Challenges of Translating Humour

Humour has always been one of the major challenges for translators, especially when it comes to
translating extra linguistic elements such as culture. Even though humour is said to be universal,
each culture has its own, and sometimes one culture’s humour is hard to understand for others.

The translation of humour is a challenge for many translators because it is rooted in the culture
of a specific country. When translating humour, not only does the message have to be
communicated but also the effect (laughter) in the SL has to be conveyed in the TL.

There are some risks inherent in attempting to translate humor but that is not to say that it is
impossible. Humour can be translated, but there are a lot of aspects that the translator needs to be
careful with.

Cultural and Social References

One of these aspects is cultural and social references being the traits that allow cultures and
societies differentiate from each other. As each country has its own culture it also has its own
humour. Therefore, when translating humour the translator needs to have certain knowledge
about both cultures.

Examples

1) What’s the only thing that grows in Oakland? The Crime Rate!
2) Mom, where are you?
I’m heading home from Target.
Mom.
What?!
You took me to Target with you.
I’ll be there in a second.
3) Dear BFF,
if I die at Walmart,
please drag my body to Nordstrom.
First of all, Oakland is a city near San Francisco that has a reputation of being an unsafe city full
of crime, drive-by shootings, murders on the street, drugs etc. Target and Walmart are the
biggest discount retailers companies in the United States. You can practically buy everything at
very cheap prices because of their huge discounts. In addition, Target stores are so big that
people usually spend hours looking at the products because literally, you can find anything at
Target. Nordstrom is an upscale fashion retailer all over United States.

In the first joke, if we are translating, for example, for Ukrainian audience, the word-for-word
translation may not work because people in Ukraine probably do not know Oakland. The best
solution is to try to find a city in a target language country famous for its criminal rate. The
same happens for the second joke with Target. In this case we may have the extra difficulty that
this concept of huge retail store does not exist in a target language country, there is nothing
similar to Target. The best option is choosing a large chain of cheap goods the target language
speakers may know. In the third joke, if the reader does not know what is Walmart or Nordstrom
he won’t understand the joke. The target reader will not know that Walmart is a huge discount
store usually directed towards people who cannot or do not want to spend a lot of money; and
people who go to Nordstrom are usually wealthy. Again, keeping the original store names may
cause confusion.

Stereotypes

In addition, cultures have stereotypes of other cultures. When translating jokes, the translator
needs to be careful not to cause offence amongst the people of a specific culture, as happens with
racist jokes. Every culture has its own stereotypes about foreigners, like Americans eat burgers
for every meal and all are fat, or that all Spanish people dance flamenco and kill bulls. As for the
racist jokes, if a joke about French people has to be translated for French public, the translator
should change the targeted culture, and if choosing a different culture does not work in the TL,
then he needs to change the joke.

Language

Another aspect is language, which includes translating language-based jokes, such as wordplay
or puns. When translating wordplay, it is difficult to find the same words and structure of the SL
in the TL, so this poses a problem for the translator.

When attempting to translate wordplay, the translator can focus on the meaning or on the effect.
If the translator focuses on the meaning, the wordplay may lose its effect but will be true to the
text; if the translator focuses on the effect, the wordplay will create the same effect but by using
new words and will not be true to the text. But it is better to preserve the humorous effect rather
than the form.

Verbal and Referential Humour

Some authors have distinguished among verbal humour and referential humour. Verbal humour
is the most difficult to translate because of its language-dependent nature (e.g. wordplay) and it
makes it hard to find equivalents. However, referential humour (humour referring to some
situation or something) is easier to translate because the translator has the option of changing the
situation and adapt it to the TL. The problem with referential humour is in audiovisual
translation, where the translator has to deal with double factors: the language and the audiovisual
effects. Then, the joke needs to respect the image and vice versa, which leaves fewer options
available due to the existent correspondence between the image and the joke.

Subjectivity

The translator may interpret humour in one way or another, or he may even not understand it at
all (irony can be sometimes hard to understand). Here, if the translator fails at understanding
humour, the translation will not work, because the text will be either badly translated or with a
new meaning given. For this reason, it is important to have a deep understanding of the culture
and the language of both SL and TL. Moreover, the creativity of the translator plays a key role in
a successful translation. Firstly because he is not only conveying a message but also laughter,
and second because much of this laughter, depends on his ability to create humour.

Possible humour translation strategies

While translating a humorous text, a translator is highly recommended to understand the source
text in a very thorough way and examine all the cultural backgrounds that are present in the
source text. Then they should adopt an appropriate strategy of translation. Translator's choices
may depend on various factors, such as source culture and target culture, differences between
source language and target language, or the nature of the text. Taking into
consideration all those constraints, a translator may adopt the following strategies:
substitution, reproducing, domestication, omission and compensation.

Substitution is based on substitution of joke in the source language with the one in the target
language so that it is comprhensible and entartaining for a recipient in a target language and
culture. Attardo calls substitution a free translation and emphasizes that although it is not a
translation at the semantic level, it can be successful provided that it “elicits the laughter that the
speaker was seeking” (Attardo 2002: 189).

Reproducing is adopted when a joke exists in a source culture but it cannot be found in the target
culture. Reproducing is related to the domestication strategy, which is applied to make a certain
joke in the source text amusing for the target reader. Domestication is a non literal
translation aimed to adapt the source text to the knowledge of the recipient and his point of view
determined by their language or culture.

Omission as a translation strategy should be avoided as frequently as possible. It can only be

To conclude, translators of humour has to face many problems involved in translation of such
texts. However, they are likely to be successful in their work, provided that they have excellent
linguistic skills, they spend much time studying source text culture and then decide on certain
translation strategy that would be suitable for the translated text. We, as translators, should bear
in mind that while translating a humorous text, our translation should be target culture and reader
oriented.