaro 2017: 63).

Since today’s globalised world is highly influenced by the way people communicate, this volume attempts to investigate and critically reflect on humour creation in the 21st century. Most importantly, the present challenge lies in understanding some of the many processes humour translation entails, thanks to the rapid evolution of new technologies.

1.2 The many facets of humour translation

Scholars in a wide range of fields have debated the issues related to the translation of humour, often holding divergent or even opposing views. Chiaro (1992: 77–99) has cast doubt on the possibility of effectively translating humour, and wordplay in particular. For his part, Hickey (1998) has attempted to demonstrate that, theoretically speaking, humorous texts cannot be translated because of their language and culture specificity. By contrast, Delabastita (1994: 223–243) has dismissed this theoretical debate by virtue of the mere existence of translation and its pragmatic functionality. Put more simply, humorous texts are successfully translated, and this tangible fact suffices to demonstrate its feasibility (Dore 2019a). As Chiaro herself went on to acknowledge: “humour discourse, which is naturally impeded by linguistic and social barriers, actually succeeds in crossing geographical frontiers” (2005: 135, emphasis added). That being so, if academics choose to adopt a pragmatic approach to studying humour translation, they will then have to consider which theoretical and practical issues this process poses, and which possible solutions may be applied to overcome the challenges translators face (be they professional or amateur) when dealing with a wide range of texts and situations, as well as which tools and strategies are at their disposal to allow them to complete their task. The following discussion unfolds in light of these premises.

Humour creation and its spread via computer-mediated communication (via the Internet or mobile devices) has recently received much attention (Shifman 2007, 2013; Berger and Milkman 2012; Highfield 2015; Laineste and Piret 2016; Piata 2018; Tsakona 2018, to name only a few), thus prompting interesting anthropological, linguistic and sociological reflections on how humour is supported and negotiated, and what consequences this may have locally and internationally (see Vandeale, Chapter 11 in this volume). Furthermore, since online humour is not password protected, to some extent it can be considered public and free to use (McIntyre and Walker 2019: 84–85) and therefore it can be easily collected and reproduced for research-related purposes. Those who devote their research to the translation of humour are well aware that this process faces particular challenges, such as the language specificity of the joke (see Attardo (1994) on humour mechanisms), the culture-specific references in it (see for instance Dore (2019a) on humorous culture-specific references and their translation) or the matching of verbal and visual elements (see Chiaro, Chapter 2 in this volume). Yet transferring internet humour across languages and cultures can also lead to interesting new phenomena. For instance, the translation of humorous memes may result in other cultures ascribing a more culturally significant meaning to them, or even appropriating them (Laineste and Piret, Chapter 3 in this volume), thus becoming instances of what has been dubbed “cultural translation” (Voigts 2017; Cannizzaro 2016).

Since the translation of (humorous) memes is a relatively new phenomenon, it is not surprising to find that scholars have labelled it differently. For instance, Lako (Chapter 4 in this volume) equates it with “transcreation”, although this term has usually been associated with the creative localisation of promotional material (e.g. Torresi 2010; Pedersen 2014; Katan and Spinzi 2014; Brown-Hoekstra 2014; Sulaiman 2016). Nonetheless, the link between the transcreation of humorous memes and transcreation in ads is easy to establish. Advertising makes ample use of humour as this can enhance the positive perception of corporate branding (Bread 2008). When multinational companies translate their humorous ads, they need to consider a variety of cultural aspects, such as differences in humour interpretation and appreciation (Dore 2018). Like the translation of humorous memes, translating humorous advertisements requires much creativity, and when doing so, translators/transcreators may need to “sell their souls” (Adrián Fuentes-Luque and Cristina Valdés, Chapter 5 in this volume): that is, abandoning the traditional idea of loyalty to the source text (ST) and opting for creative solutions to achieve the original intended goal or effect.

Audiovisual products such as film or television fare are probably more traditional multimodal conveyors of humour, yet equally important in the way they have developed. Humour is essential to traditional TV sitcoms, mockumentaries (Dore 2019a, 2019b) or comedy feature films as well as hybrid subgenres such “dramedies” (Dore 2016). Yet humour can often appear in less obvious genres such as crime drama, since it can serve as comic relief to offset the tension of the generally serious stories that are being narrated (Dore 2017).

Generally speaking, audiovisual translation (AVT) is subject to the technical constraints of the different modes of AVT, thus leading to a certain degree of “technical manipulation” (Díaz-Cintas 2012). Dubbing, voice-over, simultaneous interpretation of films, fandubbing, and so on, fall within the macro-category of “revoicing” (Zabalbeascoa et al. 2012: 18; Chaume 2013: 107) since they all entail the recording or insertion of a new soundtrack and subsequent sound synchronisation. By contrast, subtitling, surtitling, fansubbing, respeaking, etc. are subsumed under the “captioning” category, given that all these AVT modes involve the insertion on or next to the screen of a written translation (i.e. interlingual transfer) or transcription (i.e. intralingual transfer) of the ST, which can still be heard in its original form (Chaume 2013: 112; see Dore 2019a for detailed discussion). Since the function of humour is to entertain, its AVT is likely to result in “functional manipulation”, which involves the use of translation strategies that help the target text (TT) to retain the original text’s perlocution (Dore 2019b: 42 and passim). It may therefore not be surprising to find that a number of studies in this volume explore the way humour is created in and conveyed by audiovisual products (for example, see Bucaria, Chapter 6, on comedy film titles, and Zabalbeascoa, Chapter 7, on multilingual humour) and how is it tackled according to the AVT mode employed (e.g. Pai, Chapter 8, on subtitling, and Martínez Sierra, Chapter 10, on audio description).

In different ways, all the contributions in this volume explore how processes of humour translation may be challenged and/or enhanced by the means employed and the technologies behind them. In AVT, for instance, in the past such processes were the sole responsibility of a handful of people (e.g. translation team, producers and distributors), but nowadays “participatory audiovisual translation” (Pérez-González 2014: 233) has become a widespread phenomenon, and volunteer dubbing and amateur dubbing can have positive applications in everyday life (see respectively Baños 2019, and Dore and Vagnoli, Chapter 9 in this volume). In a similar vein, in the age of multimedia humour, its translation – or a lack thereof – may have significant social and political consequences, and scholarly investigation of it is anything but a trivial endeavour (see Vandaele, Chapter 11 in this volume for a thought-provoking study).

All in all, the examples described here reflect only a small part of the many facets of humour creation and translation. Future research might well concentrate on other aspects, such as humour self-translation in stand-up comedy (Palimeri 2018) or other contexts. Moreover, research could consider how gender-based and gender-biased humour is dealt with in translation. There is still a wealth of research on humour and humour translation waiting to be carried out. Hence, it is hoped that this book will inspire students and scholars from an array of disciplines, ranging from obvious fields of enquiry such as Translation Studies and Humour Studies to sociology, anthropology, psychology and so forth.

1.3 In this volume

As may be gathered from the table of contents, the line-up of contributors includes a number of internationally renowned scholars in the field of humour studies and humour translation (Chiaro, Zabalbeascoa, Vandaele), as well as some new “new voices” (Lako, Pai). Although the contributions are all in English, the authors are drawn from a range of countries, cultures and academic traditions. This has ensured that this volume is international and interdisciplinary in scope. Different languages, cultures and perspectives on humour translation are represented and integrated as much as possible. The examples consequently include data from many languages (Chinese, Dutch, Estonian, French, Italian, Spanish and Romanian). The value of this volume lies particularly in the fact that it brings innovative applications of humour translation to the fore, as explained below.

The internal organisation of this volume purposefully mirrors the topics each chapter tackles. This book is not divided into parts as the focus of chapters flows naturally and interconnects around the issue of humour translation in the age of multimedia. Delia Chiaro’s contribution reflects in particular on how smart technology has contributed to strengthening the role of English as a common and international language. The author uses internet memes as a case in point and claims that, to some extent, they seem to have overtaken traditional jokes as humorous tropes in everyday interaction. Since memes mostly come from Western sources in general, and the North American culture in particular, they often undergo translation into other languages, which helps them go viral. Conversely, memes based on less widespread languages such as Italian or which refer to Italian current affairs are unlikely to be translated worldwide. Chiaro therefore concludes that the hegemony of English makes online humour transfer mostly unidirectional.

Liisi Laineste and Piret Voolaid also explore the proliferation and spread of internet humour and the translation of memes in particular. Like Chiaro, they contend that English is the language of choice for jokelore and meme pools, which are adapted for and translated into many languages. The authors consider the case of humorous memes created in response to doping scandals that involved cyclist Lance Armstrong in 2012 and two Estonian cross-country skiers in February 2019. The comparison of these two sets of memes that are linked together by universal references to sports ethics and medicine is carried out from a global and local perspective so as to pinpoint repeating patterns and differences. The authors’ intriguing claim is that the humour translation of memes turns into something more akin to adaptation, as it ends up adding other target-oriented topics (e.g. Estonian politics, public life, etc.) to the sports scandal itself.

In a similar vein, Cristian Lako looks at the translation of humorous memes in the Romanian context, although he focuses specifically on the translation strategies at work during this practice. Before doing so, he first demonstrates how technology can be used to investigate the way terms such as “meme(s)”, “joke” and “humour”, and also the Romanian bancuri, glume, poante (jests, jokes, puns),...