An analysis of puns translated for the Polish voiced-over version of the American TV series Modern Family

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University of Amsterdam

Graduate School of Humanities

MA program in Linguistic: Translation

An analysis of puns translated for the Polish voiced-over

version of the American TV series Modern Family.

Aleksandra Slawuta

Student number: 11107448

Supervisor: dhr. dr. Eric Metz

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Abstract

This paper covers the subject of translatability of humor in audiovisual translation. Humor is always difficult to translate not only because of the possible cultural differences between the speakers of a source and target languages but also because everyone has different taste and is laughing at different jokes. This corpus-based thesis is analyzing the specific kind of jokes: puns. They are very language-specific, therefore difficult to translate. Nonetheless, there are certain strategies used to convey the humorous effect to other language. In this paper I am analyzing 80 puns found in the first and second season of the American TV series Modern Family and their Polish equivalents from the voiced-over translation. Basing on the theories coined by Hausmann, Delabastita, Newmark and Nash I am aiming to determine whether translation strategies used to translate puns manage to deliver funny rendering in the target language (Polish). Moreover, I am investing the possible reasons why, in many cases, the translation did not deliver a funny rendering.

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List of figures

Figure 1: Luyken`s table of the two main methods of Language Transfer currently in use ... 15

Figure 2: Categories of puns ... 28

Figure 3: Types of the English puns ... 35

Figure 4: Translation strategies used per type ... 35

Figure 5: Strategies used ... 46

Figure 6: Renderings ... 47

Figure 7: Successful renderings per category ... 47

Figure 8: Unsuccessful renderings per category ... 48

Figure 9: Horizontal vs vertical puns ... 48

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1. Introduction

1.1 Aim of the paper

Modern Family is an American comedy series about life of three ‘modern’ families. They are a big, close family which goes together through happiness, sadness, disappointments and all the things which all of us experience in life. The jokes in this series are rather mild as the series is being watched also by younger viewers. Each episode lasts approximately 20 minutes and premiered on September 23, 2009 and right now season 8 is aired on ABC channel. The series has received great revives and won many awards (see more in chapter 3).

In this paper I will focus on a specific kind of jokes: puns. The series contains many language-specific jokes which may cause more difficulties to translate them into another language. There is no laughter in the background, therefore sometimes it might be a little bit difficult to spot a pun. The series was aired in Poland in the public television on channels TVP1 and TVP2 and also on HBO Comedy channel. The public television channels aired a voiced-over version of the TV series and HBO gave the viewers the choice between the voiced-over and subtitled version. What is more, HBO channels has aired all the seasons of Modern Family and all the episodes are still available to watch on the HBO GO channel. The public television channels have aired in total 5 seasons and (out of 8), between 2010-2014. I was wandering which TV channel would deliver better translation. After analyzing episodes aired by TVP channels and HBO channels I came to the conclusion that the translation is exactly the same. Unfortunately, I was not able to determine who performed the translation or what company has delivered the translation.

One might wonder why did I decide to analyze a voice-over translation. As it will be mentioned in chapter 2, voice-over translation for TV series and movies does not even exist in western culture. Poland is one of a few countries which still use voice-over translation in television. Also, voice-over is still very popular in Polish television and it does not seem like it will disappear soon in the future. There is very little research made on voice-over translation technique for movies and TV series or on the quality of this translation. Voice-over translation in general has a bad reputation in other countries and it surprises and puzzles all foreigners, who come to Poland and watch TV. Even I myself am not a fan of this technique and every time I visit Poland and watch TV I have to get used to listening to voice-over, because it always irritates me at the beginning. However, after a while I just get used to it and I even stop hearing the original sound in the background. Moreover, if I think of it, some movies which I remember from my childhood, I really enjoyed and laughed while watching

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them. Therefore, I decided to investigate how humor travels in voice-over. If so many Polish people still watch comedy movies and TV series and are able to enjoy it, it should mean that even such a ‘bad’ (as the critics say, see subchapter 2.4) technique as voice-over is able to deliver a funny rendering of jokes. However, how much of this humor are Polish viewers loosing? Even if they enjoy a move and it seems funny, they are not aware what is behind and how much of humor was actually lost in translation. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to examine whether the voice-over translation is able to render funniness of the language-specific jokes such as puns. This thesis will present an analysis of the puns from the original Modern Family series and its Polish translation from the voiced-over version.

In order to conduct such an analysis I will need a theoretical background. Therefore, first of all I will describe the audiovisual translation techniques and its flaws and merits, and the audiovisual landscape in Poland. Then, in chapter 3, I will present the definition of pun and deal with the question of its translatability. Also, I will name the constraints which might appear when translating a pun. Next, I will describe 5 pun categories distinguished by Hausmann (1974) and Nash (1985): homonymy, paronymy, homophony, homography and portmanteaux and 8 translation strategies distinguished by Delabastita (1993). I will determine which of the strategies have yielded successful and which yielded unsuccessful renderings of puns. Afterwards, I will include some information about the TV series itself: the plot, the characters and the viewers` reception. Chapter 4 will consist of a presentation and analysis of my results. Then, in chapter 5 I will present conclusions and possibilities for further research.

1.2 Methodology and material

I will use puns from 27 episodes from 2 seasons of the Modern Family TV series. My goal is to have 80 English puns in my corpus and their 80 Polish equivalents from the voice-over translation. Below I present the list of the episodes used in my analysis.

The list of analyzed episodes

Episode English Title Polish Title

Season 1 episode 1 ‘Pilot’ ‘Współczesna Rodzina’

Season 1 episode 3 ‘Come Fly with Me’ ‘Poleć ze mną’

Season 1 episode 4 ‘The Incydent’ ‘Incydent’

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Season 1 episode 6 ‘Run for your Wife’ ‘Nie zadzieraj z żoną’ Season 1 episode 8 ‘Great Expectations’ ‘Wielkie nadzieje’ Season 1 episode 10 ‘Undeck the halls’ ‘Święta odwołane’

Season 1 episode 11 ‘Up All Night’ ‘Bezsenna noc’

Season 1 episode 12 ‘Not in My House’ ‘Tylko nie w moim domu’ Season 1 episode 13 ‘Fifteen Percent’ ‘Piętnaście procent’ Season 1 episode 14 ‘Moon Landing’ ‘Lądowanie na księżycu’ Season 1 episode 15 ‘My Funky Valentine’ ‘Wystrzałowe walentynki’

Season 1 episode 16 ‘Fears’ ‘Obawy’

Season 1 episode 17 ‘Truth be Told’ ‘Prawdę powiedziawszy...’

Season 1 episode 18 ‘Starry Night’ ‘Gwieździsta noc’

Season 1 episode 19 ‘Game Changer’ ‘Przełom’

Season 1 episode 20 ‘Benched’ ‘Grzanie ławy’

Season 1 episode 21 ‘Travels with Scout’ ‘Był sobie pies’ Season 1 episode 22 ‘Airport 2010’ ‘Port lotniczy 2010’ Season 1 episode 24 ‘Family Portrait’ ‘Portret rodzinny’

Season 2 episode 2 ‘The Kiss’ ‘Pocałunek’

Season 2 episode 3 ‘Earthquake’ ‘Trzęsienie ziemi’

Season 2 episode 4 ‘Strangers on a Tredmill’ ‘Nieznajomi na ruchomej bieżni’

Season 2 episode 6 ‘Halloween’ ‘Haloween’

Season 2 episode 7 ‘Chirp’ ‘Cykanie’

Season 2 episode 8 ‘Manny Get Your Gun’ ‘Urodziny Manny`ego’ Season 2 episode 10 ‘Dance Dance Revelation’ ‘Taneczna rewelacja’

First of all, I will use the pun`s division created by Hausmann (1974) and described by Delabastita (1993) and divide all 80 puns into the four types he distinguished:

1. Homonymic puns 2. Homophonic puns 3. Paronymic puns 4. Homographic puns

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As a few of the selected puns belong to a different category, I will also be using an extra type of pun distinguished by Nash (1985):

 Portmanteaux

Therefore there will be 5 different pun categories.

Moreover, a pun can be either horizontal or vertical depending on its components. Thus I will determine to whether a pun is horizontal or vertical. Then, I will assign Polish translations of puns to the 9 translation strategies created by Delabastita (1993):

1. Pun > Pun 2. Pun > Non-Pun 3. Pun > Punoid 4. Pun > Zero

5. Direct copy: Pun S.T. = Pun T.T. (SA.) 6. Transference: Pun S.T. = Pun T.T. (SE.) 7. Addition: Non-Pun > Pun

8. Addition (new textual material): Zero > Pun 9. Editorial techniques, e.g. footnotes

In chapter 3 I will describe and justify which translation strategies will be counted as successful renderings and which as unsuccessful renderings. All of the theory mentioned above will be described in the third chapter of this paper. The puns found in the corpus will be transcribed in English and Polish and classified (which strategy was used for which type of pun). Both, English and Polish puns can be found in the appendix of this paper.

After establishing to which category a pun belongs, whether it is horizontal or vertical and determining which translation strategy was used, I will first count which categories of puns appeared the most and which strategy was used most frequently per each pun category. This should show which pun category had the most successful renderings. Then I will check how many successful and unsuccessful renderings there were in general. At the end, I will take a look at the frequency of horizontal and vertical puns and which one of them had more successful renderings. As my research is a quantitative and qualitative study I will also include a detailed description of some of the most interesting examples of puns and its

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translations. and I will present all the qualitative data in figures and describe the results which will be followed by the conclusions and possibility of further research.

1.3 Research questions and hypothesis

Taking into consideration the plan of the paper described above, I have formulated the following research questions:

1. Which category of pun will have the most successful1 renderings? 2. Which category of pun will have the most unsuccessful renderings? 3. Which translation strategy was used the most?

4. How many successful renderings are there in a corpus?

5. Which pun, horizontal or vertical, will be more likely to ‘survive’ translation?

And my two main research questions are:

1. Can voice-over translation deliver a successful translation of puns? 2. How much humor is lost in voice-over translation?

To sum up, while analyzing each pun, I would pay attention to the following aspects: 1) What is the type of pun form the ST? 2) Which strategy was used to translate a pun? 3) Why was this strategy used? 4) What is the type of the translated pun? Was it changed? 5) Is the funniness of the pun maintained? 6) Was the translation of the pun successful? Or could it have been translated in a better way? 7) Does the voice-over translation technique influence the funniness of the translated pun?

Hypotheses

1. Homonymic and paronymic puns will be easier to translate than other types of puns. Delabastita (1996: 135) wrote that ‘since polysemy is somehow rooted in extralingual reality, wordplay based on it can occasionally be reduplicated with little loss even between historically unrelated languages’. Therefore, it can be inferred that homonymic and paronymic puns have more chances of ‘surviving’ translation than other types of puns even though Polish and English are two completely unrelated languages.

2. There would be no or very little homographic puns.

1_{In this paper as a successful rendering I will consider puns which were manage to deliver a pun in the target}

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Homographic puns are more likely to appear in a written text (Delabastita, 1993: 79). Since my corpus is an audiovisual text, which depends mostly on hearing, I am expecting to find only a few, if any, homographic puns.

3. Most of the homophonic puns will be lost in translation.

As homophonic puns depend on the same pronunciation of two differently spelled words and thus are very language-dependent, it is highly unlikely to find similarly sounding words in two as different languages as Polish and English.

If we follow Gottlieb, we can expect there to be most loss when translating homophonic and homographic puns (Gottlieb, 1997: 217).

4. Portmanteaux will have mostly successful renderings (Pun in T.T.).

This kind of pun is based on author`s creativity. It is a word made of two already existing words which is creating a humorous effect. Its translation is completely dependable on the translator`s ingenuity, there are no linguistic limitations. Therefore, I am hoping to see many successful translations of portmanteaux.

5. There would be more horizontal than vertical puns.

Because my corpus is a family comedy series which is watched also by younger, less experienced viewers, I assume that there would be more horizontal puns, where both of the components of a pun are present which make the pun easier to spot. Vertical puns are usually difficult to spot and require some outside knowledge to understand them. Taking into consideration the presence of a younger audience, there should be more horizontal puns.

6. Many puns will be lost in translation.

Taking into consideration all the constraints of the audiovisual environment and the voice-over technique (see chapter 2), some of the humor is bound to be lost. It does not necessarily have to be the translator`s fault, but rather the technical issues connected to audiovisual translation itself such us time and space constraints. Therefore, I assume that many of the puns will be lost in translation.

2. Audiovisual Translation

2.1. Audiovisual Translation – definitions.

Audiovisual translation is a young discipline which was quite neglected in the academic world at the beginning of its existence. However, it started to develop quickly since the beginning of 1990 when audiovisual texts began to appear everywhere (Szarkowska, 2008: 8). At the beginning, this new discipline was obviously missing a clear, homogenous name. There were

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a lot of English names for this discipline, among others: film translation, language transfer, multimedia translation, constrained translation, media translation or versioning (Szarkowska, 2008: 9). The term which is used most frequently is audiovisual translation (AVT) and I am going to use this name in my paper. According to Díaz Cintas (2004: 50) audiovisual translation is one of the most important kinds of translations nowadays for three reasons. First of all, AVT has an enormous reach, mostly via television. Second of all, AVT includes a large number of products which go over from one culture to another, e.g. documentaries, films, news, debates, concerts, television series, etc. Last but not least, it spreads very quickly: throughout television, cinema and DVD (ibid.). As Tyruk (2009: 27) wrote in Przekładaniec2, even though the mass media started to develop in the second half of the XX century, audiovisual translation seems to be present since the beginning of the history of cinema. Throughout many years many definitions and categorizations of the audiovisual translation appeared. In this paper I am going to focus on its modern definitions and categorizations as my paper is investigating the translation of modern media. According to Tyruk (2009: 26) it is not clear how audiovisual translation should be classified and how it should be investigated because there are no explicit rules which would separate audiovisual translation from other types of translation. The way in which an audiovisual text is translated is greatly influenced by the media in which it appears. There can be a movie translation, translation for television, audiovisual translation or a screen translation – and each of them would be different. Nowadays, also other media influence the way of translation. Now people watch movies on their computers, laptops, smartphones, on the small TV`s built in the passengers’ seats, e.g. in a plane, they listen to audiovisual aid accessible for the visitors of the museums – each one of this media requires a different translation approach (Tryuk, 2009: 29). Therefore, defining audiovisual translation is such a difficult task.

Whereas the high number of definitions of audiovisual translation are logical and they coincide when classification is difficult. Tyruk (2009: 27) defines audiovisual translation as ‘all kind of translation in media and for media’.

Another Polish researcher, Tomaszkiewicz, considers audiovisual translation as ‘the translation for the needs of the mass media’ (Tomaszkiewicz, 2006: 97). Then she adds that audiovisual translation (screen translation) is a particular type of translation which consists of some elements of the classic interlingua translation and intersemiotic translation, called by

2_{Przekładaniec is a Polish scholarly journal dedicated to translation ‘as a literary genre, craft and a form of}

intercultural communication’. More information can be found on the publisher’s website:

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Jakobson transmutation (Tomaszkiewicz, 2006: 100). Pérez González defines audiovisual translation as a part of the translation practice which transfers multimodal and multimedial texts into another language and culture. Moreover, in audiovisual translation, not only a text bears a meaning but also image, music, color and perspective. The multimedial nature of the audiovisual texts is manifested by delivering the semiotic modes to the viewers by different media in synchronized manner (Pérez González, 2011: 13). Thus, as Gottlieb (1997: 210) wrote, ‘television is an instance of polysemiotic communication, i.e. communication which simultaneously employs two or more channels of discourse. In television, four such channels share the communicative tasks involved: picture, written text, dialogue, and music/sound effect’. In AVT a text is a part of an integral semiotic compound which consists of spoken language, written forms, images, sounds and music. Thus, while translating, a translator must take into consideration all of these aspects, to make sure they create a comprehensible, integral translation (Tomaszkiewicz, 2006: 102). The technique used while translating an audiovisual text determines the translation strategies which must be used, i.e. dubbing, subtitling or a voice-over translation impose an appropriate translation procedure such as omission, definition, amplifications, condensations, adaptations, etc. (Tomaszkiewicz, 2006: 103). Luyken notices that audiovisual translation differs in many ways from the literary translation. Audiovisual translation does not translate the whole opus of a film or a series which is image, acting, sound and language. Revoicing does not affect the image or the music. When it comes to subtitles, here also the translation does not interfere with the original image or sound. Only the language element is changed. Hence, AVT does not translate the whole message of a movie or a program but only one of its components – language (Luyken, 1991: 154). Usually movies and TV programs are made for a certain audience and its specific culture. Therefore, as in literary translation, many adaptations must be made to make a comprehensible text for the target audience. However, certain measures which are used in literary translation are not available in AVT. There are no not explanatory footnote, asterisks or asides (ibid.). Therefore, the translator is using a ‘deletion’ as a measure to fit the translated text to the whole opus of a movie or a TV program. Because of all the reasons mentioned above, AVT adds some information to the target text and sometimes it leaves some information out. AVT ‘can never attempt to transfer every bit of information from one language into the other. It is at one and the same time both more and less than conventional translation. Less, because it does not translate everything. More, because the audiovisual translator/writer has to make editorial decisions all the tome about omissions or condensation

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of the original text, and about new information that has to be inserted into it’ (Luyken, 1991: 155).

In order to determine which translation technique should be used in audiovisual translation, it is important to know what type of audiovisual text we are dealing with. Snell-Hornby (2006: 85) categorizes audiovisual texts in four types:

1. Multimedial (films, TV series) 2. Multimodal texts (opera or theater)

3. Multisemiotic texts (comics books, commercials) 4. Audiomedial texts (speeches, academic papers)

Translation of each text requires a different translation strategy and technique: for example a translation of a movie will be different in the television than in the cinema, and a translation of a comic book would require different techniques than a translation of a libretto from the opera (Tyruk, 2009: 28). In this paper I will be analyzing an audiovisual text which derives from a TV series (multimedial text).

According to Tyruk (2009: 36), audiovisual translation is a third type of translation, right next to written translation and interpreting. Its features are the following:

- source text and/or target text appear on media display device

- in AVT a spoken text is transferred to another spoken or written text and when it comes to subtitles – transcription of dialogues.

In AVT the translator is transferring one language to another, he decides which translation technique to use (compensation, condensation, etc.), he uses various technical devices to prepare the version appropriate for the media (e.g. placement of subtitles on the screen and the pace with which they appear). He is synchronizing verbal and non-verbal aspects with image in dubbing and voice-over (Tyruk, 2009: 36). Last but not least, the translator has to make sure that cultural diversity is retained in translation. Indeed, there is a risk that all the time and space limitations, which are an inseparable part of AVT, may influence the artistic side of an audiovisual creation (ibid.)

2.2 Types of audiovisual translation

According to Tomaszkiewicz (2006: 101) there are three main types of audiovisual translation:

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2. Dubbing – the whole voice track of an original movie or a television program is substituted with a new voice track in a target language.

3. Voice-over – the voice of a lector reading the translated text is played along with the original sound in the background. Voice-over has some variants: comment, narration and simultaneous translation.

She also distinguishes a particular variant of audiovisual translation which are the subtitles used in the language transfer of operas and other musical productions and also subtitles in the same language for the deaf people (intralingua translation) (Tomaszkiewicz, 2006: 101). Luyken (1991: 39) distinguishes basically the same types of audiovisual translation, but he divides it into two categories:

1. Re-voicing: lip-sync dubbing, voice-overs and narration 2. Subtitling

Figure 1: Luyken`s table of the two main methods of Language Transfer currently in use

Subtitling Revoicing

*It is possible to carry out these methods of language conversion ‘live’, shortly before, or during transmission (Luyken, 1991: 40).

2.2.1 Subtitles

Subtitles are ‘condensed translations of original dialogue (or on-screen text) which appear as lines of text usually positioned towards the foot of the screen. The subtitles appear and disappear in time with the corresponding portion of original dialogue or text’ (Luyken, 1991: 39). There are two kind of subtitles: traditional (in full sentences) and reduced (only key phrases). Subtitles deliver the translation of the audiovisual text while it is projected. They

Traditional Subtitling

- in full sentences - reduced } where - bilingual } appropriate

Lip –sync Dubbing

Voice-over/Narration *

Free Commentary * Simultaneous subtitling *

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usually consist of two lines of 35-37 characters placed in the bottom of the screen. In this kind of translation three factors must be toned in together: pace of actors’/narrator`s speech, pace of image and viewers` pace of reading subtitles (Tyruk, 2009: 32). In this kind of translation, the translator interferes significantly with the source text. It is mostly condensation of a source text – 30% of the dialogue is not translated at all (ibid.). Subtitles must deliver the written translation from the audio of the video which is currently playing and they must be concurrent with it. This is quite difficult to do, taking into consideration that subtitles can deliver 43 per cent less text than the spoken dialogue which they derive from (Pérez González, 2011: 13). Moreover, there are many constraints connected to subtitling, such as: shortage of the screen space, lack of time for displaying the whole translation of the spoken text and the fact that people speak much faster than they read (ibid.). Therefore, subtitles are bound to convey ‘the overall communicative intention of an utterance over the semantics of its individual lexical constituents’ (Gottlieb, 1998 [in:] Pérez González, 2011: 13) and as a result subtitlers must use strategies like ‘deleting, condensing and adapting the source speech’ (ibid.). All of these strategies used may influence the quality of translation. Moreover, the viewers have access to the source speech, thus, if they understand the source language, they can easily verify the translator`s work and criticize it.

2.2.2 Dubbing

Usually, in AVT the visual aspect of a movie or a program remains the same as the original. However, some alternations may be introduced when it comes to dubbing. The program might be edited to provide optimum lip-synchronization with the translated text (Luyken, 1991: 39). It is the most popular and the most expensive form of audiovisual translation. Dubbing is a voice track with the translated version of the original speech. It should reproduce the timing, phrasing and lip movements of the original version of a movie or a program. There is a possibility that a sound expert may add some new sound effects to the dubbed version. The on-screen characters are speaking the target language (translation of the source language) and original music and effects should be retained as they appeared in the original version (Luyken, 1991: 73). The production of voice track for dubbing is very intricate and consists of 11 steps (Tomaszkiewicz, 2006). Only in two of those eleven steps the translator is actually translating a text. In this process one of the most important aspects is the lip-synchronization. The basic parameter here is phonetics. There are two most important elements: 1) duration of the opening and closing of mouth and 2) type of the mouth opening i.e. shape of the lips while pronouncing sounds, e.g. round, extended, etc. (Tomaszkiewicz, 2006: 107). The translator

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has to make sure that the translated text fits the character`s lip movement. What is also important here is the duration of the sentence. The translated speech has to last as long as the original speech so the voice track suits the image. However, synchronization is not only about synchronizing the lip movement. Another important factor here are the mimics and gestures of characters from the screen which have to fit to their speeches (Tomaszkiewicz, 2006: 108).

2.2.3 Voice-over

Even though many of the types of audiovisual translation have been analyzed and described, there are some areas which still need to be reliably explored. One of them is undoubtedly voice-over (in Polish also ‘lector`s translation’ or szeptanka ‘whispering’), a translation technique which is so far poorly described and examined (Woźniak, 2011: 381). Many Western researchers do not even pay attention to the voice-over translation, because outside the Eastern and Central European countries it is used only for documentary movies. They consider using voice-over for television and movies as an exotic peculiarity and treat it with a little bit of sympathy (Woźniak, 2009: 51). Most of the studies in AVT focus on dubbing and subtitling as these are the two main techniques used for film translation. It seems like AVT researchers have overlooked the fact that in Poland, the Baltic States and Russia voice-over is commonly used to translate fiction films (Orero, 2009: 131).

Voice-over is a technique where the translated text is read by a lector and pre-recorded. The translated version appears a few seconds after the original sound. The volume of the original sound is lowered, however it is still audible (Pérez González, 2011: 16). The voice-over translator has to predict how his translation is going to be read by a lector and whether this lector is going to adjust it correctly to the image and sound of a program (Garcarz, 2006: 114). The lector is ‘a key ‘component’ of voice-over, he is a liaison between the translator and the viewer’ (ibid.). Hendrykowski called the lector`s part ‘lector`s screen mediation’

(Hendrykowski, 1984: 248). ‘Voice-over is characterized by the faithful translation of the

source text and synchronous delivery’ (Luyken, 1996: 80). The fact that the original speech is audible makes this kind of translation credible and allows the viewers to follow the original speech (ibid.). According to Woźniak (2009: 75) voice-over technique is something between dubbing and subtitles because it shares with each of them some characteristic features. It is connected to dubbing because it also uses audio as a communicative channel. Subtitles and over both allow viewers to hear, at least partly, the original sound. Moreover, voice-over translation does not come under certain limitations which appear in dubbing and

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subtitles. In voice-over there is no text displayed on screen which is disturbing the image as in subtitles and transferring spoken dialogue into written text. While watching a voiced-over movie viewers do not need to switch constantly between reading and watching. When compared to dubbing, voice-over is free from qualitative and quantitative synchronization of dialogues which may prevent translation from many modifications (ibid.). However, all of the arguments mentioned above do not prove that voice-over is a good translation technique. It has indeed many flaws which will be described in subchapter 2.4.

Voice-over is usually used for interviews, documentaries, educational programs and programs which do not require lip synchronization (Pérez González, 2011: 16). In this kind of programs or movies, artistic interpretation i.e. tone of the voice, expressing emotions, suspension of the voice is not required, therefore voice-over is a good solution for this kind of translation. However, in Eastern and Central Europe voice-over is used also to translate narrative movies but it not only translates the spoken dialogue. The lector`s voice is also translating orally written texts which may appear on screen. For example, the lector would read a letter which is written in a source language and was supposed to be read by the viewers. He also reads titles of newspapers or articles, street names, announcements, etc. Moreover, at the end of a movie or a program, the lector is reading information regarding this production: title, director`s name, actors` names, etc. (Tomaszkiewicz, 2006: 120).

2.3 The audiovisual landscape in Poland

The most frequently used name for AVT in Polish is basically the same as in English – Przekład audiowizualny (‘Audiovisual Translation’).

Dubbing in Poland is mostly used for animated movies (e.g. Shrek), movies for children (e.g. Harry Potter) and fairy tales. Narrative movies are nowadays almost never dubbed. However, the number of dubbed movies in Poland is much bigger than it used to be (Szarkowska, 2008: 14).

When it comes to subtitles, in Poland they are mainly used in narrative movies in cinemas. They may also appear in television but only in two cases: as subtitles for deaf people or English subtitles at the TV Polonia channel (Szarkowska, 2008: 16). They are also used in the DVD industry.

Gottlieb (1998, [in:] Szarkowska, 2008: 12) divided countries according to the dominant kind of audiovisual translation:

 Source-language countries – mainly English speaking countries, where foreign productions do not appear frequently

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 Dubbing countries – French, Italian, Spanish and German speaking countries  Voice-over countries – Russia and Poland, and also smaller countries which are

not able to afford to use dubbing  Subtitling countries – small countries

Not only Gottlieb considered Poland as a ‘voice-over country’. A research conducted for European Institute for the Media in 1995 has shown that the most popular television translation in Eastern European countries is voice-over (Dries, 1995: 6 [in:] Szarkowska: 2008: 15). Also Garcarz indicates that voice-over translation is the most frequently used technique in the Polish television (Garcarz, 2006: 114). Voice-over translation is usually treated by Western researchers casually and they tend to assign it to all the Eastern and Central European countries. Meanwhile, there are significant differences between voice-over used for example in Poland, Russia and Ukraine (Woźniak, 2009: 51). In Poland all dialogues in a movie are read by one lector, while in Russia and Ukraine there is a technique called a Russian dubbing where all the men`s parts are read by a male lector and all the women’s parts are read by a female lector (ibid.). Moreover, they tend to interpret dialogues and act while in Polish voice-over it does not occur. According to Dries (1995: 6) even though voice-over translation costs a bit more than subtitles, the viewers from Eastern European countries seem to prefer this translation method. Poland is a perfect example of this. Polish people are used to watching movies with lector`s voice since many years. Research carried out in 2002 by SMG KRC3_{for Canal Plus}4_{showed that 50,2% of the Polish viewers prefer voice-over translation,}

only 8,1% prefers subtitles and 43,3% prefers dubbing (Bogucki, 2004: 69). A huge percentage of interviewees - 72,1% - considers subtitles as the worst form of translation. Other research carried out by TNS OBOP5_{for TVP S.A.}6_{shows similar results: 45% of the}

interviewees prefers voice-over, 45% likes to watch dubbed movies and only 4% likes Polish subtitles (Garcarz, 2007: 131 [in:] Szarkowska, 2008: 16). As shown above, Poland belongs to the group of countries where the voice-over translation is used the most and where the viewers actually prefer this kind of translation. However, this is only partly true. In Poland voice-over translation definitely prevails in television, where most foreign movies and programs are translated with voice-over, however, movies in cinemas are mostly subtitled and

3_{SMG KRC is a Polish institute which carries out researches regarding society in Poland and in Eastern Europe}

(https://panel.smgkrc.com.pl/panel/informacje/).

4_{Canal plus is a Polish television channel.}

5_{Polish custom research company (}_{http://www.tnsglobal.pl/}_). 6_{TVP is a public Polish television channel (}_{https://www.tvp.pl/}_).

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movies for children are dubbed (Szarkowska, 2008: 13). Therefore voice-over translation appears frequently in Poland but only in television, it does not appear in cinemas.

2.4 Constraints and criticism of voice-over

Dries (1995: 6) notices that many professional translators consider voice-over translation as the worst translation method of all. According to him it is too ‘simple’ and it does not fully convey the contents of the original movie. It delivers a translated dialogue which is simply read by a lector, usually with no intonation or any emotions in the lector’s voice. The text is being read tediously, fast, which deprives characters of their identity (ibid.). Moreover, when the dialogue is between several people, the lector is not only unable to translate each line appropriately, but also the same voice reading the lines of all the characters may confuse the viewers which line was uttered by which character. However, Szarkowska (2009: 186) comments that Dries` criticism is not quite justified. The lector is actually not supposed to act out a dialogue because it could create a ridiculous effect. It is quite the contrary – the lector is expected to ‘whisper’ translated text to deliver to the viewers the translated text with a possibility to hear the original sound at the same time (ibid.). She cites Gajewski, a Polish voice talent who said that ‘to do it well, you must not interfere with the program. You mustn’t become like an actor on the screen; you must do your job as unobtrusively as possible: read in Polish so the viewers will understand’ (Gajewski (1991) [in:] Szarkowska, 2009: 187).

As it was mentioned earlier, voice-over enables viewers to hear the original sound in the background which makes it less ‘radical’ than dubbing (Woźniak, 2009: 76). However, this may actually be a flaw as this background sound may obscure and hamper the viewer`s experience with a movie (ibid.). As the lector`s voice is the loudest one, it disturbs actors’ voices so that viewers are not able to hear their interpretation.

According to Tyruk (2009: 32), voice-over`s viewers do not experience a movie or a program as they actually should. They lose a lot of aspects of artistic and informational nature. As an example of such a loss, she reminds of an advertisement issued in the past in the Polish television. In this advertisement a German and a Frenchman were having a conversation about the advertised product (a Czech car) in their native languages. A voiced-over version of this advertisement loses completely the humorous factor of this bilingual conversation.

Another disadvantage of the voice-over ‘is the mismatch between the gender (and also the age of the original actors and the voice-over reader). Regardless of the gender of the screen character, the dialogue in fiction films in Poland will always be read out by a man. This

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invariably raises eyebrows among foreigners, unaccustomed to this modality’ (Szarkowska, 2009: 189).

It may seem that the dialogues read by the lector do not need to be abridged as they are in subtitles or in dubbing. However, as Tomaszkiewicz (2006: 118) notices, in each language accent, rhythm of the sentences and pauses appear in different spots. Therefore, the translated text may not suit the image and the equivalent sentence may be pronounced longer than the original (ibid.). She also indicates that dialogues in voice-over also undergo such translation strategies as abridgement and condensation and she lists the elements which are usually omitted in voice-over (ibid.):

- expressions used when referring to a person using proper names, personal pronouns - expressions or words which are borrowings from another language, e.g. OK, or words

which sound similar in both languages, e.g. mama ‘mom’

- expressions which are connected to the language culture, which appear regularly in a conversation, e.g. greetings, goodbyes, identification during a phone call

- unfinished sentences usually connected to adequate mimics and gestures - all types of repetitions with expressive features, e.g. Oh! Ah!

- other copulas within sentences

- taboo words, mainly offensive words and swear words

3. Pun in Translation

Translating a joke into another language is a great challenge for a translator. The problem is not only translating a joke from one language to another but translating a joke to an audience from a completely different, foreign culture who may not find funny what the other culture does. As Chiaro (1992: 77) wrote ‘no matter how well the translator knows the target language, cultural references and polysemous items may well involve them in longwinded explanations, after which the recipient rarely reacts with a laugh. Similarly, when a joke in a foreign language is translated into English, results tend to be equally disastrous. Jokes, it would seem, travel badly’. In this chapter I will present a definition of pun, the obstacles which the translator has to overcome when translating puns and Delabastita`s strategies for translating puns.

3.1 Definition of Pun

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‘Wordplay is the general name for the various textual phenomena in which structural features of the language(s) used are exploited in order to bring about a communicatively significant confrontation of two (or more) linguistic structures with more or less similar forms and more or less different meanings’. Delabastita in his papers uses terms ‘wordplay’ and ‘pun’ interchangeably, however in this paper I will not be doing the same. It is because, when Delabastita describes one of the translation strategies of puns, Pun > Punoid (see chapter 3.5.3), he explains himself that sometimes a pun can be replaced with other wordplay-related rhetorical devices like e.g. repetition, alliteration, rhyme, etc. (Delabastita, 1996: 134). Therefore, it might be inferred that according to Delabastita himself, a wordplay and a pun are two different things (and that pun is a type of wordplay). Thus, in this paper I will be using the term ‘pun’ when referring to language-specific jokes, i.e. the jokes which I am analyzing in this paper.

According to Chiaro (1992), most people associate the term ‘wordplay’ with jokes and puns. She defines wordplay as ‘slips of the tongue’ which may be either accidental or deliberate (Chiaro, 1992: 21). Just as Delabastita, Chiaro also highlights that the main property of the pun is its ambiguity and that its features such as sounds, words, parts of words and syntactic structures can be double-edged. Above the regular hierarchy of the language system like graphology, phonology, morphology, lexis and syntax there is pragmatics which can also be an ambiguous, discrete item (Chiaro, 1992: 43). When choices and restrictions are seen in relation to form, they can become two-faced as well (ibid.).

3.2 (Un)translatability of puns

Translating a pun is a difficult task, therefore a translator needs time and some special skills to come up with a decent solution (Zabalbeascoa, 1996: 238). The common rule applied in translation of humor for many years was summed up by Zabalbeascoa as ‘translate the words and/or the contents then keep your fingers crossed and hope that the humor will somehow come across with the rest’ (Zabalbeascoa, 2005: 188). However, this method fails frequently, therefore many experts jumped to the hasty conclusion that humor is untranslatable (ibid.) According to Delabastita (1996: 134), people who consider puns untranslatable, really mean that they were not able to find a satisfactory equivalent, using the methods he proposes (see 3.5) or that perhaps these methods did not ‘meet their requirements of translation equivalents’ (ibid.). He also claims that the term ‘untranslatability’ when referred to puns, means actually that certain types of them are more resistant to certain kinds of translation (Delabastita, 1997:

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10). In his opinion there is always a way to translate wordplay but the translators must accept the fact that this translation is not going to be the ‘literal translation’ but rather an adaptation: ‘(…) the uncomfortable choice being between giving the wordplay up in its original textual position and somehow providing a more or less free adaptation. In other words, the only way to be faithful to the original text (i.e. to its verbal playfulness) is paradoxically to be unfaithful to it (i.e. to its vocabulary and grammar’ (Delabastita, 1996: 135).

Also Low (2011: 59) thinks that puns can always be translated. According to him the view that jokes in general are untranslatable is coming from two sources: from the translators` incompetence and secondly from a narrow notion of translation. People should not see translating as a purely verbal process which uses only proven tools like transpositions or synonyms. Neither should the translated joke be nearly identical or equally funny. It is because ‘funniness is hard to measure, and humour varies with cultures, not to mention individuals. What we should and can do is translate humour well enough for it to be recognizable as humour and to have some chance of amusing people’ (ibid.). As Grassegger wrote ‘utterances using wordplay are seen as form-based text, where the recreation of formal and stylistic features is more important than rendering their content in case of conflicts in translation’ (Grassegger, 1985: 43 [in:] Gottlieb, 1997: 209) and in this point of view the words involved in a wordplay are no longer serving the function of communication, but also they become the object of communication (Gottlieb, 1997: 209). Therefore, it is more important to deliver a funny pun in the TL than to be completely faithful to the original text.

Another researcher who considers puns completely translatable is Gottlieb who comments on the pun translation in the polysemiotic environment (e.g. television) that ‘even in a genre as semantically and semiotically complex as the mix of stand-up comedy and punning commercials, nearly all items of wordplay are translatable, although some TV translators may for whatever reason not manage very well in this genre’ (Gottlieb, 1997: 226).

Puns, which belong to linguistic jokes, are the most difficult ones to translate not only because of the nature of the joke but also because of the relationship of the languages in question (Raphaelson-West, 1989: 131). Raphaelson-West shares the opinion that translation of pun is possible, but the translator must remember that the translated pun may not always be equally humorous as the pun from the source text (Raphaelson-West, 1989: 140). The translator must be aware of the cultural context and try to locate the humorous aspects of the source text and

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explain or duplicate them in the target text (ibid.) In her paper she also proposes some methods which helps translating jokes, including puns (e.g. using semantic trees).

Some jokes are considered too culture-specific to be understood outside their country of origin. The same occurs with language-specific jokes. However, both of them are possible to translate. The most difficult jokes to translate are the ones which contain sociocultural references and a language play (Chiaro, 1992: 87). However, as shown above, puns are mostly translatable. It requires special skills and hard work, but is, by all means, possible.

3.3 Constraints in translating puns Culture factor

Many has wondered if anything is funny for all people, intra-culturally. There are some jokes which may be funny for example in all western countries if they have a common linguistic code. However, a common linguistic code is definitely not enough to allow people to appreciate pun in all cultures and languages (Chiaro, 1992:77). There were plenty of American comedy TV series which were not well received in Britain and vice versa, even though these two countries share the same linguistic code (ibid.). ‘Language and culture seem to be indivisible and, without shared sociocultural knowledge between sender and recipient, a common linguistic code will be of little help’ (Chiaro, 1992: 77). The theory of Sapir and Whorf says that each language is different on the level of sounds, words and syntax therefore no two languages are similar enough to be considered to represent the same social reality. Therefore, translation is not about substituting words from the source text with words from the target text. The translator has to convey the whole ‘meaning’ of one culture in a way which will be understandable for another (target) culture (ibid.)

Zabalbeascoa (2005: 204) distinguishes three cultural aspects which make it difficult to translate humor:

 background knowledge of the two audiences  moral and cultural values, habits and traditions  traditional joke-themes and types

The cultural constraints are always present in translation in general, not only in translation of jokes. However, when translating puns for television, it becomes much difficult because of time and space constraints connected to the types of audiovisual translation (dubbing, subtitling or voice-over) (see chapter 2).

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According to Zabalbeascoa (1996: 248), a translator may be ‘not only a key agent in the production of translations, but also an extra restriction in that same process’. Translations of puns might be unsuccessful because of the incompetency of the translator. If the translator has received a poor training and lacks experience and perhaps intelligence, the translation might be a complete disaster (Zabalbeascoa, 1996: 236). Also, translator`s personal taste and his professional ambition may influence his translation, as Delabastita notices: ‘Also, personal taste and a greater than usual willingness to accommodate target-audience expectations will be permitted to intrude for a moment on the translator`s basic commitment to the exact reproduction of the source text, precisely insofar as this commitment confronts the translator with the awkward or even impossible dilemma between ‘loss’ and ‘adaptation’ of the pun’ (Delabastita, 1996: 135). However, sometimes it is not the translator`s fault that a pun is not rendered in a target language. In many cases translators do not have the last word on their work (Zabalbeascoa, 1996: 249). Often the solution they found is then judged by his employer, client, editor, etc. and may not be published and has to be changed as the supervisor wishes.

Time factor

The other factor which influences the quality of the translation is time. Translators often have to work under a lot of time pressure. They are bound to (often unrealistic) deadlines, forced by their employers, therefore they work fast (usually working on a few translations at the same time), which is influencing the quality of their translations (Zabalbeascoa, 1996: 249). In the voice-over translation a translator has usually a little time to do his job because the translation has to be read by a lector and then adapted to the original video. Because of this lack of time, the translator has no time to look for a perfect solution to translate a pun, therefore he is usually agreeing to the first satisfactory idea that comes to his mind (Delabastita, 1996: 135).

3.4 Types of puns according to Hausmann and Nash

In order to classify selected puns I have decided to use the division created by Hausmann (1974) and described by Delabastita (1993). Delabastita explains that ‘the pun contrasts linguistic structures with different meanings on the basis of their formal similarity’

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(Delabastita, 1996: 128) and this relation of formal identity can be specified in the following division (Delabastita, 1993: 79-81):

1. Homonymic puns – words or groups of words are identical in spelling and in writing, e.g. play (noun) – play (verb), bear (an animal) – bear ( to carry).

2. Homophonic puns – words or group of words are identical in sound but different in writing , e.g. fair – fare, right – write, bare – bear.

3. Paronymic puns – words or groups of words which are almost but not completely identical in spelling and pronunciation, e.g. purse – person

4. Homographic puns – words or groups of words which are identical in writing but different in pronunciation, e.g. transfer (verb) – transfer (noun), lead (to guide) – lead (metal), use (verb) – use (noun).

In my corpus I found some puns which may be assigned to a different category than the ones mentioned above. Therefore I decided to distinguish an extra pun category described by Nash (1985: 142):

1. Portmanteaux – is ‘a coinage that packs two meanings into one word’ (Nash, 1985: 143). An example (from my corpus) ‘Let`s all ‘chillax’ (Modern Family, Season 1, episode 1). ‘Chillax’ is the combination of two words: chill + relax.

Moreover, depending on how the components of the pun`s text are arranged, a pun can be either horizontal or vertical. This is connected to the definition of confrontation of the forms of the pun mentioned by Delabastita: ‘The pun establishes a (near)simultaneous confrontation of at least two linguistic structures with more or less dissimilar meanings (signifieds) and more or less similar forms (signifiers)’ (Delabastita, 1993: 78). A pun is vertical when its confronting components ‘are represented simultaneously within one and the same portion of text, i.e. in a paradigmatic manner’ (Delabastita, 1993: 79). Therefore, even if only one confronting component of a pun is materially present, the other one ‘appears’ because of the employment of contextual setting (Delabastita 1996:129). I present an example of a vertical pun from my corpus: The Nerdy way (Season 1 episode 18; 2:12). This paronymic pun is vertical because both confronting components are shown simultaneously in the same text fragment. Obviously, the original name is ‘the Milky Way’, yet here the word ‘milky’ was substituted with a word ‘nerd’ creating a vertical pun.

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In a horizontal pun, its confronting components are both ‘visible’ and materially present which is just enough to trigger the semantic confrontation. Moreover, in many puns there are other devices used to highlight the puns, e.g., grammar (Delabastita, 1996: 129). An example of a horizontal pun is shown below (from my corpus):

- He's a logger.

- Uh, like a lumberjack?

- No, he logs blood samples into a cholesterol study. (Season 1, episode 4; 11:16)

The first component of the pun suggests that he is working as a lumberjack, but then the second component reveals that actually he is just a person who logs blood samples in a study. The two components occur one after another, therefore this pun is horizontal.

To better understand Hausmann`s division I present the table below, created by Delabastita (1993: 81). In the table below I have substituted Delabastita`s examples with the examples from my corpus (except from the examples of homographic puns).

Homonymic = sound = spelling Homophonic = sound ≠ spelling Paronymic ≠ sound ≠ spelling Homographic ≠ sound = spelling Horizontal - He's a logger. - Uh, like a lumberjack?

- No, he logs blood samples into a cholesterol study. (Season 1, episode 4; 11:16.)

Jay, taking out a figurine of a baby Jesus from a box: - What the hell is this? - I told you, Jay. I called your secretary and told her to order you a box of baby cheeses.

(Season 2 episode 6;

- Don't forget about the team mascots. - They wear ascots? - No. Mascots. With an "M."

(Season 1 episode 5; 6:45)

Horizontal

(Delabastita, 1993: 81)

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Vertical -Whatever.

Honestly, I wish that tart would go back to Columbia and take her weird little Brown friend with her.

(Season 1 episode 18; 3:49)

Vertical

- Here's your note for Miss Passwater. (Season 1 episode 5; 04:50)

Vertical

The Nerdy Way (Season 1 episode 18; 2:12). Vertical <The-rapist> (Delabastita, 1993: 81)

Figure 2 - Categories of Puns

When it comes to portmanteaux, the examples are the following:  Portmanteaux – horizontal pun

- Act like a parent, talk like a peer. I call it "peerenting." (peer + parenting). (Season 1 episode 4; 8:51).

 Portmanteaux – vertical pun

- Okay, people. Let's all "chillax." (chill + relax). (Season 1 episode 1; 19:37). 3.5 Delabastita`s translation strategies for puns

Delabastita has developed nine translation techniques regarding puns. He indicates himself that his model is open to further refinement. He created his model based on the wordplay but it can also apply to other genres, e.g. audiovisual translation. In many cases it is possible to combine two or more techniques (Delabastita, 1993: 191). The translation techniques developed by Delabastita are the following:

3.5.1. S.T. Pun > T.T. Pun

This is definitely the perfect solution when translating puns, however it is not easy to achieve. It means that the pun from the source text is replaced with a pun in a target text. However, it does not mean that these puns are exactly the same. The shifts may occur on different levels. When it comes to linguistic mechanisms a S.T. pun might be based on lexical, grammatical or phonological features and a translator can find a solution for a pun in T.T. in any of those features (Delabastita, 1993: 192). Alternations occur in formal structures too. That is, a S.T. pun may be based on a homonym and a T.T. pun can be transformed into a homophonic pun.

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A vertical S.T. pun might become a horizontal one in T.T. and vice versa. Last but not least there might be changes in the semantic structure. S.T. pun confronts two different meanings, s1 and s2. The S.T. pun and T.T. pun can share either s1 or s2 (parallel translation), only one of them (semi-parallel translation) or neither of them (non-parallel translation) (Delabastita, 1993: 195). To sum up, both source and target text contain a pun, but there can be shifts in formal or/and semantic structure.

3.5.2. Pun > Non-Pun

In this translation strategy a T.T. pun does not contain any wordplay. The S.T. pun is replaced in T.T. with a non-pun phrase, where there are no signs of the specific kind of confrontation of different linguistic forms which would characterize a wordplay. This non-pun phrase which replaces a pun in T.T. may be non-selective when it represents two or more meanings of the S.T. pun, selective when it represents only one meaning and omits completely the other one. When a non-pun phrase contains no meaning at all it is called diffuse paraphrase.

3.5.3. Pun > Punoid

In this case, a translator is substituting a S.T. pun with a wordplay-related rhetorical device in T.T. to render the same humorous effect. Examples of these rhetorical devices are: repetition, rhyme, alliteration, allusion and so on. This strategy is handy when it is not possible to find an appropriate pun in T.T. The translator, in order to retain the humorous effect, is not omitting the pun but he is replacing it with another funny translation.

3.5.4. Pun > Zero

The pun from a S.T. is completely omitted in a T.T. without even the deletion being signaled. The translator is simply deleting a piece of text which contains a pun. There can be omission of a phrase or sentence, of a single speech, of a piece of a dialogue or even omission of a scene or act. Delabastita explains that omission of a pun ‘can never be entirely explained as a strategy for the rendering of the wordplay only’(Delabastita, 1993: 209) and that sometimes Pun > Zero technique is an inadvertent side-effect of a hierarchically more important decision to alter the matrix of a text and it can have nothing to do with the wordplay as such (Delabastita, 1993: 209).

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In this strategy, a S.T. pun is copied directly to T.T. without any ‘translation’. Delabastita (1993: 211) calls it also non-translation or direct transfer technique. In many cases it is followed by a footnote which explains the pun. This strategy has become very popular in the modern mass media, e.g. international advertising (Delabastita, 1993: 211). However, in voice-over translation it is impossible to use a footnote as a device to explain a pun to viewers. The public would be left out with a pun which they do not understand. Thus, I do not expect to find a lot of examples of this strategy in my corpus.

3.5.6. Transference7: Pun S.T. = Pun T.T.

Each SL has its own ‘values’ and contextual meanings which cannot be find in the TL. There is no possibility to translate them as they do not exist in the TL. However, it is possible to simply ‘transfer’ the SL words and explain them within the TL culture (Catford [in:] Delabastita (1993: 211)).

3.5.7. Addition: Non-Pun > Pun

In this strategy a pun is added to a T.T. while it does not appear in the corresponding S.T. In many cases, such a strategy is used to compensate for the loss of S.T. puns which he did not manage to render sufficiently into T.T. No new material is added but the original text is transformed into a pun. This strategy is acknowledged by many critics and scholars of translation, however, it is still very controversial (Delabastita, 1993: 216).

3.5.8. Addition (New textual material): Zero > Pun

This strategy is similar to the one mentioned above, but with the difference that the translator is adding completely new material to his translation and creates a wordplay out of it. In many cases such a strategy is motivated by the translator`s willingness to compensate for the losses of puns in other cases. This strategy is widely criticized as too liberal and brave (Delabastita, 1993: 217).

3.5.9. Editorial Techniques

In this strategy, Delabastita refers to editorial techniques which are very often used by translators to help them translate a pun. He mentions such techniques as footnotes, introduction, arrangement and presentation of the texts, etc. (Delabastita, 1993: 217). When it

7_{Transference is a strategy where an SL word is transferred to the TL text with no modifications or with the}

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comes to audiovisual translation, such measures are not available for a translator, therefore this translation strategy will not be included in my analysis.

In this paper I will not be taking into consideration the following strategies: Transference: Pun S.T. = Pun T.T. and Editorial techniques. It is because, the material that I am using for this research is an audiovisual text, in which such a translation strategies do not occur.

3.6 Puns in movies and TV series

In situational comedies viewers are in ‘contexts that are carefully contrived for maximum effect’ and the jokes are ‘clearly signaled’ by canned laughter (Delabastita, 1994: 228 [in:] Zabalbeascoa, 1996: 242). Therefore, if a translation of pun does not bring a humorous effect, the viewers are confused and disappointed, because they know they have missed a joke and struggle to find out what was funny about that scene.

According to Zabalbeascoa (1996: 244), when translating jokes it is important to have priorities, i.e. translator has to be able to access the level of importance of a joke in a given text. For example if a translator is dealing with a speech of a politician which contains some jokes, it is obvious that the translation of these jokes is not his top priority (ibid.) However, in situational comedies, jokes and puns are the most important, therefore they should be of the highest priority to the translator. Therefore, Zabalbeascoa thinks that the quality of a dubbed version should be assessed ‘on how funny the result is, rather than on how faithful it is on any other level’ (Zabalbeascoa, 1996: 245).

My corpus (comedy TV series, Modern Family) is polysemiotic, i.e. the message is transmitted through more than one channel. TV series usually consists of four semiotic channels (Gottlieb, 1997: 210):

1. The non-verbal visual channel: the picture and image composition 2. The verbal visual channel: written text

3. The verbal acoustic channel: dialogues of the characters, voices in the background 4. The non-verbal acoustic channel: music/sound effects

Thus puns can be produced by only a verbal channel, or by the combination of two or more channels, e.g. an interplay of verbal and visual elements.

3.7 Successful and unsuccessful translation of puns

As Zabalbeascoa (1996: 236) comments, many translations are considered bad because viewers expect too much of them and because everybody expects something different,