A translation-based heterolingual pun and translanguaging
ErikoSato
Stony Brook University
Abstract
This paper examines six English translations of the Japanese novel Botchan with a focus on a complex pun that pairs a multi-morphemic sentence-ending in the Matsuyama dialect with the name of a traditional Japanese food. One English translation renders it as a heterolingual SL-TL pun, which is made comprehensible for TT readers without using footnotes and without distorting the culture of the ST. The SL item in this pun is seamlessly integrated into the TT’s linguistic environment at the morpho-syntactic level and is provided with layers of scaffolding at varied linguistic levels which are naturally presented as if they are a part of textual message. This heterolingual pun is analyzed as a manifestation of translanguaging. The paper proposes a research methodology whereby translanguaging perspectives are applied to translation studies in order to explain varied heterolingual translation phenomena, including foreignization.
Culture-specific terms, regional dialects, and puns often present a challenge to translators especially when the source language (SL) and the target language (TL) are structurally and socioculturally very different. This paper examines six English translations of Botchan, a Japanese novel written by Sōseki Natsume in 1906, with a focus on a complex pun that pairs a multi-morphemic sentence-ending in the slow-paced wordy Matsuyama dialect in Japan and a name of a culture-specific Japanese dish. The English renderings of this complex pun are examined in terms of their linguistic structures, comprehensibility, and the quality of virtual intercultural communication. Then, the heterolingual SL-TL pun is further qualitatively analyzed from the perspective of translanguaging, a theory of bilinguals’ language use.
References
Baynham, Mike, and Tong-King Lee
2019Translation and Translanguaging. London: Routledge.
Cheung, Martha P. Y.
2014 “Translation as Intercultural Communication: Views from the Chinese Discourse on Translation.” In A Companion to Translation Studies, edited by Sandra Bermann and Catherine Porter, 179–190. Chichester: Wiley Blackwell.
1993There’s a Double Tongue: An Investigation into the Translation of Shakespeare’s Wordplay, with Special Reference to Hamlet. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Delabastita, Dirk
2001 “Aspects of Interlingual Ambiguity: Polyglot Punning.” In Quitte ou Double Sens: Articles sur l’ambiguïté offerts à Ronald Landheer, edited by Paul Bogaards, Johan Rooryck, and Paul J. Smith, 45–64. Amsterdam: Rodopi.
Delabastita, Dirk
2005 “Cross-Language Comedy in Shakespeare.” Humor 18 (2): 161–184.
Delabastita, Dirk
2018 “The Dynamics of Wordplay and the Modern Novel: A Paired Case Study.” In Cultures and Traditions of Wordplay and Wordplay Research (The Dynamics of Wordplay 6), edited by Esme Winter-Froemel and Verena Thaler, 47–73. Berlin: De Gruyter. https://www.degruyter.com/view/serial/455073.
Devy, Ganesh
1999 “Translation and Literary History: An Indian View.” In Post-Colonial Translation: Theory and Practice, edited by Susan Bassnett and Harish Trivedi, 182–188. London: Routledge.
Díaz-Pérez, Francisco Javier
2013 “The Translation of Wordplay from the Perspective of Relevance Theory: Translating Sexual Puns in Two Shakespearean Tragedies into Galician and Spanish.” Meta 58 (2): 279–302.
Díaz-Pérez, Francisco Javier
2014 “Relevance Theory and Translation: Translating Puns in Spanish Film Titles into English.” Journal of Pragmatics 70: 108–129.
Díaz-Pérez, Francisco Javier
2015 “From the Other Side of the Looking Glass: A Cognitive-Pragmatic Account of Translating Lewis Carroll.” In Yearbook of Corpus Linguistics and Pragmatics 2015: Current Approaches to Discourse and Translation Studies, edited by Jesús Romero-Trillo, 163–194. Heidelberg: Springer.
García, Ofelia, and Wei Li
2014Translanguaging: Language, Bilingualism and Education. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
García, Ofelia, and Angel Lin
2018 “English and Multilingualism: A Contested History.” In Routledge Handbook of English Language Studies, edited by Philip Seargeant, Ann Hewings, and Stephen Pihlaja, 77–92. London: Routledge.
Gutt, Ernst-August
1991Translation and Relevance: Cognition and Context. Oxford: Blackwell.
Lee, Tong King
2015 “Translanguaging and Visuality: Translingual Practices in Literary Art.” Applied Linguistics Review 6 (4): 441–465.
Li, Wei
2011 “Moment Analysis and Translanguaging Space: Discursive Construction of Identities by Multilingual Chinese Youth in Britain.” Journal of Pragmatics 43 (5): 1222–1235.
Li, Wei
2018 “Translanguaging as a Practical Theory of Language.” Applied Linguistics 39 (1): 9–30.
Li, Wei, and Hua Zhu
2019 “Tranßcripting: Playful Subversion with Chinese Characters.” International Journal of Multilingualism 16 (1): 145–161.
Meylaerts, Reine
2006 “Heterolingualism in/and Translation: How Legitimate Are the Other and His/Her Language? An Introduction.” Target 18 (1): 1–15.
(1968) 2013 Botchan [orig. Botchan]. Translated by Umeji Sasaki. Rutland, Vermont, and Tokyo: Tuttle Publishing.
Natsume, Sōseki
1972Botchan [orig. Botchan]. Translated by Alan Turney. Tokyo: Kodansha International.
Natsume, Sōseki
(2005) 2012 Botchan [orig. Botchan]. Translated by Joel Ralph Cohn. London: Penguin. First published in 2005 by Kodansha International.
Natsume, Sōseki
2009Botchan [orig. Botchan]. Translated by Matt Treyvaud. Richmond, IN: Ontko & Co. (Kindle Edition).
Natsume, Sōseki
2013Botchan [orig. Botchan]. Translated by Glenn Anderson. Long Island City, NY: One Peace Books.
Niranjana, Tejaswini
1992Siting Translation: History, Post-Structuralism, and the Colonial Context. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Pablé, Adrian
2005 “The Importance of Re-naming Ernest? Italian Translations of Oscar Wilde.” Target 17 (2): 297–326.
Sato, Eriko
2017 “Translanguaging in Translation: Evidence from Japanese Mimetics.” International Journal of Linguistics and Communication 5 (2): 11–26.
Sato, Eriko
2018 “Sociocultural Implications of the Japanese Multi-Scripts: Translanguaging in Translation.” In Writing Systems, Reading Processes and Cross-Linguistic Influence: Reflections from the Chinese, Japanese and Korean Languages, edited by Hye Pae, 313–332. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Sato, Eriko, and Aruna Sharma
2017 “Translanguaging in Translation: A Case Study of an English Translation of a Hindi Novel Godaan.” International Journal of Language and Literature 5 (2): 132–145.
Schweinberger, Martin
2015 “A Comparative Study of the Pragmatic Marker Like in Irish English and in South-Eastern Varieties of British English.” In Pragmatic Markers in Irish English, edited by Carolina P. Amador-Moreno, Kevin McCafferty, and Elaine Vaughan, 114–134. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Shakespeare, William
(1933) 1990 “Romio to Jurietto” [orig. Romeo and Juliet
]. In Za Shēkusupia [The Shakespeare]. Translated by Shōyō Tsubouchi. Tokyo: Dai San Shokan.
Sperber, Dan, and Deirdre Wilson
1986Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell.
Tymoczko, Maria
1999Translation in a Postcolonial Context. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing.
Venuti, Lawrence
1995The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation. London: Routledge.
Venuti, Lawrence
1998The Scandals of Translation: Towards an Ethics of Difference. London: Routledge.