Aspects of Humour Translation. Case Study: Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat (to Say Nothing of the Dog) and Three Men on the Bummel

Abstract

Humour has often been subject to investigation, since its versatile, obscure and complex nature has offered sufficient ground for deciphering, analysis, and debate. In spite of its being many scholars’ favoured research subject, there are still issues to be clarified, revisited and improved. Combining all the features and aspects of humour into a consistent definition through the centuries has turned out to be too difficult a task to accomplish, although many attempts have been made across time. Many classifications of humour have been advanced, but scholars have not successfully circumscribed it into one theory, being convinced that this is impossible because of its controversial and relative character. Yet, the gradual development of the humorous approaches has broadened the concept of humour to the status of “umbrella term” (Dynel, 2009: 1284) encompassing diverse forms, mechanisms, and perspectives. If one is to consider Virginia Woolf’s (2002) judgment that “humour is the first of the gifts to perish in a foreign tongue”, the idea is shared that it is only the genuinely talented translator who is able to convey the brightest shades of this multifaceted and multicoloured phenomenon. Given the complex nature of humour that is definitely culture-bound, socially determined, blurred, figuratively and expressively coloured, it becomes obvious how easily these elements may be lost or semantically distorted but for the translators’ skilful language manoeuvring. While in the past the complexity of humour was taken as an excuse for its untranslatability, now Translation Studies regards humour translation as an ambitious but attainable undertaking on condition that the translator will adjust the tenor of the translated discourse to the author’s which will later result in humour literary rebirth.