the translation of wordplay in literary texts: typology, techniques and factors in a corpus of...

The translation of wordplay in literary textsTypology techniques and factors in a corpus of English-Catalan source text and target text segments

Josep MarcoUniversitat Jaume I (Castelloacute Spain)

The present study aims to analyse wordplay translation on the basis of the three aspects mentioned in the title mdash wordplay typology translation techniques and relevant factors The theoretical framework is eclectic but draws particularly on Delabastita (1996 1997) and Lladoacute (2002) Empirical analysis is based on three English source texts and six Catalan translations and focuses on two main is-sues the frequency distribution of pairs of ST + TT segments across translation techniques and the possible correlation(s) between translation techniques and factors influencing decision-making It is observed that translators tend to use techniques implying a negative punning balance ie resulting in some degree of loss of punning activity Moreover some factors identified in the literature are seen to correlate with the use of particular translation techniques Finally in the last section an attempt is made to go beyond description and explanation and to assess wordplay translation techniques in terms of their suitability as translation solutions

Keywords wordplay translation techniques factors punning balance literary translation English-Catalan

1 Conceptual background

This article is an attempt to analyse three important aspects of wordplay transla-tion the nature of wordplay the techniques used in its translation and the factors that are likely to impinge upon wordplay translation It is important to define and classify the phenomenon under scrutiny in order to set limits to onersquos task Sec-ondly it is necessary to identify one or more relationships between source-text (ST) and target-text (TT) segments Several terms have been used to refer to such a

Target 222 (2010) 264ndash297 doi 101075target22205marissn 0924ndash1884 e-issn 1569ndash9986 copy John Benjamins Publishing Company

The translation of wordplay in literary texts 265

relationship (eg procedure method shift strategy technique solution type) in this paper the term technique as defined by Hurtado (eg 2001 268) will be preferred As has been argued elsewhere (Zabalbeascoa 2004 Marco 2004 2007) classifica-tions of translation techniques for particular translation problems are better suited to accounting for the specifics of each problem than general typologies postulated as valid for any textual segment Finally the identification of the factors at work in the translation of wordplay will enable us to (tentatively) move towards explana-tion ie towards determining why certain techniques are preferred under certain circumstances Not all relevant factors are accessible through textual analysis as some of them are closely related to the translatorrsquos personality and skills or to the features of the translation brief and therefore could only be accessed via question-naires or interviews As a result of this limitation emphasis will be laid on textual factors deriving from the nature of wordplay

11 Definition and typology

Leech (1969 209) defines the pun as ldquoa foregrounded lexical ambiguity which may have its origin either in homonymy or polysemyrdquo But the pun is only one of the possible manifestations of wordplay as Leech himself makes abundantly clear in his account of ldquothe technical aspects of punning and related forms of word-playrdquo (1969 210) Thirty years later Delabastita provides a more thorough and more inclusive definition of wordplay (1996 128) it is a textual phenomenon it exploits structural features of the language(s) involved it is perceived as communicatively significant and it is based on more or less similar forms conveying more or less dif-ferent meanings The latter element ties in with homonymy and polysemy which were part of Leechrsquos definition But what Delabastitarsquos definition clearly shows is that wordplay draws not only on the paradigmatic axis which involves exploiting the language potential but also on the syntagmatic one insofar as it is a communi-catively relevant (ie functionally motivated) textual phenomenon These features even if they did not find their way into Leechrsquos definition above were visibly pres-ent in his discussion of the phenomenon of wordplay too

Delabastita (1996 128) uses two criteria to establish a typology of wordplay

a the type of formal similarity between the lexical units at play homonymy homophony homography and paronymy (the relationship operating between words having very similar though not identical sounds and spellings)

b the verticalhorizontal distinction Vertical puns are those in which the two (or more) meanings that can be activated are co-present in the same word or sequence whereas in horizontal puns the two (or more) meanings in question are distributed over two (or more) words or sequences

266 Josep Marco

The combination of these two criteria gives rise to Delabastitarsquos well-known grid with eight slots reproduced below as Table 1

Table 1 Classification of wordplay according to Delabastita (1996 128)

Homonymy Homophony Homography Paronymy

VERTICALPyromania a burning passion

VERTICALWedding belles

VERTICALMessAge [name of mid-1990s rap band]

VERTICALCome in for a faith lift [slogan on church]

HORIZONTALCarry on dancing carries Carry to the top [article on ambitious young dancer named Carry]

HORIZONTALCounsel for Council home buyers

HORIZONTALHow the US put US to shame

HORIZONTALItrsquos GB for the Beegees [article on pop band touring Britain]

However it must be said that this classification is just one of many possible ways of dealing with a typology of wordplay For one thing Delabastita himself suggests (1997 4) that it would be much more productive to classify wordplay in terms of clusters of mutually independent criteria Thus a given instance of wordplay might be characterised by means of several distinctive features but each feature would constitute a continuum or cline instead of being reduced to a binary opposi-tion (+-) Delabastita mentions three criteria which have been used in wordplay classification and would lend themselves to this kind of treatment the distinction between play with words and play with sound (which would also include allitera-tion) the distinction between homonymy and polysemy and the deliberate nature and textual relevance of wordplay

Lladoacute (2002) in a very thorough study of wordplay and its translation which is firmly rooted in rhetoric both ancient and modern engages with Delabastitarsquos proposal and acknowledges both its potential and its limitations Its main limita-tion for Lladoacute (2002 47) is that ldquothe pun is just one form among many that could be considered and belongs to a particular national traditionrdquo1 What particular na-tional tradition is being referred to is not specified by Lladoacute although the nature of Delabastitarsquos studies points to the English-speaking one The underlying argument is clear at any rate mdash there is more to wordplay than just the pun and it is the pun that Delabastita is mainly concerned with

Lladoacutersquos definition of wordplay overlaps with Delabastitarsquos to a great extent especially with regard to its textual nature Wordplay based on the signifier is ldquoa textual problem which must be solved in the framework of textual effectsrdquo (2002 21 authorrsquos emphasis) However Lladoacutersquos classification clearly reveals a wider scope as


well as the rhetorical affiliation mentioned above Here is a summary of his clas-sification (Lladoacute 2002 125)

1 Wordplay based on consonance (defined as phonetic similarity) which in-cludes the following figures paronomasia alliteration assonance antanacla-sis polyptoton derivation homoioteleuton apophony cacophony and neolo-gism

2 Wordplay based on polysemy which includes syllepsis and zeugma3 Wordplay based on homophony or complete phonetic identity whose typical

manifestation is the calembour4 Wordplay based on transformation which includes all figures based on the

alteration of the phonetic and graphic structure of a word in order to create a different one such as anagram portmanteau word metathesis metagram heterogram and palindrome

Delabastitarsquos classification would be able to account for Lladoacutersquos first three catego-ries and part of the fourth (portmanteau words metatheses metagrams) which taken together roughly overlap with the notion of pun but some tropes under the fourth heading cannot be made to fit into it An anagram for instance is a rearrangement of the letters in a word or sequence of words to produce a different sequence on condition that each letter in the original sequence is used only once Now if we take Andreacute Bretonrsquos famous anagram ldquoAvida Dollarsrdquo (lsquogreedy for dol-larsrsquo) for Salvador Daliacute it can hardly be said that this kind of wordplay matches our notion of pun as the formal similarity between the two expressions is far from apparent either on the visual or the audible plane What brings both sequences together is an (elaborate) underlying criterion which does not appeal either to the ear or to the eye The same argument could be applied to the heterogram ldquoa written sequence in which all the letters used are differentrdquo (Lladoacute 2002 187) and the palindrome in which a linguistic sequence reads the same from left to right as from right to left A famous English palindrome is ldquoAble was I ere I saw Elbardquo which refers to Napoleonrsquos exile to the island of that name In view of these cases it seems clear that the notions of pun and wordplay are not co-extensive

Be that as it may in the present study Delabastitarsquos classification will be fol-lowed for three reasons Firstly because it accounts for all the instances of word-play found in the corpus Secondly because it has gained currency in translation studies and found its way into several analyses (eg Mateo 1995 Lladoacute 2002 Klitgaringrd 2005 Diacuteaz Peacuterez 2008) And thirdly because Lladoacutersquos proposal termino-logically accurate as it is introduces a high degree of complexity which may not be productive enough when it comes to analysing translation facts Even though classifying ST segments may be a necessary step in translation-oriented analysis what really matters is classifying translation options and discerning patterns (if

268 Josep Marco

possible) in those options Therefore using too complex a typological framework may be inefficient in the sense of showing a negative cost-benefit balance and can be said to defeat its own purpose

12 Wordplay translation techniques

Several classifications of wordplay translation techniques have been put for-ward by scholars who have engaged in empirical research Again the one most widely known and used is Delabastitarsquos which includes the following techniques (1996 134)

1 pun rarr pun the ST pun is translated by a target-language pun which may differ more or less widely from the ST pun in terms of formal or semantic structure or of textual function

2 pun rarr non-pun the ST pun may be replaced by a non-punning phrase which can relay both meanings of the source pun or just one

3 pun rarr related rhetorical device the ST pun is replaced by a wordplay-related rhetorical device (repetition alliteration rhyme irony paradox etc) in order to recreate the effect of the ST pun

4 pun rarr Oslash the ST fragment where the pun occurs is omitted5 pun ST = pun TT the translator relays the ST pun in its original formulation

ie without actually ldquotranslatingrdquo it6 non-pun rarr pun the translator introduces a pun when translating a ST pas-

sage where none occurred possibly in order to compensate for a previous or subsequent loss or for some other reason

7 Oslash rarr pun new textual material is added which includes a pun probably also to compensate for a loss

8 editorial techniques such as explanatory footnotes or endnotes translatorrsquos comments in a prologue or foreword etc

The two volumes edited by Delabastita in 1996 and 1997 contain other attempts at classifications of wordplay translation techniques mdash even if sometimes their concern is not wordplay in its entirety but a particular kind of wordplay Thus Veisbergs (1997) focuses on idiom-based wordplay and provides the following list in which the order suggests no preference but goes from a higher level of faithful-ness to relatively lsquofreerrsquo approaches (1997 163ndash171)

1 equivalent idiom transformation which occurs when the source and target languages present equivalents with respect to the ST idiom its components and the transforming elements


2 loan translation the original idiom is translated linearly with all its compo-nents It works with logical and transparent idioms

3 extension insertion of some additional explanatory information which may take the form of an unobtrusive editorial comment after a loan translation

4 analogue idiom transformation using a stylistically close idiom which will thus yield to contextual transformation

5 substitution (similar to analogue idiom transformation) there is willingness on the translatorrsquos part to change the image underlying the idiom altogether so as to achieve a similar (punning) effect

6 compensation when the translator feels that equivalence should be achieved at the level of the whole text ie globally not locally

7 omission (loss zero translation) which can adopt two forms ldquoeither the rel-evant passage is omitted altogether or the idiom is preserved in terms of its contents but with loss of the wordplayrdquo (1997 169)

8 metalingual comment editorial techniques such as footnotes parentheses etc

Some of these techniques could only be applied to the particular kind of wordplay that the author intends to bring under scrutiny whereas others have a broader scope In the latter case though Veisbergsrsquo categories do not always coincide with Delabastitarsquos

In that respect it may be interesting to draw attention to Offordrsquos classifica-tion which shows a remarkable degree of overlap with Delabastitarsquos even though it is based on a limited corpus three plays by Shakespeare and a number of French translations of those plays Offord (1997 241) puts forward a six-fold typology a) ignore the pun completely b) imitate Shakespearersquos technique c) major explicitly on the primary or surface meaning d) major explicitly on the secondary underly-ing meaning e) mention both meanings f) create new wordplay

In the present study Delabastitarsquos typology will be adhered to though with a couple of modifications Firstly technique 1 (pun rarr pun) will be broken down into two separate techniques depending on whether the translation output is rela-tively similar to the ST pun or not pun rarr similar pun and pun rarr different pun This distinction is arguably warranted by the assumption that the attitude under-lying the use of each of these techniques may be quite different whereas pun rarr similar pun may be the result of isomorphism across languages it seems clear that pun rarr different pun requires a deliberate effort at recreation on the translatorrsquos part And secondly technique 5 (pun ST = pun TT) which is couched in rather ambiguous terms will be referred to as direct copy a term coined by Delabastita himself in a previous study (1987) and also adopted by Mateo (1995) In the study just mentioned Delabastita distinguished between direct copy (rendering the

270 Josep Marco

source-text expression with source-language signifiers) and transference (render-ing the original expression with target-language signifiers) but direct copy will be used here to cover both possibilities in order to avoid terminological proliferation and potential confusion

The final list of techniques to be used in the present study could be arranged along a cline based on the idea of the punning balance ie the relationship between the ST and TT segments in terms of loss preservation or gain Some techniques involve punning loss as the original pun becomes a TT segment which cannot be regarded as a pun either because omission (pun rarr Oslash) direct copy or neutralisa-tion (pun rarr non-pun) have taken place or because a related rhetorical device has been used The latter technique brings the solution closer to the status of wordplay but cannot be regarded as a pun proper The techniques pun rarr similar pun and pun rarr different pun involve preservation of the punning balance for obvious rea-sons And the techniques no pun rarr pun and Oslash rarr pun imply punning gain thus drawing a symmetrical pattern with the ones described above The only technique that does not fit into the pattern is editorial techniques as they imply addition of information and do not affect the solution itself so to speak but run parallel to it In fact editorial techniques seldom if ever occur on their own but are usu-ally coupled with another technique (eg neutralisation or direct copy) Figure 1 shows the arrangement of techniques along the punning balance cline

13 Factors that impinge upon the translation of wordplay

The point of departure for my discussion of factors will be the (theoretical or as-sumed) untranslatability of wordplay It will come as no surprise or indeed nov-elty that wordplay has often been claimed to be untranslatable Rabadaacuten (1991) for instance presents wordplay as an area of non-equivalence across languages and identifies non-equivalence mdash which in principle implies no more than mis-match or lack of isomorphism across language systems with regard to a particular element mdash with untranslatability a concept that belongs to the level of parole not langue This author distinguishes ldquothree main reasons for the insurmountable dif-ficultiesrdquo posed by wordplay (1991 128)

Figure 1 Arrangement of wordplay translation techniques (excepting editorial

techniques) along the punning balance cline


The point of departure for my discussion of factors will be the (theoretical or assumed)

untranslatability of wordplay It will come as no surprise or indeed novelty that

wordplay has often been claimed to be untranslatable Rabadaacuten (1991) for instance

presents wordplay as an area of non-equivalence across languages and identifies non-

equivalence ndash which in principle implies no more than mismatch or lack of

isomorphism across language systems with regard to a particular element ndash with

untranslatability a concept that belongs to the level of parole not langue This author

distinguishes ldquothree main reasons for the insurmountable difficultiesrdquo posed by

wordplay (1991 128)

1 natural lack of isomorphism between English and Spanish which becomes apparent

in the different arbitrary lexical accumulations in each system ie in the different

distribution of signifiers and signifieds

2 the impossibility to treat the phonetic and graphic combinations in each language ie

their formal characteristics as ldquofunctional equivalentsrdquo

omission direct copy pun rarr non-pun pun rarr related pun rarr similar pun pun rarr different pun non-pun rarr pun Oslash rarr pun rhetorical device

punning loss preservation gain

Figure 1 Arrangement of wordplay translation techniques (excepting editorial tech-niques) along the punning balance cline


1 natural lack of isomorphism between English and Spanish which becomes apparent in the different arbitrary lexical accumulations in each system ie in the different distribution of signifiers and signifieds

2 the impossibility to treat the phonetic and graphic combinations in each lan-guage ie their formal characteristics as ldquofunctional equivalentsrdquo

3 the motivated intratextual use of the linguistic sign (foregrounding) which turns it into the text itself the matter and that is the translatorrsquos impossible challenge there is no way to translate ldquolinguistic materialityrdquo

Reasons 1 and 2 belong to the level of langue as they point towards lack of fit across language systems thus constituting arguments against equivalence rather than against translatability Lack of fit permeates all levels of the language sys-tem but even so translation is not impossible However reason 3 belongs to the domain of parole which is the field where the battle for the translatability of lin-guistic elements and resources is fought and must accordingly be regarded as an argument against the translatability of wordplay However later on Rabadaacuten quali-fies her own claim by saying (1991 129) ldquoAt any rate a punrsquos equivalence potential is determined by the extent to which the three assumptions above are presentrdquo In other words rather than untranslatability the focus of our discussion will be degrees of translatability the more a pun depends for its effect on the linguistic materiality of words the lower the degree of translatability and vice versa

In the Catalan-speaking domain Mallafregrave (1991) has reached similar conclu-sions although his approach to the problem is not as systematic as Rabadaacutenrsquos Mallafregrave like Rabadaacuten assumes that translating wordplay is an impossible task although he hastens to qualify and relativise that assumption His experience as translator of Joycersquos Ulysses (among other works) into Catalan has led him to the conclusion that not all instances of wordplay are equally untranslatable

It is at this point that the notion of the factor reveals its relevance and indeed its usefulness Puns or instances of wordplay in general will be more or less trans-latable depending on the factors impinging on their translation And they may also help us account for the use of translation techniques or clusters of techniques and thus enable us to move beyond description towards explanation

A review of the literature on wordplay translation yields the following list of factors to be borne in mind Empirical analysis will subsequently show to what extent they are actually relevant

1 Isomorphism which is closely connected with the degree of historical kinship or relatedness between the languages involved mdash the closer the languages the likelier it will be to find a potential equivalent (Rabadaacuten 1991 128ndash129 Delabastita 1996 135)

272 Josep Marco

2 Degree of cultural specificity of the elements making up the pun (Delabastita 1996 135ndash136 Lladoacute 2002 140) which may be represented as a cline going from shared extralinguistic reality to those referents which are peculiar to a given cultural community

3 Translator-related subjective factors mentioned by Weissbrod (1996 221) ldquotalent proficiency and willingness to spend time finding solutions to the problems that ariserdquo

4 ldquoObjective factorsrdquo or ldquoworking conditionsrdquo also identified by Weissbrod (1996 221) which must be distinguished from the characteristics of the brief proper (function of target text type of target reader etc)

5 Translation norms of the target system which according to Weissbrod (1996 221) are half-way between the subjective and the objective as they are shared by a group of individuals but are not totally objective

6 Textual genre (Manini 1996 173 although the term he uses is text-type the concept is the same) The translation of wordplay in a novel for instance can differ widely from the translation of wordplay in a play intended for perfor-mance

7 Target readership or ldquointended audiencerdquo also mentioned by Manini (1996 173) It is such an obvious factor in any translation act that it is not necessary to dwell upon it Suffice it to say that a pun may be essential in a translation intended for adult readers but irrelevant or even absurd in one addressed to children

8 Kind of linguistic structure played upon In this respect Delabastita claims that wordplay can exploit the following levels of structure (1996 130) phono-logical and graphological lexical (polysemy and idioms) morphological and syntactic Other authors have concentrated on particular kinds of wordplay pertaining to one of these levels of structure Thus Veisbergs (1997) deals with idiom-based puns Manini (1996) in his turn focuses on meaningful names ie those names whose relationship with the character they refer to is not ar-bitrary but motivated as they highlight one the characterrsquos physical or moral features Finally Leppihalme (1996 1997) concerns herself with the transla-tion of allusion Although the issue of allusion is larger than that of wordplay puns based on idioms or cultural items are a sub-group of allusions Therefore Leppihalmersquos work is relevant to my present object of study

9 Stylistic function or motivation (also referred to as semiotic value) It is virtu-ally impossible to draw an exhaustive list of all the possible stylistic functions that a pun may fulfil as the contexts in which puns occur and the intentions behind their use are manifold Zabalbeascoa (1996 244) claims that both the functions of humour (escapist entertainment social criticism pedagogical device moralising intention) and the mental state and attitude reflected by it (bitterness cynicism irony etc) can be manifold McKerras (1994) in his


turn considers that creating humour is just one possible function of word-play to which others must be added (1994 7) ldquoproviding linkage marking a climax evoking a hidden idea humor cleverness of writing style and poetic effectrdquo Lladoacute (2002 210) following in the footsteps of Guiraud (1953) sum-marises the functions of wordplay under five headings comedy parody irony knowledge and metatextuality Be that as it may there are two further aspects which must be considered in conjunction with the particular function accom-plished by an instance of wordplay its scope (whether it is local or global in the text) and the kind of relationship observed between wordplay and the structural elements that make up the fabric of the text (plot characters theme metaphorical patterns etc)

10 Relative frequency of wordplay Offord (1997 255) claims that ldquothe low fre-quency of occurrence of puns in the original plays seems to promote their more deliberate use by translatorsrdquo In other words the number of puns en-countered in the source text is in inverse proportion to the percentage of puns which are rendered as such in the target text This is of course a provisional hypothesis as the empirical basis of the study does not warrant any generalisa-tion of its conclusions

11 Type of wordplay Again Offord (1997 258) claims that vertical and horizon-tal puns are dealt with differently in his corpus ie they tend to be translated by means of different techniques This is again a hypothesis for the same rea-son as above

12 Domain(s) of experience or isotopy-ies (Greimas 1966) in which the in-stance of wordplay is embedded Alexieva (1997) working within a cogni-tive framework suggests that a pun is a clash not between two possible word meanings but between two domains of human experience or knowledge More relevantly to our purposes here she posits a direct link between the domains involved in an instance of wordplay and its rhetorical effect by claim-ing that a punrsquos comic effect rests upon the distance between the two domains involved and the way they are connected Lladoacute (2002) following in the tra-dition of semiotics uses the term lsquoisotopyrsquo instead of lsquodomainrsquo to refer to all semantic features pointing in the same semantic direction in a text These two terms obviously come from different fields of study but they may be regarded as quasi-synonyms for the purposes of our present study The argument is similar to Alexievarsquos above with slight terminological changes the greater the distance between the two (or more) isotopies activated by wordplay the more surprising the effect

274 Josep Marco

2 Aims and methodology

As stated at the beginning the present study aims to analyse wordplay translation on the basis of the three aspects considered in the previous section mdash wordplay ty-pology translation techniques and relevant factors More particularly I hope that my empirical analyses will enable me to answer two main questions

a what is the frequency distribution of pairs of ST + TT segments across the translation techniques identified

b is there any discernible correlation between translation techniques and factors influencing decision-making

As to the method employed it might be said to consist of the following steps

1 corpus selection2 identification and classification of puns both in the ST and in the TT3 identification and classification of translation techniques used and relevant

factors present for each pair of ST + TT segments4 quantitative analysis of techniques5 qualitative analysis of the correlation between techniques and factors6 drawing conclusions

Before going on to report on corpus analysis proper a few remarks are in order with regard to corpus selection Wordplay has often been regarded as a textual anomaly a consideration that can hardly have encouraged its use on a frequent or indeed systematic basis Therefore it is never easy to build a wordplay-rich corpus which is at the same time consistent and representative A remarkable instance of a wordplay-rich corpus showing a high degree of consistency is the one compiled by Lladoacute (2002) for instance who centres his study of wordplay translation on a num-ber of French-speaking novelists (Queneau Roussel Jarry and Perec) for whom wordplay in all its variety rather than a resource to be deployed locally in order to achieve a particular rhetorical effect is a structural device (Lladoacute 2002 15)

we want to state quite clearly that in the framework of this study we will only be concerned with such modes of manipulation as fulfil a central role in the literary form not as mere expressive resources but as broad segmental units permeat-ing the signifying and narrative structures Thus the resources and figures un-der scrutiny here embedded in the form of literary fiction ldquooriginate in a textual needrdquo to borrow Paul Zumthorrsquos words Equally excluded are those works which are only affected by wordplay in a fragmentary occasional and anecdotic way

However what is gained in consistency is lost in scope as the results of Lladoacutersquos study are only valid in the context of a particular genre (the novel) at a particular


time Therefore corpus selection for this study was guided by two complementary criteria

a the kind of structural relevance just described by Lladoacute Oscar Wildersquos The Pic-ture of Dorian Gray (PDG) and The Importance of Being Earnest (IBE) and Gra-ham Swiftrsquos Last Orders (LO) are far from sharing a common literary affiliation as the authors selected by Lladoacute may be claimed to do but wordplay does fulfil an important role in their development as will be seen in our analysis

b some degree of variety especially in terms of textual genre and target reader-ship so as to determine the relevance of these factors

Table 2 offers details of corpus composition both with regard to source texts and target texts This corpus cannot be regarded as representative of anything mdash a giv-en genre a particular period a way of understanding (and activating) creativity in literature etc mdash on the ground of its very obvious limited scope However it may be varied enough to contribute to an understanding of the correlation between translation solutions and factors at play

Table 2 Source and target texts making up the corpus used in the present study

Number Author Translator ST or TT title Public year

Genre Target audience

1 Oscar Wilde The Picture of Dorian Gray

1890 Novel General reading public

1 1 Oscar Wilde Jordi Larios

El retrat de Dorian Gray


1 2 Oscar Wilde Rafael Tasis



1 3 Oscar Wilde Caro-lina Q Knowles


1992 Novel Teenage reading public abridged version

2 Oscar Wilde The Importance of Be-ing Earnest

1895 Drama Theatre audience

2 1 Oscar Wilde Jaume Melendres

La importagravencia de ser Frank


2 2 Oscar Wilde Antoni V Peacuterez i Sancho

La importagravencia drsquoeacutesser serioacutes

1994 Drama General reading public

3 Graham Swift Last Orders 1996 Novel General reading public

3 1 Graham Swift Carme Geronegraves and Carles Urritz

Les uacuteltimes voluntats 1999 Novel General reading public

276 Josep Marco

3 Analysis of wordplay translation in the corpus

31 Techniques

The most sweeping generalisation that can be made with regard to the translation techniques employed in the corpus is that the translators tend to use techniques resulting in a negative punning balance ie techniques which imply loss in terms of punning activity with regard to the ST The corpus includes a total of 65 original puns which yield 104 translated segments across three translations of The Picture and two of The Importance The number of techniques employed though is still higher than that (110) as translators sometimes use two techniques in the same pair of segments (eg direct copy + editorial techniques direct copy + related rhe-torical device etc) Table 3 shows the frequency distribution of pairs of ST + TT segments across translation techniques

Table 3 Frequency distribution of pairs of ST + TT segments across translation tech-niques

Translation technique Absolute frequency ofoccurrence

Relative frequency of occurrence

pun rarr similar pun 29 2636

pun rarr different pun 6 546

pun rarr non-pun 30 2727

pun rarr related rhetorical device 4 364

pun rarr direct copy 16 1454

pun rarr Oslash (omission) 19 1727

editorial techniques 6 546

non-pun rarr pun 0 0

Oslash rarr pun 0 0

TOTAL 110 100

If this distribution is placed along the punning balance continuum as suggested in the previous section the result is Figure 2

The four techniques whose use yields a negative punning balance (ie pun rarr Oslash direct copy pun rarr non-pun and related rhetorical device) taken together account for 6272 of the cases whereas the two techniques implying a neutral punning balance (neither gain nor loss ie pun rarr similar pun and pun rarr different pun) cover 3182 of the occurrences There are no cases in the corpus of a positive punning balance as non-pun rarr pun and Oslash rarr pun are never employed Editorial


techniques have been left out of the count as well as out of the continuum because they do not affect the translated segment itself and never occur by themselves

The technique pun rarr similar pun is only possible when there is isomorphism If the linguistic structure on which wordplay operates is an idiom then isomor-phism involves availability in the target language of another idiom which is similar both in form and function to the ST one as in the following example2

(54) IBE Peacuterez i Sancho

Algernon (hellip) The amount of women in London who flirt with their own husbands is perfectly scandalous It looks so bad It is simply washing onersquos clean linen in public

Algernon (hellip) Eacutes drsquoescagravendol el munt de dones que a Londres galantegen amb els seus mateixos esposos Sembla tan de poca educacioacute Eacutes si fa no fa com rentar la roba neta en puacuteblic

(Back translation Itrsquos a scandal how many women in London flirt with their own husbands It seems so rude Itrsquos more or less like washing clean clothes in public)

The instance of wordplay just quoted rests upon the substitution of clean for dirty in the idiom to wash onersquos dirty linen in public As usual in Wilde this involves a reversal of the audiencersquos expectations as it is implied that the kind of linen to be

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

JP rarr Oslash pun rarr directcopy

pun rarr non-pun pun rarr relatedrhetorical device

pun rarr similarpun

pun rarr dierentpun

non-pun rarr pun Oslash rarr pun

Figure 2 Wordplay translation techniques and their frequency of occurrence along the punning balance continuum

278 Josep Marco

washed in public is dirty not clean linen The Catalan idiom manipulated in the target text is identical both in form and meaning However not all translators take advantage of the opportunity offered by isomorphism The following is a case in point as the result is pun rarr non-pun

(14) PDG Tasis Marca

Like all people who try to exhaust a subject he exhausted his listeners

Com tota la gent que vol treure el suc drsquoun tema comenccedilava per esgotar els oients

(Back translation Like all people who want to squeeze out all the juice in a subject he began by exhausting his listeners)

The Catalan verb esgotar (lsquoto exhaustrsquo) collocates both with tema (lsquosubjectrsquo) and oients (lsquolistenersrsquo) so a similar effect could have been easily achieved When the isomorphism condition does not apply one of the possible results is neutralisation (pun rarr non-pun) Sometimes this technique is chosen because of the intrinsic difficulty offered by the ST pun as in the following instance

(37) IBE Melendres

What between the duties expected of one during onersquos lifetime and the duties exacted from one after onersquos death land has ceased to be either a profit or a pleasure

Val meacutes fer inversions que ens puguin proporcionar beneficis mentre encara vivim que no pas invertir en terres pensant en els nostres hereus

(Back translation Itrsquos better to make investments that can give us benefits while we are still alive than to invest in land for the sake of our heirs)

The other possible technique for those cases where there is no isomorphism is direct copy which is particularly frequent when the ST pun is idiom-based It is a prototypical manifestation of what Leppihalme (1997) calls the least-amount-of-change approach as it ignores the presence of pre-formed linguistic material which is easily accessible for the ST reader but absolutely irretrievable for the tar-get reader This loss can be partly made up for by the insertion of additional infor-mation of course but additional information (ie editorial techniques) though avoiding incoherence and providing the reader with the key to comprehension denies them the pleasure of relating the two meanings of the pun with their own resources Here is an example


(7) PDG Larios

He was always late on principle his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time

Sempre feia tard per una quumlestioacute de principis i el principi era que la puntualitat eacutes el lladre del temps3

3 El refrany anglegravesmdashlaquoprocrastination is the thief of timeraquomdashassegura el contrari (N del T)

(Back translation He was always late as a matter of principle and the principle was that punctuality is the thief of time 3

3 The English proverb mdash ldquoprocrastination is the thief of timerdquo mdash claims the opposite (Translatorrsquos note) )

On the other hand it is worth noting that omission is relatively frequent in the corpus but not evenly distributed as most cases of omission are found in two par-ticular translations Leppihalme (1997) claims with regard to allusions that trans-lators only turn to omission as a last resort when all other roads to a satisfactory solution are blocked This tendency is confirmed by the translators themselves interviewed by the author for the purposes of her research and also by many of the data in my corpus which show that omission never takes place in fiction for adult readers and is strictly limited to fiction for children young adults and drama The most eloquent case is that of one of the three translations of The Picture of Dorian Gray published in a series of translations for teenagers in which 9 out of the 10 puns identified in the source text are plainly omitted in the target text This trans-lation is an abridged version of the original intended for educational use as wit-nessed by the fact that the translation is supplemented with teaching material and activities As regards The Importance of Being Earnest one of the two translations is intended for performance and omits 7 out of the 19 puns identified in the source text whereas the other is intended for reading and only shows 3 omissions What all this suggests is that translation techniques and more particularly omission are clearly sensitive to such factors as target readership and textual genre In order to formulate firmly grounded hypotheses in this respect we would need access to such important factors as the translatorsrsquo skills and attitudes towards the task in hand however it may be tentatively hypothesised that the translator of fiction for teenagers tends to omit those puns which they regard as too cognitively demand-ing for their readers and that translators for the stage are almost bound to sup-press those puns which cannot be adequately rendered or which seem irrelevant since the theatre unlike the printed page does not allow for editorial techniques

280 Josep Marco

The technique pun rarr related rhetorical device as we saw above implies us-ing some kind of rhetorical compensation for the loss of the pun proper mdash even though the borderline between the pun proper and such devices as rhyme or al-literation is far from clear-cut Even if it is placed on the negative side of the pun-ning balance continuum it may involve a relatively high degree of creativity on the translatorrsquos part Instances of this technique are found in Last Orders In the following example the translators render the ST alliteration through another al-literation in the TT and the ST rhyme through assonance Even though there is not even a remote equivalent in Catalan for Cockney rhyming slang the target text displays some musicality thanks to alliteration and assonance

(104) LO Geronegraves and Urritz

He said lsquoSmithfield Market love All meat and mouth all beef and grief (hellip)rsquo

Va dirndashEl mercat drsquoSmithfield bonica Tot carn i crits tot bou i dol

(Back translation He said ldquoSmithfield market beautiful All meat and shouts all ox and mourning)

Finally it must be stressed that the technique involving the highest degree of cre-ativity in the corpus (pun rarr different pun) only accounts for 546 of the cases The use of this technique demands an additional creative effort from translators as it implies the creation of a pun which is different from the original one but ca-pable of fitting effectively and coherently into the original context and co-text The choice of this creative technique may stem from the translatorrsquos perception of the functional relevance of a particular pun or of punning in general That might be the case of one of the translations of the pun on earnest Ernest in Wildersquos play as that pun apart from the very prominent fact that it features in the title itself makes an important contribution to the theme and to aspects of characterisation and plot

(32) IBE Melendres

Algernon You have always told me it was Ernest I have introduced you to every one as Ernest You answer to the name of Ernest You look as if your name was Ernest You are the most earnest-looking person I ever saw in my life

Algernon O sigui que no eres franc i ens has enganyat

(Back translation Algernon So yoursquore not frank and you have deceived us)

Even though the printed version has to (graphically) reflect one of the two possible meanings of the pun the text when orally delivered upon the stage would fulfil the


condition of playing on a personrsquos name (Frank) which may at the same time be interpreted as a common lexical item (franc) an adjective denoting some kind of personal quality which even if it is not the same as the one presented in the ST fits into the context created by the plot and the characters

But it is not always functional relevance on a global textual scale that condi-tions the translatorrsquos creative effort In the following example from Last Orders the punrsquos scope is local and even if it contributes a touch of humour to Lennyrsquos characterisation and to the (secondary) theme of the comparison between the army (where some of the characters served) and the navy (where only one of them served) such a contribution cannot be said to be central to the novel Even so the Catalan translators manage to create a parallel pun in the target text


Therersquos buds on the trees Sunlightrsquos trickling through the branchesLenny says lsquoWavy Navy Frigging frigatesrsquo

Als arbres hi ha brots La llum del sol es filtra entre les branquesEn Lenny diundashLrsquoArmada lrsquoha armada Quins sabates a les fragates

(Back translation There are sprouts on the trees Sunlight filters through the branches Lenny says ldquoThe Navy have really stirred things up now have really done it now Such thickheads on the frigatesrdquo)

32 Factors

Techniques and factors are inextricably intertwined as discussion of the above ex-amples has shown So far we have started from techniques and tried to relate them to underlying factors let us now look more systematically at those factors at work The most recurrent ones in my corpus are the following stylistic function kind of linguistic structure on which wordplay operates cultural specificity domain of experience and skopos (which would include textual genre and target readership) In what follows each of them will be considered in turn

An instance of wordplay is most significant when it is seen to contribute to the workrsquos plot characterisation or theme Puns often fulfil a characterising function In The Picture of Dorian Gray for instance most puns (and certainly the wittiest) are put in the mouth of Lord Henry the unconventional character who is used by Wilde to convey his social criticism Likewise in Last Orders Lenny is put forward as somebody who is fond of making provocative remarks and teasing people as shown in the following example

282 Josep Marco


Lenny knows she isnrsquot and Lenny knows Vince doesnrsquot like lsquogaragersquo Itrsquos lsquoshowroomrsquo these days It was Lenny who said one night in the Coach lsquoShowroom he calls it well we all know whatrsquos on showrsquo

En Lenny sap que no i en Lenny sap que a en Vince no li agrada aixograve de laquogaratgeraquo Avui dia sersquon diu laquoexposicioacuteraquo Va ser en Lenny qui ho va dir una nit allagrave al Carruatge laquoEn diuen exposicioacute i tots sabem quegrave srsquohi exposaraquo

(Back translation Lenny knows she isnrsquot and Lenny knows that Vince does not like that lsquogaragersquo stuff Nowadays itrsquos called lsquoexhibitionrsquo It was Lenny who said it one night there in the Coach ldquoThey call it exhibition and we all know what is exhibited thererdquo)

The innuendo here is that Vince has his own daughter ldquoon showrdquo at the ldquoshow-roomrdquo as a bait for customers The Catalan translators use the pun rarr similar pun technique by playing on ldquoexposicioacuterdquo ldquoexposar (lsquoexhibitionrsquo lsquoto exhibitrsquo) More nu-merous in the corpus are those examples in which wordplay links with a thematic concern of the work That was the case with ldquoearnestrdquo ldquoErnestrdquo in Wildersquos play as we saw above Another case in point is that of the vein of black humour running through Last Orders often conveyed through punning which perfectly suits the funereal errand which makes up the main part of the plot (the characters are on their way to Margate to scatter Jackrsquos ashes on the sea)


Lenny looks at me juggling with the box He says lsquoJack in a box eh Raysyrsquo

En Lenny mira com grapejo el pot Em diundashQue en Jack eacutes al pot eh Raysy

(Back translation Lenny looks at me fingering the pot He says to me ldquoJackrsquos in the pot eh Raysyrdquo)

The TT pun is similar to the ST one in some respects (both of them play with some kind of container) but different in others as the particular object referred to in English as jack-in-a-box is lost in the translation and the Catalan idiom ser al pot has implications (something or somebody is in our power it is safely stowed away there is no danger of its their running away) which are wholly absent from the original

As to the kind of linguistic structure on which wordplay operates it would be difficult to set forth a closed list Most (though not all) instances of wordplay can be located at the lexical level Sometimes they are based on pure homophony as in


(39) IBE Melendres

Miss Prism (hellip) I am not in favour of this modern mania for turning bad people into good people at a momentrsquos notice As a man sows so let him reapCecily But men donrsquot sew Miss Prism hellip And if they did I donrsquot see why they should be punished for it

Miss Prism (hellip) Jo no aprovo la mania moderna de voler convertir en bones les persones dolentes Cadascuacute ha de recollir els fruits que ha sembrat

(Back translation Miss Prism (hellip) I do not approve of the modern mania of wanting to turn bad people into good Each person must harvest the fruits they have sown)



Senyoreta Prism (hellip) No soacutec pas del parer drsquoaqueixa degraveria moderna de tornar bones dolentes persones en un tres i no res Que cadascuacute reculla allograve que ha sembrat

(Back translation Miss Prism (hellip) I do not agree with this modern obsession of turning bad people into good in no time Let each person harvest what they have sown)

This case was very demanding for the Catalan translators and both of them have omitted the pun on ldquosewrdquo ldquosowrdquo in their target texts Lack of fit across languages makes it particularly difficult to find a satisfactory solution especially in the first translation which is intended for the stage The second could have resorted to a footnote On other occasions lexically-based puns rely on polysemy not hom-onymy as in the following example

(37) IBE Melendres



284 Josep Marco



Lady Bracknell (hellip) What between the duties expected of one during onersquos lifetime and the duties exacted from one after onersquos death land has ceased to be either a profit or a pleasure

Lady Bracknell (hellip) Perquegrave entre els impostos que srsquoexigeixen drsquouna persona en vida i els que se nrsquoobtenen despreacutes de la seua mort la terra ha deixat de ser benefici o plaer

(Back translation (hellip) Because what between the taxes exacted from a living person and those levied after their death land has ceased to be a profit or a pleasure)

Both Catalan translators use the technique pun rarr non-punAnother vehicle for lexically-based puns is so-called portmanteau words

where two words blend to form a new unit which may have new connotations and may even be potentially ambiguous A case in point would be the following from Last Orders


And I always say it aint the motor by itself itrsquos the combination of man and motor itrsquos the intercombustion A motor aint nothing without a man to tweak its buttons And sometimes a man aint nothing without a motor I see that Motorvation I call it

I jo sempre dic que no eacutes el cotxe en si que eacutes la combinacioacute de lrsquohome i el cotxe la intercombustioacute Un cotxe no es res sense un home que li grapegi els botons I de vegades un home tampoc no eacutes res sense un cotxe aixograve ja ho veig Autoinanicioacute en dic jo

(Back translation And I always say that itrsquos not the car itself that it is the combination of man and car the intercombustion A car is nothing without a man that fingers its buttons And sometimes a man is nothing without a car either I see that Autostarvation I call it)

ldquoMotorvationrdquo could be interpreted as motor + motivation and that is perhaps the most obvious reading mdash in fact the Spanish translation of the novel reads ldquomotor-vacioacutenrdquo however the Catalan translation just reproduced allows for an alternative interpretation motor + starvation which it must be said makes perfect sense in context And finally the last possibility offered by the corpus within the purely lexical level is that of wordplay on a proper noun We saw above the instance in-volving ldquoearnestrdquo ldquoErnestrdquo here is another case from Last Orders again



Cockney Cockneys Cock Knees Why do men from London get stiff in the legs

El cockney els cockneys Cock (cigala) i knees (genolls) Per quegrave als homes de Londres sersquols endureixi lrsquoentrecuix

(Back translation Cockney cockneys Cock (cigala Catalan word for cock) and knees (genolls Catalan word for knees) Why do London menrsquos crotches harden)

In cases like this one of the additional constraints operating on the translation of the pun is that the proper noun cannot be altered which makes it necessary to introduce some kind of paraphrase either in the body of the text (as in the example just quoted) or in a footnote or to resort to direct copy an option which might easily bring in some degree of incoherence

Beyond the purely lexical level there is the kind of wordplay which is based on the manipulation of an idiom as in example (7) above or as in the following from The Picture of Dorian Gray

(1) PDG Larios

He was a hero to his valet who bullied him and a terror to most of his relations whom he bullied in turn

Era un heroi pel seu ajudant de cambra que el tenia subjugat i el terror de la majoria dels parents a qui ell tenia subjugats

(Back translation He was a hero for his valet who had subjugated him and a terror for most of his relations whom he had subjugated)



Era un heroi per al seu ajuda de cambra que lrsquoesclavitzava i el terror de la majoria dels seus parents els quals esclavitzava al seu torn

(Back translation He was a hero for his valet who had enslaved him and a terror for most of his relations whom he had enslaved in turn)

(21) PDG Quiacutelez Knowles


Oslash

Punning here revolves around the proverb No man is a hero to his valet and in-terestingly enough none of the three Catalan translators above has been able to

286 Josep Marco

render it as a pun in their target texts This kind of wordplay is relatively frequent in our corpus and it might be frequent in general as witnessed by the fact that several scholars have drawn attention to it (eg Leppihalme 1996 Veisbergs 1997) In the case of Wildersquos works it might be argued that its relationship with thematic content is close as idiom manipulation implies a reversal of the readerrsquos expecta-tions which is quite in accordance with the authorrsquos intention to criticise the moral assumptions of the society he lives in

Another relevant factor is cultural specificity This is a key factor as the more culturally specific a pun the more difficult it will be to translate it by means of a similar pun and therefore the more creative the translator will have to be to provide a satisfactory solution The corpus offers examples which differ widely in cultural specificity mdash they may even be placed at opposite ends of the cline Here is a couple of cases in point

(2) PDG Larios

ldquoWhy canrsquot these American women stay in their own country They are always telling us that it is the Paradise for womenrdquoldquoIt is That is the reason why like Eve they are so excessively anxious to get out of itrdquo said Lord Henry

mdashiquestPer quegrave no es poden quedar al seu paiacutes aquestes americanes Sempre ens estan dient que per les dones eacutes el paradiacutesmdashHo eacutes Eacutes per aixograve que com Eva tenen unes ganes excessives de sortir-nemdashva dir Lord Henrymdash

(Back translation ldquoWhy canrsquot they stay in their country these American women They are always telling us that for women itrsquos the paradiserdquo ldquoIt is That is why like Eve they are excessively anxious to get out of itrdquo said Lord Henry)



mdashPer quegrave aquestes dones americanes no es queden a casa seva Sempre ens estan dient que eacutes el paradiacutes de les donesmdashI eacutes aixiacute Aquesta eacutes la raoacute per la qual com Eva tenen tants desigs de sortir-nemdashdigueacute Lord Henrymdash

(Back translation ldquoWhy donrsquot these American women stay in their country They are always telling us that it is the paradise of womenrdquo ldquoAnd so it is That is the reason why like Eve they are so keen to get out of itrdquo)




Oslash


lsquoHave you ever wondered how he knows itrsquos his birthday Jack and Amy werenrsquot ever a witness were they They never got no certificate My Joan thinks Amy just picked March the third out the air April the first mightrsquove been a better bet mightnrsquot itrsquo

ndashNo has pensat mai com sap que eacutes el seu aniversari Eh que el Jack i lrsquoAmy no hi eren No ha tingut mai la partida de naixement La Joan diu que lrsquoAmy va triar el mes de marccedil a la babalagrave No trobes que hauria estat millor el primer drsquoabril

(Back translation ldquoHavenrsquot you ever wondered how he knows itrsquos his birthday Jack and Amy werenrsquot there were they He has never had the birthday certificate Joan says that Amy chose the month of March at random Donrsquot you think April the first would have been a better choicerdquo)

In (2) (12) and (22) the cultural item ldquoParadiserdquo together with the reference to Eve signals an isotopy we might say that is shared by both cultures in contact and therefore posits no translation problem The pun is retained in the first two translations but in spite of the very apparent cultural isomorphism it is omitted in the third This example offers a marked contrast to (70) where ldquoApril the firstrdquo is obviously not a random day In the target culture there is also a Foolsrsquo Day though it is not April 1 but even so the translators retain the date in their target text thus engaging in the direct copy technique

Domain of experience also features largely in the corpus as a factor condi-tioning translatability In fact the corpus abundantly illustrates the fact (noted for instance by Alexieva 1997 or Lladoacute 2002) that a punrsquos comic effect is in direct proportion to the distance separating the two domains or isotopies Most puns in Last Orders which pivot around sex are examples of experience domains which become associated in a predictable way as there are many objects situations etc in daily life which can be made to acquire sexual overtones if the right conditions apply Here is an example which needs little comment (the Catalan translation retains the essential elements of the ST pun)

288 Josep Marco


Jack said lsquoWell you should put that right Raysy Yoursquore the one for the horses You ought to tell old Bernie there to crack his whiprsquoVince said lsquoShe can crack my whip any dayrsquoJack said lsquoIrsquoll crack your head If Mandy donrsquotrsquo

En Jack va dirndashDoncs tu hi podries posar remei Raysy Els cavalls soacuten el teu fort Li hauries drsquoensenyar a fer petar el fuet a en BernieEn Vince va dirndashA mi ella mersquol pot fer petar qualsevol diaEn Jack va dirndashEl que et petareacute jo eacutes el cap Si no ho fa la Mandy

(Back translation Jack said ldquoWell you could put that right Raysy Horses are your strength You should teach Bernie how to crack a whiprdquo Vince said ldquoShe can crack my whip any dayrdquo Jack said ldquoWhat Irsquoll crack is your head If Mandy doesnrsquotrdquo)

By contrast the following pun from The Picture of Dorian Gray (which as usual is put in the mouth of witty Lord Henry) owes its comedy as well as its satirical power to the distance between the two domains involved which makes their as-sociation highly unlikely and challenging

(3) PDG Larios

ldquoI am told on excellent authority that her father keeps an American dry-goods storerdquo said Sir Thomas Burdon looking supercilious (hellip)ldquoDry goods What are American dry goodsrdquo asked the Duchess raising her large hands in wonder and accentuating the verbldquoAmerican novelsrdquo answered Lord Henry helping himself to some quail

mdashSeacute de molt bona font que el pare drsquoella teacute un magatzem de roba2mdashva dir Sir Thomas Burdon amb un aire desdenyoacutes (hellip)mdashUn magatzem de roba iquestQuegrave venen els americans en un lloc aixiacutemdashva preguntar la duquessa aixecant les mans grosses en un gest de sorpresa i recalcant el verbmdashNovelmiddotles americanesmdashva contestar Lord Henry servint-se una mica de guatlla

2 laquoan American dry-goods storeraquo a lrsquooriginal El dry (sec agraverid) de dry-goods origina la ironia posterior de Lord Henry en referir-se a les novelmiddotles americanes (N del T)


(Back translation ldquoI know on good authority that her father has a clothes storerdquo2 said Sir Thomas Burdon with a contemptuous attitude (hellip) ldquoA clothes store What do Americans have on sale in a place like thatrdquo asked the Duchess raising her large hands in surprise and emphasising the verb ldquoAmerican novelsrdquo answered Lord Henry helping himself to some quail

2 ldquoan American dry-goods storerdquo in the original The dry (sec agraverid paraphrase in Catalan) in dry-goods gives rise to Lord Henryrsquos subsequent irony when he mentions American novels (Translatorrsquos note) )



mdashMrsquohan dit de bona tinta que el pare drsquoella teacute un magatzem de novetats americanesmdashdigueacute sir Thomas Burdon mirant amb aires superiors (hellip)mdashNovetats Quegrave soacuten novetats americanesmdashdemanagrave la duquessa alccedilant esverada les seves enormes mans i accentuant el verbmdashNovelmiddotles americanesmdashdigueacute lord Henry servint-se una mica de perdiu

(Back translation ldquoI know on good authority that her father has a store where American novelties are soldrdquo said Sir Thomas Burdon with an air of superiority (hellip) ldquoNovelties What are American noveltiesrdquo asked the Duchess raising her huge hands in wonder and accentuating the verb ldquoAmerican novelsrdquo answered Lord Henry helping himself to some partridge)



Oslash

The domains of ldquodry goodsrdquo and ldquoliteraturerdquo are brought together through the idea of ldquodrynessrdquo which is absent from the figurative meaning of ldquodry goodsrdquo but

290 Josep Marco

becomes activated by virtue of its presence in the literal meaning of the expression Only the second Catalan translation manages to render the pun as a pun albeit a different one which plays on ldquonoveltyrdquo ldquonovelrdquo The first translation resorts to direct copy in the body of the text and insertion of a footnote to make up for it whereas the third translation just omits the pun as in so many other cases

As to the last factor mentioned above skopos we have already seen several examples of how translation solutions are sensitive to textual genre and target au-dience constraints In fact some particular techniques would just not be possible in certain environments (eg editorial techniques in translation for the stage) whereas others would not be advisable (eg puns requiring great processing effort in translations for children or teenagers)

Finally it must be said that the data yielded by my corpus fail to lend support to Offordrsquos claim reproduced above that vertical and horizontal puns tend to be translated by means of different techniques The frequency distribution of tech-niques across the two types of pun does not differ significantly except for omis-sion which is more frequently used for vertical than for horizontal puns These comparative data are shown in Table 4

Table 4 Frequency distribution of techniques for vertical and horizontal puns

Translationtechnique

Vertical puns Horizontal puns

Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency

Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency

pun rarr similar pun 13 2204 16 3137

pun rarr different pun 3 508 3 589

pun rarr non-pun 14 2373 16 3137

pun rarr related rhetorical device 2 339 2 392

pun rarr direct copy 9 1525 7 1373

pun rarr Oslash (omission) 14 2373 5 980

editorial techniques 4 678 2 392

non-pun rarr pun 0 0 0 0

Oslash rarr pun 0 0 0 0

TOTAL 59 100 51 100


4 Beyond description and explanation Assessing wordplay translation solutions

The main drive of this study as I hope has become obvious by now is descrip-tive and to a lesser extent explanatory The two main questions it has aimed to answer concern the frequency distribution of pairs of ST + TT segments across the translation techniques and the possible correlation between those techniques and the factors underlying or conditioning translation solutions The different translation techniques have all been placed on an equal footing as from a purely descriptive viewpoint there are no lsquogoodrsquo or lsquobadrsquo techniques but just techniques ie translation possibilities realised in actual practice and classified according to a number of categories However from a more evaluative perspective it cannot be said that all techniques are equally effective ie equally well suited to render the effect of the ST pun But before determining which techniques are better suited for that purpose we need to look more closely at the kinds of effects that puns may and do create

Several authors have remarked that recognising and satisfactorily interpreting a pun requires the readerrsquos imaginative involvement (Terrence Gordon 1986 146) and gives them pleasure (Toury 1997 Leppihalme 1997) thus creating a bond of solidarity between author and reader (Alexieva 1997) A second inherent effect is what Lladoacute (2002 32) calls ldquorelative subversion of the coderdquo Earlier on in his book we find what might be regarded as a possible paraphrase of this expression when he claims (2002 20) that instances of wordplay ldquothough not independent utter-ances are not fully embedded in the logic of the narrative sequence either They may be said to create perfectly integrated narrative discontinuitiesrdquo This is a happy formulation I think of the effect just mentioned What it ultimately amounts to is not wholly dissimilar from Jakobsonrsquos classic poetic function of language where-by a particular linguistic sequence calls attention to itself beyond its value in in-formative or referential terms In this respect it is interesting to note that Lladoacute (2002 50) after reporting Guiraudrsquos (1953) claim that ldquowordplay de-functionalis-es linguistic activityrdquo goes on to add that this author in an apparently incongruous fashion later reintroduces the notion of function and distinguishes between ludic and sub-ludic functions of wordplay Symptomatically the latter refer to ldquolanguage subversionrdquo ldquolinked to a breach in coherence and verbal logicrdquo (Lladoacute 2002 52) Another effect that is often associated with wordplay (and that we have seen illus-trated by the corpus especially when the factor of experience domain was being considered) is surprise Wordplay surprises the reader and the wider apart the two domains or isotopies are placed from each other the sharper the effect of sur-prise According to Lladoacute (2002 67) surprise results in pragmatic indeterminacy which (it might be added) certainly involves greater processing effort

292 Josep Marco

According to Freudean theory as interpreted by authors such as Todorov (1977) (see Lladoacute 2002 76 and ff) the roots of most of these effects must be sought in the unconscious ldquoIn this respect psychoanalytical theory seems to prove that the linguistic mechanism of wordplay is analogous to the mechanism of dream productionrdquo The analogy lies in the claim that ldquothe joke (jeu drsquoesprit) actualises unconscious material which is inhibitedrdquo The jokersquos return is based on the recogni-tion of something already known and is in direct proportion to the degree of varia-tion introduced We find delight in discovering similarities among dissimilar reali-ties and as suggested above the more dissimilar the realities brought together by the pun or joke the more pleasure will be derived This seems to be the ultimate source of the pleasure derived from wordplay

To sum up wordplay is just a kind of play and we humans delight in playing for reasons that appear to be deeply embedded in our psychology Now when a pun is translated as a pun ie by means of one of those techniques which imply a neutral or a positive balance the reader is enabled to engage in play and to de-rive pleasure from it On the other hand when techniques that imply a negative balance are used the reader is denied that possibility and the effect of the target text upon them differs widely from the one experienced by the ST reader Neu-tralisation offers a flat rendering of the original omission covers all textual traces of the pun direct copy does not do even that as it preserves some signals of the original punning activity but they are disfigured by their occurrence in a new set-ting Among the techniques involving a negative punning activity pun rarr related rhetorical device is the only one which does not lose sight altogether of the origi-nal playful spirit that delights in verbal play for its own sake over and above the functional role it may fulfil in the fictional world

5 Conclusions

In the first section of this study the relevant variables of the phenomenon of word-play (typology techniques factors) were identified and classifications or lists were provided for each one of them on the basis of the literature reviewed In the sec-ond section the aims and methods of the study were specified and the research questions which emerged were the following




Then in the third section the analytical framework set up in the first section was applied to a corpus of three literary works originally written in English and a num-ber of translations of these works into Catalan Analysis of this corpus yields the following conclusions

1 The translators tend to use techniques resulting in some degree of loss of pun-ning activity The four techniques whose use yields a negative punning balance (ie pun rarr Oslash direct copy pun rarr non-pun and related rhetorical device) taken together account for 6272 of cases whereas the two techniques im-plying a neutral punning balance (neither gain nor loss ie pun rarr similar pun and pun rarr different pun) cover 3182 of occurrences There are no cases in the corpus of a positive punning balance as non-pun rarr pun and Oslash rarr pun are never employed This is the answer to question a above

2 The most recurrent factors in the corpus are the following stylistic function kind of linguistic structure on which wordplay operates cultural specificity domain of experience and skopos (which includes textual genre and target readership) Apart from those degree of overlap (or isomorphism) between language systems is a permeating factor which conditions translation to a large extent

3 When there is isomorphism with regard to a given instance of wordplay pun rarr similar pun might be regarded as the default solution However it is not always adopted by translators and isomorphous conditions sometimes result in pun rarr non-pun

4 When there is no isomorphism omission (pun rarr Oslash) neutralisation (pun rarr non-pun) or direct copy may occur But translators can also choose more cre-ative techniques such as pun rarr related rhetorical device (which is still on the negative side of the punning balance) or pun rarr different pun (which is neutral with regard to punning balance)

5 Direct copy is often used with idiom-based puns and is often accompanied by a footnote

6 Omission is particularly sensitive to textual genre and target readership as it is almost exclusively used with drama translation for the stage and the abridged version of a fictional work for teenagers It is hardly ever used in fiction trans-lated for the general reading public

7 A high degree of cultural specificity makes it more difficult for the translator to render the pun as a pun ie by means of a technique involving a neutral punning balance

8 The distance between the two (or more) domains of experience at play in the pun is closely related to the effect of surprise the pun may have on the reader

Conclusions 3ndash8 answer question b above

294 Josep Marco

Finally the fourth section goes beyond description and explanation in that it tries to assess wordplay translation techniques in terms of their suitability as translation solutions Wordplay disrupts the narrative continuity of a text calls attention to itself and thus activates the poetic function of language it also takes the reader by surprise insofar as it brings together two apparently dissimilar realities (or isoto-pies) and the reader is therefore challenged to find the similarity between them pleasure being associated with the discovery Therefore wordplay translation tech-niques involving either a neutral or even a positive punning balance (by way of compensation perhaps) will be preferable to those entailing a negative balance as the latter will never afford the reader the possibility to engage in the discovery process and experience its rewarding effects

After all these considerations the question of the (un)translatability of word-play reveals itself as a banal one Translatability is a matter of degree and is inti-mately connected with a constellation of factors that must be identified and an-alysed in larger corpora if conclusions are to hold any general validity The present study has been but one small step in that direction

Notes

Research funds for this article have been provided by two research projects FFI2009ndash09544 funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation and P1middot1B2008ndash59 funded by the Caixa Castelloacute mdash Bancaixa Foundation within the framework of an agreement with the Uni-versitat Jaume I

1 Translations from languages other than English are my own

2 Each example is headed by an identification number indicating its position in the corpus the initials of the source text title and the translatorrsquos surname(s)

References

A Primary literature (works making up the corpus)Swift Graham 1996 Last Orders London PicadorSwift Graham 1999 Les uacuteltimes voluntats (translated by Carme Geronegraves and Carles Urritz)

Barcelona DestinoWilde Oscar 1966 (first published 1891) ldquoThe Picture of Dorian Grayrdquo Complete Works of

Oscar Wilde London and Glasgow Collins 17ndash167Wilde Oscar 2000 (translation first published 1930) El retrat de Dorian Gray (translated by

Rafael Tasis Marca) Barcelona Ediciones BProaWilde Oscar 1992 El retrat de Dorian Gray (translated and adapted by Carolina Quiacutelez

Knowles) Valencia Tres i Quatre


Wilde Oscar 1998 El retrat de Dorian Gray (translated by Jordi Larios) Barcelona Quaderns Crema

Wilde Oscar 1966 (first published 1895) ldquoThe Importance of Being Earnestrdquo Complete Works of Oscar Wilde London and Glasgow Collins 321ndash384

Wilde Oscar 1994 La importagravencia drsquoeacutesser serioacutes (translated by Antoni V Peacuterez i Sancho) Va-lencia Rotgle Edicions

Wilde Oscar 1998 La importagravencia de ser Frank (translated by Jaume Melendres) Barcelona Institut del Teatre

B Secondary literatureAlexieva Bistra 1997 ldquoThere Must Be Some System in This Madness Metaphor Polysemy and

Wordplay in a Cognitive Linguistics Frameworkrdquo Dirk Delabastita ed Traductio Essays on Punning and Translation Manchester and Namur St Jerome and Presses Universitaires de Namur 1997 137ndash154

Delabastita Dirk 1987 ldquoTranslating Puns Possibilities and Restraintsrdquo New Comparison 3 142ndash159

Delabastita Dirk 1994 ldquoFocus on the Pun Wordplay as a Special Problem in Translation Stud-iesrdquo Target 62 223ndash243

Delabastita Dirk 1996 ldquoIntroductionrdquo The Translator 22 127ndash139Delabastita Dirk 1997 ldquoIntroductionrdquo Dirk Delabastita ed Traductio Essays on Punning and

Translation Manchester and Namur St Jerome and Presses Universitaires de Namur 1997 1ndash22

Delabastita Dirk ed 1996 Wordplay and Translation Special issue of The Translator 22 Man-chester and Namur St Jerome and Faculteacutes Universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix

Delabastita Dirk ed 1997 Traductio Essays on Punning and Translation Manchester and Namur St Jerome and Presses Universitaires de Namur

Diacuteaz Peacuterez Javier Francisco 2008 ldquoWordplay in film titles Translating English puns into Span-ishrdquo Babel 541 36ndash58

Greimas AJ 1966 Seacutemantique structurale Paris Le SeuilGuiraud Pierre 1953 Index du vocabulaire du symbolisme Paris KlincksieckHurtado Albir Amparo 2001 Traduccioacuten y Traductologiacutea Introduccioacuten a la traductologiacutea Ma-

drid CaacutetedraKlitgaringrd Ida 2005 ldquoTaking the pun by the horns The translation of wordplay in James Joycersquos

Ulyssesrdquo Target 171 71ndash92Leech Geoffrey 1969 A Linguistic Guide to English Poetry London LongmanLeppihalme Ritva 1996 ldquoCaught in the Frame A Target-Culture Viewpoint on Allusive Word-

playrdquo The Translator 22 199ndash218Leppihalme Ritva 1997 Culture Bumps An Empirical Approach to the Translation of Allusions

Clevedon Multilingual MattersLladoacute Ramon 2002 La paraula revessa Estudi sobre la traduccioacute dels jocs de mots Bellaterra

Servei de Publicacions de la Universitat Autogravenoma de BarcelonaMallafregrave Joaquim 1991 Llengua de tribu i llengua de polis Barcelona Quaderns CremaManini Luca 1996 ldquoMeaningful Literary Names Their Forms and Functions and Their Trans-

lationrdquo The Translator 22 161ndash178Marco Josep 2004 ldquoLes tegravecniques de traduccioacute (dels referents culturals) retorn per a quedar-

nos-hirdquo Quaderns Revista de traduccioacute 11 129ndash149

296 Josep Marco

Marco Josep 2007 ldquoThe terminology of translation Epistemological conceptual and intercul-tural problems and their social consequencesrdquo Target 192 255ndash269

Mateo Martiacutenez-Bartolomeacute Marta 1995 La traduccioacuten del humor las comedias inglesas en es-pantildeol Oviedo Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Oviedo

McKerras Ross 1994 ldquoHow to Translate Wordplaysrdquo Notes on Translation 81 7ndash18Offord Malcolm 1997 ldquoMapping Shakespearersquos Puns in French Translationsrdquo Dirk Delabastita

ed Traductio Essays on Punning and Translation Manchester and Namur St Jerome and Presses Universitaires de Namur 1997 233ndash260

Rabadaacuten Aacutelvarez Rosa 1991 Equivalencia y traduccioacuten Leoacuten Universidad de LeoacutenTerrence Gordon W 1986 ldquoTranslating Word-Play French-English English- Frenchrdquo Babel

323 146ndash150Todorov Tzvetan 1977 Theacuteories du symbole Paris Le SeuilToury Gideon 1997 ldquoWhat Is It that Renders a Spoonerism (Un)translatablerdquo Dirk Delabas-

tita ed Traductio Essays on Punning and Translation Manchester and Namur St Jerome and Presses Universitaires de Namur 1997 271ndash291

Veisbergs Andrejs 1997 ldquoThe Contextual Use of Idioms Wordplay and Translationrdquo Dirk Delabastita ed Traductio Essays on Punning and Translation Manchester and Namur St Jerome and Presses Universitaires de Namur 1997 155ndash176

Weissbrod Rachel 1996 ldquo rsquoCuriouser and Curiouserrsquo Hebrew Translation of Wordplay in lsquoAl-icersquos Adventures in Wonderlandrsquo rdquo The Translator 22 219ndash234

Zabalbeascoa Patrick 1996 ldquoTranslating Jokes for Dubbed Television Situation Comediesrdquo The Translator 22 235ndash257

Zabalbeascoa Patrick 2004 ldquoTranslating non-segmental features of textual communication The case of metaphor within a binary-branch analysisrdquo Daniel Gile Gyde Hansen and Kirsten Malmkjaeligr eds Claims Changes and Challenges in Translation Studies Amsterdam and Philadelphia John Benjamins 2004 99ndash111

Reacutesumeacute

La preacutesente analyse est consacreacutee au jeu de mots mdash sur la base de trois aspects indiqueacutes dans notre titre typologie des jeux de mots techniques de traduction et facteurs pertinents Le cadre theacuteorique est eacuteclectique il renvoie principalement agrave Delabastita (1996 1997) et agrave Lladoacute (2002) Lrsquoanalyse empirique se fonde sur trois textes anglais et sur six traductions catalanes Les deux questions agrave reacutesoudre eacutetant la distribution des freacutequences dans des segments parallegraveles (Textes Source + Textes Cible) en termes de techniques de traduction puis la possible correacutelation entre les techniques de traduction et les facteurs orientant les prioriteacutes Lrsquoon peut observer que les tra-ductions tendent agrave recourir agrave des techniques qui impliquent une balance neacutegative dans la pointe crsquoest-agrave-dire qui impliquent dans une certaine mesure une perte de la pointe En outre certains facteurs identifieacutes dans la litteacuterature sur la question semblent aller de pair avec lrsquousage de cer-taines techniques de traduction particuliegraveres mdash Dans la section finale nous essayons drsquoaller au delagrave de la description comme de lrsquoexplication dans une tentative de deacutefinir les techniques du jeu de mots en traduction selon leur pertinence en tant que solutions de traduction


Authorrsquos address

Josep MarcoUniversitat Jaume IDept de Traduccioacute i ComunicacioacuteFacultat de Ciegravencies Humanes i SocialsAvgda Sos Baynat sn12071 CASTELLoacuteSpain

jmarcotradujies


relationship (eg procedure method shift strategy technique solution type) in this paper the term technique as defined by Hurtado (eg 2001 268) will be preferred As has been argued elsewhere (Zabalbeascoa 2004 Marco 2004 2007) classifica-tions of translation techniques for particular translation problems are better suited to accounting for the specifics of each problem than general typologies postulated as valid for any textual segment Finally the identification of the factors at work in the translation of wordplay will enable us to (tentatively) move towards explana-tion ie towards determining why certain techniques are preferred under certain circumstances Not all relevant factors are accessible through textual analysis as some of them are closely related to the translatorrsquos personality and skills or to the features of the translation brief and therefore could only be accessed via question-naires or interviews As a result of this limitation emphasis will be laid on textual factors deriving from the nature of wordplay

11 Definition and typology

Leech (1969 209) defines the pun as ldquoa foregrounded lexical ambiguity which may have its origin either in homonymy or polysemyrdquo But the pun is only one of the possible manifestations of wordplay as Leech himself makes abundantly clear in his account of ldquothe technical aspects of punning and related forms of word-playrdquo (1969 210) Thirty years later Delabastita provides a more thorough and more inclusive definition of wordplay (1996 128) it is a textual phenomenon it exploits structural features of the language(s) involved it is perceived as communicatively significant and it is based on more or less similar forms conveying more or less dif-ferent meanings The latter element ties in with homonymy and polysemy which were part of Leechrsquos definition But what Delabastitarsquos definition clearly shows is that wordplay draws not only on the paradigmatic axis which involves exploiting the language potential but also on the syntagmatic one insofar as it is a communi-catively relevant (ie functionally motivated) textual phenomenon These features even if they did not find their way into Leechrsquos definition above were visibly pres-ent in his discussion of the phenomenon of wordplay too

Delabastita (1996 128) uses two criteria to establish a typology of wordplay

a the type of formal similarity between the lexical units at play homonymy homophony homography and paronymy (the relationship operating between words having very similar though not identical sounds and spellings)

b the verticalhorizontal distinction Vertical puns are those in which the two (or more) meanings that can be activated are co-present in the same word or sequence whereas in horizontal puns the two (or more) meanings in question are distributed over two (or more) words or sequences

266 Josep Marco























268 Josep Marco

























270 Josep Marco
















wordplay (1991 128)


















272 Josep Marco














274 Josep Marco









































276 Josep Marco


31 Techniques













Oslash rarr pun 0 0

TOTAL 110 100











0

5

10

15

20

25

30



pun rarr similarpun

pun rarr dierentpun



278 Josep Marco







(37) IBE Melendres






(7) PDG Larios







280 Josep Marco







(32) IBE Melendres












32 Factors



282 Josep Marco













(39) IBE Melendres









(37) IBE Melendres



284 Josep Marco




















(1) PDG Larios










Oslash


286 Josep Marco



(2) PDG Larios











Oslash







288 Josep Marco






(3) PDG Larios













Oslash


290 Josep Marco







Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency

Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency










TOTAL 59 100 51 100





292 Josep Marco



5 Conclusions















294 Josep Marco



Notes




References




























296 Josep Marco












Reacutesumeacute





jmarcotradujies

266 Josep Marco























268 Josep Marco

























270 Josep Marco
















wordplay (1991 128)


















272 Josep Marco














274 Josep Marco









































276 Josep Marco


31 Techniques













Oslash rarr pun 0 0

TOTAL 110 100











0

5

10

15

20

25

30



pun rarr similarpun

pun rarr dierentpun



278 Josep Marco







(37) IBE Melendres






(7) PDG Larios







280 Josep Marco







(32) IBE Melendres












32 Factors



282 Josep Marco













(39) IBE Melendres









(37) IBE Melendres



284 Josep Marco




















(1) PDG Larios










Oslash


286 Josep Marco



(2) PDG Larios











Oslash







288 Josep Marco






(3) PDG Larios













Oslash


290 Josep Marco







Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency

Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency










TOTAL 59 100 51 100





292 Josep Marco



5 Conclusions















294 Josep Marco



Notes




References




























296 Josep Marco












Reacutesumeacute





jmarcotradujies









268 Josep Marco

























270 Josep Marco
















wordplay (1991 128)


















272 Josep Marco














274 Josep Marco









































276 Josep Marco


31 Techniques













Oslash rarr pun 0 0

TOTAL 110 100











0

5

10

15

20

25

30



pun rarr similarpun

pun rarr dierentpun



278 Josep Marco







(37) IBE Melendres






(7) PDG Larios







280 Josep Marco







(32) IBE Melendres












32 Factors



282 Josep Marco













(39) IBE Melendres









(37) IBE Melendres



284 Josep Marco




















(1) PDG Larios










Oslash


286 Josep Marco



(2) PDG Larios











Oslash







288 Josep Marco






(3) PDG Larios













Oslash


290 Josep Marco







Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency

Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency










TOTAL 59 100 51 100





292 Josep Marco



5 Conclusions















294 Josep Marco



Notes




References




























296 Josep Marco












Reacutesumeacute





jmarcotradujies












270 Josep Marco
















wordplay (1991 128)


















272 Josep Marco














274 Josep Marco









































276 Josep Marco


31 Techniques













Oslash rarr pun 0 0

TOTAL 110 100











0

5

10

15

20

25

30



pun rarr similarpun

pun rarr dierentpun



278 Josep Marco







(37) IBE Melendres






(7) PDG Larios







280 Josep Marco







(32) IBE Melendres












32 Factors



282 Josep Marco













(39) IBE Melendres









(37) IBE Melendres



284 Josep Marco




















(1) PDG Larios










Oslash


286 Josep Marco



(2) PDG Larios











Oslash







288 Josep Marco






(3) PDG Larios













Oslash


290 Josep Marco







Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency

Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency










TOTAL 59 100 51 100





292 Josep Marco



5 Conclusions















294 Josep Marco



Notes




References




























296 Josep Marco












Reacutesumeacute





jmarcotradujies










272 Josep Marco














274 Josep Marco









































276 Josep Marco


31 Techniques













Oslash rarr pun 0 0

TOTAL 110 100











0

5

10

15

20

25

30



pun rarr similarpun

pun rarr dierentpun



278 Josep Marco







(37) IBE Melendres






(7) PDG Larios







280 Josep Marco







(32) IBE Melendres












32 Factors



282 Josep Marco













(39) IBE Melendres









(37) IBE Melendres



284 Josep Marco




















(1) PDG Larios










Oslash


286 Josep Marco



(2) PDG Larios











Oslash







288 Josep Marco






(3) PDG Larios













Oslash


290 Josep Marco







Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency

Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency










TOTAL 59 100 51 100





292 Josep Marco



5 Conclusions















294 Josep Marco



Notes




References




























296 Josep Marco












Reacutesumeacute





jmarcotradujies






274 Josep Marco









































276 Josep Marco


31 Techniques













Oslash rarr pun 0 0

TOTAL 110 100











0

5

10

15

20

25

30



pun rarr similarpun

pun rarr dierentpun



278 Josep Marco







(37) IBE Melendres






(7) PDG Larios







280 Josep Marco







(32) IBE Melendres












32 Factors



282 Josep Marco













(39) IBE Melendres









(37) IBE Melendres



284 Josep Marco




















(1) PDG Larios










Oslash


286 Josep Marco



(2) PDG Larios











Oslash







288 Josep Marco






(3) PDG Larios













Oslash


290 Josep Marco







Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency

Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency










TOTAL 59 100 51 100





292 Josep Marco



5 Conclusions















294 Josep Marco



Notes




References




























296 Josep Marco












Reacutesumeacute





jmarcotradujies































276 Josep Marco


31 Techniques













Oslash rarr pun 0 0

TOTAL 110 100











0

5

10

15

20

25

30



pun rarr similarpun

pun rarr dierentpun



278 Josep Marco







(37) IBE Melendres






(7) PDG Larios







280 Josep Marco







(32) IBE Melendres












32 Factors



282 Josep Marco













(39) IBE Melendres









(37) IBE Melendres



284 Josep Marco




















(1) PDG Larios










Oslash


286 Josep Marco



(2) PDG Larios











Oslash







288 Josep Marco






(3) PDG Larios













Oslash


290 Josep Marco







Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency

Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency










TOTAL 59 100 51 100





292 Josep Marco



5 Conclusions















294 Josep Marco



Notes




References




























296 Josep Marco












Reacutesumeacute





jmarcotradujies









0

5

10

15

20

25

30



pun rarr similarpun

pun rarr dierentpun



278 Josep Marco







(37) IBE Melendres






(7) PDG Larios







280 Josep Marco







(32) IBE Melendres












32 Factors



282 Josep Marco













(39) IBE Melendres









(37) IBE Melendres



284 Josep Marco




















(1) PDG Larios










Oslash


286 Josep Marco



(2) PDG Larios











Oslash







288 Josep Marco






(3) PDG Larios













Oslash


290 Josep Marco







Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency

Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency










TOTAL 59 100 51 100





292 Josep Marco



5 Conclusions















294 Josep Marco



Notes




References




























296 Josep Marco












Reacutesumeacute





jmarcotradujies

278 Josep Marco







(37) IBE Melendres






(7) PDG Larios







280 Josep Marco







(32) IBE Melendres












32 Factors



282 Josep Marco













(39) IBE Melendres









(37) IBE Melendres



284 Josep Marco




















(1) PDG Larios










Oslash


286 Josep Marco



(2) PDG Larios











Oslash







288 Josep Marco






(3) PDG Larios













Oslash


290 Josep Marco







Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency

Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency










TOTAL 59 100 51 100





292 Josep Marco



5 Conclusions















294 Josep Marco



Notes




References




























296 Josep Marco












Reacutesumeacute





jmarcotradujies


(7) PDG Larios







280 Josep Marco







(32) IBE Melendres












32 Factors



282 Josep Marco













(39) IBE Melendres









(37) IBE Melendres



284 Josep Marco




















(1) PDG Larios










Oslash


286 Josep Marco



(2) PDG Larios











Oslash







288 Josep Marco






(3) PDG Larios













Oslash


290 Josep Marco







Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency

Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency










TOTAL 59 100 51 100





292 Josep Marco



5 Conclusions















294 Josep Marco



Notes




References




























296 Josep Marco












Reacutesumeacute





jmarcotradujies

280 Josep Marco







(32) IBE Melendres












32 Factors



282 Josep Marco













(39) IBE Melendres









(37) IBE Melendres



284 Josep Marco




















(1) PDG Larios










Oslash


286 Josep Marco



(2) PDG Larios











Oslash







288 Josep Marco






(3) PDG Larios













Oslash


290 Josep Marco







Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency

Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency










TOTAL 59 100 51 100





292 Josep Marco



5 Conclusions















294 Josep Marco



Notes




References




























296 Josep Marco












Reacutesumeacute





jmarcotradujies








32 Factors



282 Josep Marco













(39) IBE Melendres









(37) IBE Melendres



284 Josep Marco




















(1) PDG Larios










Oslash


286 Josep Marco



(2) PDG Larios











Oslash







288 Josep Marco






(3) PDG Larios













Oslash


290 Josep Marco







Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency

Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency










TOTAL 59 100 51 100





292 Josep Marco



5 Conclusions















294 Josep Marco



Notes




References




























296 Josep Marco












Reacutesumeacute





jmarcotradujies

282 Josep Marco













(39) IBE Melendres









(37) IBE Melendres



284 Josep Marco




















(1) PDG Larios










Oslash


286 Josep Marco



(2) PDG Larios











Oslash







288 Josep Marco






(3) PDG Larios













Oslash


290 Josep Marco







Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency

Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency










TOTAL 59 100 51 100





292 Josep Marco



5 Conclusions















294 Josep Marco



Notes




References




























296 Josep Marco












Reacutesumeacute





jmarcotradujies


(39) IBE Melendres









(37) IBE Melendres



284 Josep Marco




















(1) PDG Larios










Oslash


286 Josep Marco



(2) PDG Larios











Oslash







288 Josep Marco






(3) PDG Larios













Oslash


290 Josep Marco







Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency

Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency










TOTAL 59 100 51 100





292 Josep Marco



5 Conclusions















294 Josep Marco



Notes




References




























296 Josep Marco












Reacutesumeacute





jmarcotradujies

284 Josep Marco




















(1) PDG Larios










Oslash


286 Josep Marco



(2) PDG Larios











Oslash







288 Josep Marco






(3) PDG Larios













Oslash


290 Josep Marco







Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency

Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency










TOTAL 59 100 51 100





292 Josep Marco



5 Conclusions















294 Josep Marco



Notes




References




























296 Josep Marco












Reacutesumeacute





jmarcotradujies








(1) PDG Larios










Oslash


286 Josep Marco



(2) PDG Larios











Oslash







288 Josep Marco






(3) PDG Larios













Oslash


290 Josep Marco







Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency

Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency










TOTAL 59 100 51 100





292 Josep Marco



5 Conclusions















294 Josep Marco



Notes




References




























296 Josep Marco












Reacutesumeacute





jmarcotradujies

286 Josep Marco



(2) PDG Larios











Oslash







288 Josep Marco






(3) PDG Larios













Oslash


290 Josep Marco







Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency

Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency










TOTAL 59 100 51 100





292 Josep Marco



5 Conclusions















294 Josep Marco



Notes




References




























296 Josep Marco












Reacutesumeacute





jmarcotradujies




Oslash







288 Josep Marco






(3) PDG Larios













Oslash


290 Josep Marco







Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency

Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency










TOTAL 59 100 51 100





292 Josep Marco



5 Conclusions















294 Josep Marco



Notes




References




























296 Josep Marco












Reacutesumeacute





jmarcotradujies

288 Josep Marco






(3) PDG Larios













Oslash


290 Josep Marco







Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency

Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency










TOTAL 59 100 51 100





292 Josep Marco



5 Conclusions















294 Josep Marco



Notes




References




























296 Josep Marco












Reacutesumeacute





jmarcotradujies










Oslash


290 Josep Marco







Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency

Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency










TOTAL 59 100 51 100





292 Josep Marco



5 Conclusions















294 Josep Marco



Notes




References




























296 Josep Marco












Reacutesumeacute





jmarcotradujies

290 Josep Marco







Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency

Absolutefrequency

Relativefrequency










TOTAL 59 100 51 100





292 Josep Marco



5 Conclusions















294 Josep Marco



Notes




References




























296 Josep Marco












Reacutesumeacute





jmarcotradujies





292 Josep Marco



5 Conclusions















294 Josep Marco



Notes




References




























296 Josep Marco












Reacutesumeacute





jmarcotradujies












294 Josep Marco



Notes




References




























296 Josep Marco












Reacutesumeacute





jmarcotradujies























296 Josep Marco












Reacutesumeacute





jmarcotradujies




jmarcotradujies

the translation of wordplay in literary texts: typology, techniques and factors in a corpus of...

Documents

translation of wordplay

literary translation

phenomenon of wordplay

typology of wordplay

translation solutions

translation brief

nature of wordplay

classification of wordplay