MA in Translating and Interpreting

SML7001 Translation Studies

Essay

4. Find an English source text (½ to 1 page) that presents a lot

of challenges in terms of one of these areas: (1) culture-

specific content; (2) discourse; (3) semantics; (4) pragmatics.

Outline the major translation problems within your chosen

area, and discuss the most important processes and

techniques that used when trying to solve them.

Word-count: 950

24/01/2021

Translation and Interpreting

School of Modern Languages

 Dealing with Challenges in Culture-Specific Content

The source text, an excerpt from an expository article on BBC, is centered around
British humor, a concept that the world knows of but is difficult to define. Because
humor is deeply connected with culture. While explaining it, the writer used plenty of
culture-specific items, which poses challenges to translators. The target audience is
Mandarin-speaking mainland Chinese people. Therefore, the discussion on Cantonese
will not be included.

The major translation problems regarding the chosen area are put into four categories:
name of famous figures, TV show titles, Internet slangs, and idioms. This essay
discusses the challenges brought by the above problems and presents how the translator
tackles them.

Translation of the Name of Famous Figures

The author mentioned Shakespeare, Billy Connally, and Monty Python. The former two
is easy to deal with, because when translating English names into Chinese,
transliteration is the first technique to consider, especially when there is already a well-
accepted version in the target language (Kuang, 2002: 89). In mainland China,

Shakespeare is known as 莎士比亚(Sha Shi Bi Ya). However, it is not the case for

Billy Connally, since he is not as famous as Shakespeare. Initially, I translated his name

into 比 利 · 康 诺 利 (Bili Kangnuoli). But later I realized that this may cause

misunderstanding since most people have not heard of him. So, I edited it into 演员比

利 · 康 诺 利 (actor Billy Connally). Here, I applied amplification, a technique that

focuses on explicating the implied message in the ST (Setyaji et al., 2019: 250). The

last one is Monty Python. Initially, I rendered it into 喜剧团体蒙提·派森(comedy

group Monty Python), a combination of amplification and transliteration. But later as I

2
read it again, I found it hard to understand why the author has to mention this specific
group and talk about “surrealism” since I lacked background knowledge.

After doing further research and consulting an informant, I decided to put a footnote to
explain more about this group and their surreal style of comedy so that it will make
more sense in the context. Although doing so would compromise readers’ experience,
it is necessary in this context since this article’s purpose is to explain what British humor
is.

Translation of TV Show Titles

The author mentioned two TV shows, Gavin & Stacey and Derry Girls. There is an
existing translation for the later one. Therefore, the trouble remains on the former one.
The challenge posed by TV show title translation is that unlike other forms of
translation, these titles carry the burden of not only conveying messages but also

attracting audiences (Geng and Wei, 2016: 192). My initial translation was《加文与斯

黛西的日常生活》(the daily life of Gavin and Stacey). But after reading it again, it

reads redundant and boring. TV and film title translation should create a sense of
unfamiliarity to evoke the aesthetic feeling of the target audience since a touch of
defamiliarization can bring something new to the “aesthetic process” as argued by
Shklovsky (1998: 16 in Geng and Wei, 2016: 194). Finally, I adopted literal translation

and rendered it into《加文与斯黛西》(Gavin and Stacey) which is simpler and more

exotic than the first version.

Translation of Internet Slangs

When dealing with online slangs, translators have to consider the communicative
purpose of it and break the shackle of ST (Zhang, 2016:121). The author used LOL, an
acronym for laughing out loud and is often used in online conversations, to give the
3
article a humorous touch. Although more and more young Chinese people started using
LOL in their conversation online, it would cause some confusion if remain untranslated.

Because it also refers to the game League of Legend. Initially, I translated it into 哄堂

大 笑 (the whole room bursts into laughter). However, after reading it again, this

translation looks quite formal and does not create the same sense of humor as in the ST.

Eventually, I changed it into 哈哈大笑(burst into haha). 哈哈(haha), onomatopoeic

words of laughter in Chinese, is often used in the same online setting to express
happiness. Therefore, it is more suitable in this context.

Translation of Idioms

Idioms are among the most difficult words to translate because they are highly cultural-
specific but they are not untranslatable since sometimes translators can find equivalents
in TT (Baker, 2018:74). The idiom in this article is “cut the mustard”. In the beginning,
this phrase did not strike as an idiom. After translating it literally, it looked really out of
context. Then I looked it up and found that it is an idiom used to describe things that

are not as good as expected. Eventually, I rendered it into 切中要害(cut the vital part).

Although the meaning is slightly off, it makes sense when put into the context. Here, I
applied the theory of dynamic equivalence (Nida, 1964 in Munday, 2016: 68) and used
free translation. Because in the ST, the author is trying to say “such traits can summarize

British humor but they missed the mark”, which is quite similar to 并未切中要害(did

not cut the vital part). Therefore, the sense is retained although they are not equivalent
at the word level.

Conclusion

The above four aspects exemplify the challenges in the chosen area. The discussion on
each aspect can be more in-depth but due to the word-count limit, the writer is unable

4
to do so. However, he wishes to provide some insights on dealing with texts of the same
kind.

References

Baker, M. (2018). In Other Words: A Coursebook on Translation. 3rd ed. [ebook]

Milton: Taylor & Francis Group. Available at:
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ncl/reader.action?docID=5306316
[ Accessed 24 Jan. 2021].
Geng, R. and Wei, J. (2016). Application of the Concept of Defamiliarization in
Translation Studies: Case Studies of the Translation of Film Titles. Journal of
Language Teaching and Research, [online] Volume 7(1), p. 192-197. Available
at:
https://www.proquest.com/docview/1763480648/6E31CD82F2A4464FPQ/1?ac
countid=12753 [Accessed 24 Jan. 2021].
Kuang, XH. (2002). The Principles of Transliteration. Jiangxi Social Sciences,
[online] Volume 11, p. 89-90. Available at:
https://wenku.baidu.com/view/eebe64da6f1aff00bed51ea8.html [Accessed 24
Jan. 2021].
Munday, J. (2016). Introducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications. 4th
ed. [ebook] London: Routledge. Available at:
http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=1166164&
site=ehost-live [Accessed 24 Jan. 2021].
"mustard, n. and adj.". OED Online. September 2020. Oxford University Press.
Available at: https://www-oed-
com.libproxy.ncl.ac.uk/view/Entry/124240?isAdvanced=false&result=1&rskey
=3ZkXNC& [Accessed 24 Jan. 2021].
5
Setyaji, A., Tarjana, S.S., Nababan, M.R. and Wiratno, T. (2019). Translation Analysis
of Taxis in "The Old Man and the Sea" Novel (Systemic Functional Linguistics
Approach). Theory and Practice in Language Studies, [online] Volume 9(2), p.
245-254. Available at:
https://www.proquest.com/docview/2173485371/E3D7B26B4EB741F5PQ/2?a
ccountid=12753 [Accessed 24 Jan. 2021].
Zhang, LM. (2016). Study of Network Language. Journal of Zhengzhou University of
Aeronautics (Social Science Edition), [online] Volume 35(5), p. 121-124.
Available at: https://www.doc88.com/p-6901535244175.html?s=like&id=5
[Accessed 24 Jan. 2021].

6
Appendix

Source Text

Where does British humour come from?

From Shakespeare’s comedies to Billy Connolly’s command of an audience, Gavin &

Stacey’s taste of Welsh whimsy to Derry Girls’ earthy look at life in the 1990s, humour
has been central to the history of storytelling across the UK for a long time.

But where does our humour actually come from, and is it tied to a quintessential idea
of Britishness? We’ve asked one teacher of comedy to give us his thoughts.

Can we pin it down?

People all over the world laugh, but we don’t all find the same things funny. While
some gags might seem universally hilarious (slipping on a banana peel, anyone?),
humour normally depends on the cultural norms of a people, their history and shared
experiences, as well as what the mechanics of their language allow.

If you’ve ever tried to crack a joke based on a pun or a play on words to a non-native
English speaker, and the punchline was followed by deafening silence, you’ll know
what we mean. But is it possible to point to a map and know for sure what will cause
some LOLs over there?

Dr Ian Wilkie, a lecturer in performance at the University of Salford, explains: “Having

taught younger American students, they take the British sense of humour to be Monty
Python, by which they mean a sort-of slightly erring towards the surreal, very
iconoclastic in terms of attacking the big targets, very silly.”

However, he says that, while those traits can become shorthand for ‘the British sense
of humour’, he doesn’t think “that cuts the mustard.”

Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zfhpmfr

7
 Target Text

Informant: Jake Petrie, BA (Hons) Japanese, University of Leeds

E-mail: jake.s.petrie@gmail.com

英式幽默源自何处？

从莎士比亚笔下的喜剧到演员比利·康诺利（Billy Connolly）对观众的把控；从
电视剧《加文与斯黛西》（Gavin & Stacey）的威尔士风趣再到喜剧《德里女孩》
（Derry Girls）中展现的上世纪九十年代的风土人情，长期以来，幽默在英国一
直是叙述故事中不可或缺的一部分。

但这种幽默到底源自何处？它和所谓的英式特色之间又有何联系呢？我们就这
个问题采访了一名喜剧教师。

是否能准确地给它下个定义？

世界各地的人们都会开怀大笑，但人们的笑点不尽相同。虽然有些梗可能比较大
众化（比如踩了香蕉皮，滑倒了），但是幽默通常和一个国家的文化、历史和经
历相关。此外，它还和这个国家的语言相关。

如果你曾向非英语母语者讲双关笑话或文字笑话，那么你一定知道为什么幽默还
和语言相关了，因为讲到笑点的时候，听众往往一片沉寂。但有没有可能随便说
一个地名，然后就可以准确的知道什么能让这个地方的人哈哈大笑呢？

萨尔福德大学的表演教师伊恩·威尔基（Ian Wilkie）博士解释道：“我教过一些
年轻美国学生，他们认为英式幽默的代表就是喜剧团体蒙提·派森 1 （Monty
Python），有点超现实主义的味道，敢于批判传统，也挺荒唐的。”

1
又译巨蟒剧团、蒙提巨蟒，是英国六人喜剧团体，喜剧界的披头士。他们超现实主义的表演和影片充满了英式幽默和
自嘲。

8
然而，他说这些特点可以大致概括英式幽默，但“并未切中要害”。