Humor, Translation, and
Bilingual Issues
by Don L. F. Nilsen
and Alleen Pace Nilsen
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Problems in Translating Jokes
• “Before the joke can be discharged in all its
swiftness there is much to be apprehended about
cultural and social facts, about shared beliefs and
attitudes, about pragmatic bases of communication.”
• “We share our humour with those who have shared
our history and who understand our ways of
interpreting the experience. There is a fund of
common knowledge and recollection, upon which all
jokes draw with instantaneous effect.”
• (Nash [1985]: 9)
• (Chiaro [2008]: 585)
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Translation in Quentin
Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction
• VINCENT: You know what they call a Quarter
Pounder with cheese in Paris?
• JULES: They don’t call it a Quarter Pounder with
cheese?
• VINCENT: No man; they’ve got the metric system;
they don’t know what the fuck a Quarter Pounder is!
• JULES: So what do they call a Quarter Pounder with
cheese?
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• VINCENT: They call it a Royale with cheese.
• JULES: Royale with cheese.
• VINCENT: That’s right.
• JULES: What do they call a Big Mac?
• VINCENT: A Big Mac’s a Big Mac only they call it Le Big Mac
• JULES: Le Big Mac. What do they call a Whopper?
• VINCENT: I don’t know. I never went to a Burger King. You know
what they put on French Fries instead of Ketchup?
• JULES: What?
• VINCENT: Mayonnaise.
• (Chiaro [2008]: 586)
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A Riddle
–
–
–
–
If you are Swedish, you stroke it.
If you are Spanish you beat it.
If you are German, you cover it in food.
If you are British, you use it as an excuse not to
have sex. What is it?
• A Personal Computer.
• NOTE: PCs in Spain often suffer violence,
with 57 percent of owners admitting to hitting
them. Germans are unamused by PCs; only
one in six has enjoyed a laugh with their PC.
• (Davis [2008]: 561)5
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Untranslatable Canadian Joke
• “Je suis allé dans un magazin ‘Newfie’
et j’ai demandé un robe de chambre.
• Le ‘Newfie’ m’a demandé: “Quelle
grandeur la chambre?”
• (Davies [2008]: 163)
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FRENCH
• What has fifty legs and cannot walk?
• Half a centipede.
(Laurian & Nilsen 6)
• TRANSLATION:
• Qu’est-ce qui a cinq cent pattes et qui ne peut pas
marcher?
• La moitié d’une mille-pattes
• NOTE: A French centipede is a “mille-pattes”
(thousand-feet) (Chiaro [2008]: 575-576)
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Formal Equivalence vs. Connotative
Equivalence
• Werner Koller would say that
translating the English “centipede” into
the French “mille-pattes” is apt in
terms of reference, but becomes inept
when the English and French words are
analyzed because “mille-pattes” is
more hyperbolic than is “centipede.”
• (Chiaro [2008]: 576)
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An English Sick Joke in France
• “Mummy, Mummy, is it still a long way
to France?”
• “Shut up and keep swimming!”
• “Maman, Maman, est-ce que
l’Angleterre loin?”
• “Tais-toi et continue à nager!”
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Discussion
• Notice that in the translation,
“England” is substituted for “France.”
• As one of Delia Chiaro’s French
colleagues pointed out to her, “Why
would someone French want to go to
England?”
• (Chiaro [2008]: 587)
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German Humor
• Between 1931 and 1936 The Jack Pearl
Show was on radio. Baron von
Munchausen was the central figure in a
running skit.
• The Baron spoke with a strong German
accent that contrastted with the
ordinary language of Charlie (Sharlie).
• (Nilsen & Nilsen 102)
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• BARON: Und dere in frundt of me wuz a
green elephant.
• SHARLIE: Now wait a minute, Baron; do
you mean to tell me you actually saw a
green elephant?
• BARON: (with great indignation) Vas
you dere, Sharlie?
• (Nilsen & Nilsen 102)
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Irish and Jewish Humor
• “Since Irish humor developed out of
the oral tradition (the telling of jokes
and stories in Irish pubs), it is very
epiphinal in nature.”
• “Like Jewish humor, Irish humor
developed out of pain and tragedy that
resulted in a diaspora.”
• (Nilsen Humor in Irish Literature xv)
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• “Irish humor, like Jewish humor,
contains much wordplay, and like
Jewish humor, much of Irish wordplay
is bilingual and/or bicultural, relating to
both the Gaelic/Celtic and to the English
language and culture.”
• Many Irish, like many Jews, “are trying
to reestablish their roots, and it is the
humor in Irish written and oral literature
that is helping them to do so.”
• (Nilsen Humor in Irish Literature xv)
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Italian Humor
• In the late 1970s, comedian Don Novello
spoke with an Italian accent and dressed in
clerical garb when doing comedy skits about
Farther Guido Sarducci.
• He was a hit on Saturday Night Live and on
The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, but
when he went to the Vatican to pose for
publicity photos he was arrested for
impersonating a priest.
• (Nilsen & Nilsen 115)
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An Irish Joke in Italy
• What do they write on the bottom of
Guinness bottles in Ireland?
• Open at other end.
• TRANSLATION:
• Che cosa scrivono sul fondo delle lattine di
Coca Cola che si trovano nei distributori di
bibite nelle caserme dei carabinieri?
• Aprire dall’altro lato.
• (Chiaro [2008]: 583)
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Discussion
• The Irish are the butt of English stupidity jokes, so a different
stupidity group needs to be used in Italian.
• In Italy, the stupidity group is not ethnic, but is professional—
the carabinieri (one of Italy’s police forces).
• There is no national drink in Italy.
• Furthermore, Italians consume alcohol usually at meals and
from glasses, not bottles.
• So “Coca Cola” is used instead of Guinness.
• Finally, Italians see a bottle as having a top and a bottom, so
“bottle” had to change to “can.”
• (Chiaro [2008]: 583)
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Now reread the joke and the
translation!
• What do they write on the bottom of
Guinness bottles in Ireland?
• Open at other end.
• TRANSLATION:
• Che cosa scrivono sul fondo delle lattine di
Coca Cola che si trovano nei distributori di
bibite nelle caserme dei carabinieri?
• Aprire dall’altro lato.
• (Chiaro [2008]: 583)
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ITALIAN
• What’s black and white and red all over?
• A newspaper.
•
•
•
•
TRANSLATION:
Che cosa è nero, bianco e rossa ovunque?
A. L’Unità, or (a Communist newspaper)
B. Una zebra con l’abronzatura (a zebra with a
sunburn)
• NOTE: The first “red” retains the “read” association,
while the second “red” does not.
• (Chiaro [2008]: 580)
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• Neither of these translations encapsulate the
semantic ambivalency attached to the words
“red/read.” “Nevertheless, solution A does capture
the ‘read’ element of the original riddle coupled with
the metaphorical value of the colour term ‘red’
attached to a popular left wing newspaper L’Unità.”
• Since this is a children’s riddle, the first answer is
inappropriate because children wouldn’t know about
L’Unità.
• Furthermore the second answer has the kind of
silliness that would be found in a children’s riddle.
• (Chiaro [2008]: 580)
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JAPANESE
• JACOB MEY: Is there a toilet around here?
• ATTENDANT: You want to use?
• JACOB MEY: (somewhat astonished): Sure I
do.
• ATTENDANT: Go down the steps.
• NOTE: In Japan there are Western toilets
and Japanese toilets. There are also male
toilets and female toilets
• (Mey 264-265)
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NATIVE AMERICANS
• In American conversations, when the
speaker is ready to relinquish the floor,
he usually waits about one and a half
seconds.
• In Athabaskan conversations, silence is
used to organize thoughts and develop
effective sentence structure.
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• So when an Athabaskan is talking
with a non-Indian, the Athabaskan
never gets the floor.
• “The Athabaskan feels he has been
interrupted and the English speaker
feels the Athabaskan never makes
sense, never says a whole coherent
idea.” (Scollon and Scollon 25)
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Polish Jokes in America
• Do you know why they don’t give Poles
a coffee break?
• It takes too long to retrain them.
• What is stamped at the bottom of Coca
Cola bottles in Poland?
• Please open at the other end.
• (Dundes (1987): 135)
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Russian Humor
• Russian immigrant yakov Smirnoff entertained
Americans through the cold war and beyond with
such jokes as,
• “I have a Russian Express Card. It says, ‘Don’t
Leave Home!’” and
• “One of the biggest differences between America
and Russia is that in America you can always find a
party, but in Russia, the party always finds you.”
• (Nilsen & Nilsen 115)
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• “The editors of a Soviet newspaper were
arrested and possibly executed because
they published Stalin’s name as “Sralin,”
which in Cyrillic means “shit.”
• Was this a Freudian slip…
• Or an accident…
• Or a slur?
(Davies [2008] 171)
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Scandinavian Humor
• Garrison Keillor exploits Scandinavian
stereotypes in his “Lake Wobegon.”
• “Swedish flu is the usual flu with chills,
fever, diarrhea, vomiting, and
achiness…, but it’s accompanied by on
overpowering urge to put things in
order.”
(Nilsen & Nilsen 116)
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!Scottish Humor
• What’s the difference between a poor
Scotsman, a rich Scotsman, and an old
Scotsman?
• A poor Scotsman has a can o pee under his
bed.
• A rich scotsman has a canopy over the bed.
• And an old Scotsman can na’ pee at all.
• (A Sandra Nagy Joke)
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!BILINGUAL HUMOR WEB SITES
INTERNATIONAL AND CROSSCULTURAL HUMOR:
DANISH HUMOR RESOURCES (JOSEF WEITEMEYER):
www.humor.dk
HUMOR IN INTERCULTURAL COMMUNICATION (WENDY LAWSON):
www.beyondajoke.co.uk
INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR HUMOR STUDIES (MARTIN LAMPERT):
www.humorstudies.org
INTERNATIONAL STUDIES IN HUMOR RESEARCH (WILLIBALD RUCH):
http://www.uni-duesseldorf.de/WWW/MathNat/Ruch/SecretaryPage.html
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!!!Related PowerPoints
• African-American Humor
• Indian Humor
• Jewish Humor
• Spanish-American Humor
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References # 1:
Alexieva, Bistra. “There Must be Some System in This Madness:
Metaphor, Polysemy, and Wordplay in a Cognitive Linguistics
Framework.” in Traductio: Essays on Punning and Translation Ed. Dirk
Delabastita. Manchester, England: St. Jerome, 1997.
Antonini, Rachele. “The Perception of Subtitled Humor in Italy.” in Chiaro
(2005): 209-225.
Ballard, Wordplay and the Didactics of Translation.” in Delabatista (1996):
333-346.
Bucaria, Chiara. “The Perception of Humour in Dubbing vs. Subtitlilng:
The Case of ‘Six Feet Under’” ESP Across Cultures 2 (2006): 36ff.
Chiaro, Delia, ed. “Humor and Translation.” Special issue of Humor:
International Journal of Humor Research 18.2 (2005), 135-234.
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References # 2:
Chiaro, Delia. “The Implications of the Quality of Verbally Expressed
Humour and the Success of Screen Comedy.” Antares Umorol-O
Nouva Stiinta (2003): 14-20.
Chiaro, Delia. “Investigating the Perception of Verbally Expressed
Humour on Italian TV.” ESP Across Cultures 1 (2004): 35-52.
Chiaro, Delia. “The Effect of Translation on the Humour Response: The
Case of Dubbed Comedy in Italy.” in Translation Studies: Doubts and
Directions. Eds. Yves Gambier, Miriam Shlesinger, and Radigundis
Stolze. Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins, 138-152.
Chiaro, Delia. “‘Servizio Completo?’ On the (Un)translatability of Puns on
Screen.” in La Draduzione Multimediale: Quale Traduzione per Quale
Testo? Eds. Rosa Maria Bolettieri Bosinelli, Christine Heiss, Marcello
Soffretti, and Silvia Bernardini. Bologna, Italy: CLUEB, 2000.
Chiaro, Delia. “Verbally Expressed Humor and Translation” in Chiaro
(2005): 135-146; also in Raskin (2008) 569-608.
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References # 3:
Davies, Christie. “European Ethnic Scripts and the Translation and
Switching of Jokes.” in Chiaro (2005): 147-160.
Davies, Christie. “Undertaking the Comparative Study of Humor.” in
Raskin [2008]: 157-182.
Davis, Dineh. “Communication and Humor.” in Raskin [2008]: 543-568.
Delabastita, Dirk. “Cross-Language Comedy in Shakespeare.” in Chiaro
(2005): 161-184.
Delabistita, Dirk. There’s a Double Tongue: An Investigation into the
Translation of Shakespeare’s Wordplay, with Special Reference to
“Hamlet”. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Rodopi, 1993.
Delabistita, Dirk, ed. Traductio: Essays on Punning and Translation.
Manchester, England: St. Jerome/Presses Universitaire de Namur,
1997.
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References # 4:
Delabistita, Dirk, ed. Wordplay and Translation. A Special Issue of The
Translator 2.2 (1996).
Denton, John. “How ‘A Fish Called Wanda’ became Un Pesce di Nome
Wanda.” Il Traduttore Nuovo 44 (1994): 29-38.
Dundes, Alan. Cracking Jokes: Studies of Sick Humor Cycles and
Stereotypes. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed Press, 1987.
Kao, George. Chinese Wit and Humor. New York, NY: Sterling Publishing
Company, 1975.
Laurian, Anne-Marie. “Humour et Traduction au Contact des Cultures.” in
Laurian and Nilsen (1989): 5-14.
Laurian, Anne-Marie, and Don L. F. Nilsen, eds. Humor et
Traduction/Humor and Translation a Special Issue of Meta: Journal des
Traductors/Journal of Translators 34.1 (1989).
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References # 5:
Mateo Martinez-Bartolomé, Marta. La Traducción del Humor: Las
Comedias Inglesas en Español. Oviedo, Spain: Universidad de Oviedo,
1995.
Mey, Jacob L. Pragmatics: An Introduction, 2nd Edition. Oxford, England:
Blackwell, 2001.
Mey, Jacob L. Whose Language? A Study in Linguistic Pragmatics.
Amsterdam, Holland: Benjamins, 1985.
Nash, Walter. The Language of Humour: Style and Technique in Comic
Discourse. London, England: Longman, 1985.
Nilsen, Alleen Pace, and Don L. F. Nilsen. Encyclopedia of 20th Century
American Humor. Westport, CT: Greenwood/Oryx, 2000.
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References # 6:
Nilsen, Don L. F. Humor in Irish Literature. Westport, CT:
Greenwood, 1996.
Pisek, Gernard. “Wordplay and the Dubbing/Subtitler.”
Arbeiten aus Anglistik und Amerikanistik 1 (1996): 37-51.
Raskin, Victor. The Primer of Humor Research. New York, NY:
Mouton de Gruyter, 2008.
Ruch, Willibald, et. al. “Cross-National Comparisons of Humor
Categories: France and Germany.” HUMOR: International
Journal of Humor Research 4 (1991): 391-414.
Raskin, Victor, ed. Primer of Humor Research. New York, NY:
Mouton de Gruyter, 2008.
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References # 7:
Schmitz, J. R. “Humor as a Pedagogical Tool in Foreign Language and
Translation Courses.” HUMOR: International Journal of Humor
Research 15.1 (2002).
Scollon, Ron and Suzie B. K. Scollon. Narrative, Literacy and Face in
Interethnic Communication. Norwood, NJ: Ablex, 1981.
Vaid, Jyotsna. “New Approaches to Conceptual Representation in
Bilingual Memory: The Case for Studying Humor Interpretation.”
Bilingualism: Language and Cognition 3.1 (2000): 28-30.
Zabalbeascoa, Patrick. “Humor and Translation—An Interdiscipline.” in
Chiaro (2005): 185-208.
Ziv, Avner. National Styles of Humor. Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1988.
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