On the (Un)Translatability of Puns

KATARZYNA ANDRZEJAK

Introduction

The word ‘pun’ is often an embodiment of translators’ nightmare. Based on ambiguity,

it poses a serious challenge to any translator who accepts it. Indeed, it is rather impossi-
ble to transfer a pun into Target Language (TL) with lexemes equivalent to those in the
Source Language (SL). More often than not, a pun is rendered untranslatable, at least as
far as faithful translation is concerned. Roman Jakobson, for instance, was convinced
about complete untranslatability of pun:

The pun, or to use a more erudite, and perhaps more precise term – paronomasia, reigns
over poetic art, and whether its rule is absolute or limited, poetry by definition is untrans-
latable. Only creative transposition is possible: either intralingual transposition – from
one poetic shape to another, or interlingual transposition – from one language into an-
other, or fully intersemiotic transposition – from one system of signs into another, e.g.,
from verbal art into music, dance, cinema, or painting. (Jakobson 1959: 238)

Yet, there are works that abound in jokes in form of puns that were translated and, what
is more, these translations were successful. Are then all puns untranslatable? Or, maybe
there exist those translatable and those impossible to translate? In the following paper,
the author will scrutinize the notion of (un)translatability, analyze puns as a form of
communication as well as ways and/or possibilities of translation of it.

The notion of (un)translatability

The notion of (un)translatability has been a topic for vivid discussion among translators
and translation theorists ever since the first translations have been produced. It has been
explored by scholars such as Sapir (1921), Benjamin (1923), Whorf (1956), Chomsky
(1976) or Düttmann (1994), each of whom developed their own theory on the topic. The
theories, in general, tended to fluctuate, as far as ‘favouring the side’ is concerned.
Sapir (1921: 237) asserted that there are two types of art: linguistic and non-
linguistic art. Language, according to the linguist, is a tool of an artist to produce litera-

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ture. According to his theory, one language can describe only one culture; one cannot
express one’s culture with other language than one’s native tongue. Thus, only non-
linguistic art can be translated, whereas linguistic art should be rendered untranslatable.
In his work of 1923, Benjamin presented an opposite view on the topic. He con-
tested Sapir’s theory on alleged hostility of languages with his own: that “[l]anguages
are not strangers to one another, but are, a priori and apart from all historical relation-
ships, interrelated in what they want to express” (Benjamin 1996: 17). The translatabil-
ity itself was for the linguist an integral feature of any text. Nevertheless, the possession
of this feature by a given work does not mean it would ever be successfully translated.
Whorf (1956), being Sapir’s student, followed and developed his teacher’s
premises. He supported a claim that a language is only a tool of expression. Moreover,
the linguist held a view that the language one speaks has a strong influence on the way
one thinks. The thoughts, then, have a direct impact on one’s experiences, directly con-
nected with one’s worldview. Learning new language means acquiring new worldview
(Osimo). Instant word-to-word translation is thus impossible. Certain thoughts in SLs,
however, seem to be able to be expressed in TLs.
The year 1955 brought major changes to the linguistic arena. Chomsky’s theory
of universal grammar had also significant influence on the perception of the notion of
translatability. In his view, Chomsky seemed to be in accord with Benjamin’s asser-
tions. Indeed, by postulating existence of elements common to all the languages, he
made it possible to assume the validity of the notion of translatability. Insofar as phrases
are conceived as deep structures in human’s mind, it is possible for all the natural lan-
guages to conceive the same structures, ergo it is possible to translate (Osimo).
From this year on, the support for untranslatability seemed to fade. In 1994,
Düttmann wrote: “nothing is untranslatable. (…) Translation always manages to incor-
porate the untranslatable into communication” (1994: 32). With this phrase he implied
the necessity, or rather tendency of translation to use any means available to express
content of original works in another language.

Translation of humour

Since the subject matter of this paper remains in direct relationship with humour, the
author feels obliged to introduce a short passage on this notion as well.

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 Humour is a vast notion indeed. There is an abundance of theories on the subject
and they cover different fields of science too. Among these psychology, philosophy,
sociology and linguistics are worth exploring.
Psychologically speaking, humour is an act of self-defence against a potentially
dangerous situation (Vandaele 2010: 148). How many times in our lives have we cov-
ered our nervousness with laughter in an uncomfortable situation? Or how often, in or-
der to avoid an argument have we turned an improper remark into a joke? There are
countless examples of such an application of humour.
Philosophers, in turn, emphasize that humour is typical for humans (Bergson
1977). This ensues from a fact that the comic effect is a result of logical thinking. Vari-
ous animals are apt to emit sounds similar to human laughter; none of these sounds,
however, is caused by logical thinking but constitutes an invitation for social play only
(Vandaele 2010: 147).
This assertion directly leads to the sociological aspect of humour. Indeed, hu-
mour is a phenomenon that joins individuals together. It is enough to compare an at-
mosphere during funeral and the one of a birthday party to comprehend this notion. This
atmosphere is in direct way connected to will of an individual to take part in any of the
events. An average individual will surely participate more willingly in a birthday party
rather than in a funeral, since the former connotes with play, laughter and humour. This
should suffice to prove existence of a sociological aspect of humour.
However, the main sphere of humour analysis, crucial for this paper, is linguis-
tics. Humour in this perspective is realisation of the three aforementioned points of view
on the notion. Verbal expression of humour allows its usage as a form of self-defence,
in a way proves humanity of an individual and permits individuals to unite. Humour is a
result of diverging from rules, not confirming a set-up expectation, it is a clash of two
frames of reference so different to each other that when they collide, they result in a
comic effect (Koestler 1974: 683).
In accordance with Chomsky’s theory, the possibility of verbal expression of
humour allows for its transfer to another natural language. However, humour is one of
areas of language that is most problematic to translate. This arises from the fact that
humoristic phrases are the most often rooted in culture of a given language. Indeed,
what is funny for a Pole may not amuse a Frenchman and vice versa. A specific, not

3
always generally understood sense of humour is the English one. Cultural differences
are a major problem for every translator as far as situational jokes are concerned.
It should be mentioned, that what causes the major problem in translating hu-
mour, is not the translation itself, but the comical part of it. Indeed, it is a challenge to
express a pun in another language in such a way that it is as funny in TL as it was in SL.
A literal translation of situational humour based on cultural notions may be dubbed un-
translatable, since it is impossible to impose perception of a situation that takes place in
one culture on a receiver from another.
The subject matter of this paper, however, is not situational, but verbal humour.
The major problem in translation of verbal humour is usually lack of a full equivalency
of SL lexemes in TL. The most prominent example of verbal humour which is the hard-
est to be translated is a pun. Its (un)translatability will be discussed in the next section.

The notion of pun

Following Düttmann’s assumption that everything is translatable, just will be to claim

that puns are as well. At this moment, it is worth to consider the aim and sense of trans-
lation. For what is translation? After all, it is not just a process of re-writing of words of
the Source Text (ST) in words of TL into the Target Text (TT). Translation is a trans-
mission of meaning, of sense, it is committing intentions of the author of the ST to pa-
per in which the TT is contained. As Benjamin notes, “[t]he task of the translator con-
sists in finding that intended effect [Intention] upon the language into which he is
translating which produces in it the echo of the original” (1996: 19-20). While translat-
ing a pun, it is crucial, then, to take into consideration the aim of the author of the ST
contained in using this form of communication. For what indeed is the aim of inventing
a pun? Is it only author’s will to show his writing abilities? Perhaps. More often, how-
ever, puns aim at amusing the receiver. Before this happens, a reader must notice the
pun, discover its double meaning and compare the meanings to each other to trigger the
comic effect. Thus, the real aim of producing a pun is to force the reader to logical
thinking, to solve the mini-riddle. It is this aim that should be the basic one for the trans-
lator who takes up the challenge of translating a pun.
After setting an aim and deciding to make an attempt to translate a pun, it is
worth to ‘meet the enemy’, that is to say, learn what actually a pun is.

4
 The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines pun as “the usually humorous use of a
word in such a way as to suggest two or more of its meanings or the meaning of another
word similar in sound”. This definition implies that a pun is a form of a wordplay, spe-
cifically based on ambiguity.
The majority of semanticists, such as Lyons (1990), Gomez (1996) or Murphy
(2010), distinguish two kinds of ambiguity: lexical and structural. Although the types
are named by different authors in different ways, the idea stays the same. Ullmann
(1962) additionally discerns the phonetic type, which is omitted in the works of later
linguists. Typically, lexical ambiguity occurs when a single word used in a given con-
text has more than one meaning. There are two types of lexical ambiguity in English:
polysemy and homonymy. Polysemy occurs when a lexeme can be ascribed more than
one meaning, homonymy – when two lexemes that have two different meanings have
the same spelling and pronunciation. It should be remembered that in homonymy one
can discern homography and homophony. The latter if the two is described by Ullmann
(1962: 156) as the phonetic type of ambiguity. Typically, two words are homophonic if
they are pronounced in the same way, while their spelling and meaning remain differ-
ent. While lexical ambiguity is based on words, structural ambiguity derives from struc-
ture. Indeed, this second type of ambiguity is based on a double reading of a sentence
because of its syntactic structure. Lyons refers to this type of ambiguity as a ‘grammati-
cal ambiguity’ and defines it in the following way: “[a] grammatically ambiguous sen-
tence is any sentence to which there is assigned (…) more than one structural analysis at
the grammatical level of analysis” (1990: 400).
It would be far too easy to assume that a double meaning of a word makes it a
pun. Delabastita (1997) discerns vertical and horizontal types of pun, which can also be
visible in puns. As Vandaele (2011: 180) explains, in vertical puns “various meanings
are activated by one form (token) on the communicative axis”, whereas in horizontal
puns “several identical or similar tokens appear in the chain of communication in order
to activate various meanings.” To put it more simply, the double meaning of horizontal
pun is visible instantly, while ambiguity of vertical pun can be resolved only in a spe-
cific context (Gumul 2005: 67-68).

5
Types of puns

The assumption that puns are rooted in ambiguity and the division of ambiguity into
categories allows a categorization of lexical jokes based on puns. In fact, Lew (1997)
presents a taxonomy of ambiguity-based jokes regarding the type of ambiguity they
involve. Below, the author presents his model partially, describing lexical, structural
and phonological jokes. The examples used are taken from the script of Monty Python’s
Flying Circus (MPFC) television show (Chapman et al. 2002).
Lexical jokes are those in which ambiguity derives from a single polysemous or
homonymic word. Consider joke (1):

(1) Boss: (…) Now, I’ve had the managing director of Conquistador to see me this
morning and he’s very unhappy with your campaign. Very unhappy. In fact, he’s
shot himself.
Frog: Badly, sir?
Boss: No, extremely well. (Chapman et al. vol. 2: 1)

Joke (1) is an example of a typical lexical joke. Ambiguity here derives from the
double meaning of the word badly. Firstly, the word is used here meaning ‘unfortu-
nately’ - Frog asks Boss whether wounds of the managing director are serious. Boss,
however, uses the second meaning of the lexeme, ‘poorly, imperfectly’, to ridicule his
charge, thus triggering the comic effect.
Just as in the case of lexical ambiguity, the comic effect of syntactic jokes is
achieved through the wrong reading of a meaning of an ambiguous item. This time,
however, it is not because the item is polysemous, but because its place in a sentence
gives at least two readings to the whole phrase. In order to better understand the mecha-
nism, let us analyse the following example.

(2) Mrs Jalin: There’s a man at the door with a moustache.

Mr Jalin: Tell him I’ve already got one. (Chapman et al. vol. 2: 124)

The ambiguous part in joke (2) is a phrase with a moustache. It can be under-
stood either as ‘there’s a man at the door with facial hair’ or ‘there is a man at the door
6
who is selling false moustache’. Mrs Jalin uses the phrase in its first meaning while in-
forming her husband about the present of a certain man at the door. Mr Jalin, quite per-
versely, makes use of the second interpretation. His answer uncovers the second mean-
ing to the reader and, at the same time, shows the humorous usage of the phrase.
As Lew (1997) puts it, phonological jokes are those “in which the ambiguous
fragment of a joke’s text might typically have non-identical phonetic forms for the two
interpretations.” In other words, phonological jokes might as well be dubbed homo-
phonic, as they are based on similar pronunciation, but different spelling of two items.

(3) Padget: Martin Curry, welcome. One of the big teeth… big points that the American
critics made about your latest film, ‘The Twelve Caesars’, was that it was on so all-
embracing a topic. What made you undertake so enormous a tusk… task?
We now see that his interviewee has two enormous front teeth. (Chapman et al. vol.
2: 7)

Example (3) is a pun insofar as it contains play on words and sounds. The basis
for the joke is homophony of the words tusk and task. Although their core sounds differ,
as tusk would be transcribed as /tʌsk/ and task as /ta:sk/, the comic effect is still gener-
ated. The stage directions indicate that the interviewee of Padget has two enormous
front teeth. Thus, the usage of the word tusk is a slip of the tongue caused by the inter-
viewee’s appearance. Padget corrects himself immediately and uses a proper word for
the context of the interview, he is not able, however, to stop the comic effect being trig-
gered.

Translation of puns

As has been mentioned before, puns are often assumed to be an embodiment of untrans-
latability. The reason for perception of pun as particularly hard to translate is the aniso-
morphism of natural languages (Gumul 2005: 68). Moreover, puns constitute a kind of
communication in which not only meaning, but also form matters (Vandaele 2010:
150). Yet, despite all the hardships constituted by this form of wordplay, translation of
pun is possible; the point is only to apply an appropriate technique.

7
 In his major work, Delabastita (1997) discusses a wide range of pun translation
techniques, six of which are of concern for this paper. These techniques are:
 PUN > PUN
 PUN > PUNOID
 PUN > NON-PUN
 PUN > ZERO
 NON-PUN > PUN
 ZERO > NON-PUN
Let us analyse the techniques in detail. The analysis of the author is based on Gumul
(2005: 70-71).
In the PUN > PUN technique the translator uses a pun as a TL equivalent for the
SL pun. The anisomorphism of languages, however, makes it impossible to translate a
pun literally, i.e. keeping both semantic and formal play on words. The output, there-
fore, consists of either one or another. Using the PUN > PUN technique, is practically
tantamount to inventing a new pun in TL. Such a practice is useful, since the most often
there are no lexical equivalents between SL and TL that would render successful PUN >
PUN translation possible. The usage of the same pun mechanism (i.e. polysemy, ho-
mophony, homography) from SL in TL is enough to label a given output a PUN > PUN
translation.
The second technique is called PUN > PUNOID. Punoid, a term invented by De-
labastita, means a pseudo-wordplay. As the name of the technique implies, the aim of
the translator is to express a recognized pun in terms of rhetorical devices other than
homonymy or polysemy, e.g. repetition, alliteration, rhyme or irony. The output will
thus constitute a wordplay, but not a pun.
Another way of translating puns is to translate ambiguous parts into unambigu-
ous ones, called PUN > NON-PUN. By becoming stylistically unmarked, the pun is no
longer a pun, but just an explicit phrase or word.
A more radical way of coping with pun translation is the omission of whole
fragment which contains a pun. Such a strategy is called PUN > ZERO and should be
avoided lest the translator deprives the comical text of its aim, which is to amuse the
target audience.
The forced usage of the two aforementioned techniques can be compensated by
making use of the last two: NON-PUN > PUN and ZERO > PUN. In both cases, a pun
8
in translation has nothing in common with the original text. The difference between the
two is that in the first technique a pun invented by a translator is based on an equivalent
of a lexeme from the prototext. The latter way of translation includes creating a pun
from nowhere, by means of addition of new material to the target text. Such a procedure
is often labelled as a general compensation (Gumul 2005: 71).

Conclusion

In sum, the axiom of untranslatability of pun was proved not valid. As has been shown
in the above analysis, even the alleged synonym of untranslatability can be translated. It
should be admitted, however, that pun is not translatable in hundred per cent of cases.
This is shown by existence of such techniques of pun translation as PUN > NON-PUN
and PUN > ZERO. Therefore, Düttmann’s claim that everything is translatable is not
just. Not every single pun can be translated. Defenders of full pun translatability may
emphasize that there are compensation techniques, such as NON-PUN > PUN or ZERO
> PUN. These techniques, however, may be used only in translation of longer text,
where there is more material for the translator to work on and therefore more environ-
ments for pun production may occur. Titles of articles, headlines, advertising slogans or
quips do not belong to this category.
It should be also noticed that the abovementioned techniques are useful only in
written translations. It is hard to imagine an simultaneous or consecutive translator put-
ting puns of his own invention into mouth of a person he is translating.
The translatability of puns is also relative as far as Asiatic languages are con-
cerned, where even one sign can represent a pun itself. This phenomenon, however, can
constitute a subject for a separate paper.

9
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