Translating irony into Arabic – who’s having the last laugh?

Author(s): Rashid Yahiaoui,Basema Alqumboz,Ashraf Fattah,Amer Al Adwan / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2019

Monsters Inc., an animated feature film produced by Pixar Animation Studios in 2001, received significant recognition worldwide. The film was nominated in 2002 for the ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards by the Box Office Films. Two dubbed versions of the film were later released with Arabic translations using Egyptian Vernacular, a spoken dialect, and Modern Standard Arabic, used primarily in formal, written communications. This study examines humor in translation and irony as humor which represents a common technique in “Pixar plotting”. The research investigates the strategies, types, and categories of irony as humor within the translations and the success of those translations at accurately transmitting the humorous meaning. Aimed towards exploring the problems of translating irony across languages and cultures, this research examines the shifts in translations between the two Arabic language versions, using an interdisciplinary theoretical approach encompassing humor studies, audiovisual translation studies, and descriptive translation studies. Furthermore, the research adopts Muecke’s (1978) classification of irony markers to categorize and identify the strategies used in translating irony as humor. The study finds that the two different versions of Arabic utilize similar strategies at certain times and divergent ones at others. They include explication, substitution, omission or addition, in translating irony as humor, with each strategy succeeding or failing at varied levels of meaning transmission. The research suggests that translators’ creativity, or lack thereof, and the language variant used are primarily responsible for the success or failure of transmitting irony as humor for dubbing into Arabic.

Book review

Author(s): Massih Zekavat / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2019

Breaking frame and frame-shifting in Bassem Youssef’s satirical TV show al-Bernāmeg

Author(s): Mohamed Mifdal / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2019

This paper reviews how humor is made in terms of three theoretical models. First, it draws onthe contribution of the structural semantics to the understanding of the text of the joke,especially the related notion of isotopy and the linear organization of the text of the joke.Second, this paper discusses humor in light of the Semantic Script Theory of Humor (SSTH),and the General Theory of Verbal Humor (GTVH). Third, this paper draws also on twopragmatic and discursive approaches, namely Grice’s cooperative principle, and Simpson’smodel of satire as a discourse. This paper argues that semantic incongruities and theirresolutions, as well as the violations of the cooperation principle can be best apprehended inlight of the frames theory as developed in social sciences by Erving Goffman and frameshiftingtheory as it has been developed by Seana Coulson. The aim of this paper is to revealthe mechanism used to produce humor and laughter in one of the most popular satirical showsin the Arab world, Bassem Youssef’s al-Bernāmeg. The focus is not only on what humor/satiredoes (ridicule, mockery, attack of targets, overstepping of boundaries…), but also on how itdoes it (violation of codes, breaking frames, frame-shifting, conceptual blending) and whythese discursive strategies are used (implications in light of historical and cultural context).This paper also argues that the generation of humor can be based broadly on breaking frames,which is inclusive of incongruity (both verbal and contextual), but studied in a multimodalcontent where incongruity is based on breaking and shattering frames that are constructed inverbal and visual forms. Humor generation is conducted through a continuous chain-likeprocess of building, shattering, and rebuilding frames. It also deals with the frame-shiftingand conceptual blending mechanisms at the level of interpretation and the construction of themeaning of humor. The aim is to account for the creative and flexible use of language forsatiric purposes and thus to enhance the ability of traditional frame-based systems, includingscript-opposition theory to account for such flexibility in light of context and with reference tobackground.

Individual differences in the way observers perceive humour styles

Author(s): Robyn Brown,Bruce Findlay,Jay K. Brinker / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2019

Humour has been conceptualised as styles, which vary based on their function(Martin et al. 2003). Research examining if and how observers perceive this intent islimited. The current study addresses this research gap by examining the perceptionsof Martin et al.’s (2003) four humour styles. Additionally and of particular interestwas whether self-defeating humour and another self-disparaging humour style,namely self-deprecating humour, were perceived as two independent humour styles.Despite being similar in content, self-deprecating humour is associated with higherself-esteem and self-defeating humour with lower self-esteem. Two hundred and fourstudents watched comedy clips and completed a survey online. Participants wereasked to categorise each video clip by humour style and to rate the self-esteem of thetarget (i.e. producer). Results revealed that humour styles are distinguishable byobservers with participants’ predominantly selecting one humour style over the othersfor each clip. In support of the second hypothesis, targets who were categorised asusing self-deprecating humour were perceived as having higher self-esteem thanthose categorised as using self-defeating humour, illustrating a distinction in theperception of these humour styles at an interpersonal level.

Lost in Warsaw:

Author(s): Monika Woźniak / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2019

In 1964, many decades before multilingual movies have become fashionable, a Polish director,Stanisław Lenartowicz, made a war comedy called “Giuseppe in Warsaw.” It narrates theadventures of an Italian soldier who on his way home from the Russian front during World War IIis stranded in Poland. Pseudo-language, translation, mistranslation, and mock translation figureconspicuously in the movie, which shows a series of clashes between Polish, German and Italianlanguages in the most improbable combinations. The original film used no subtitles, because thelinguistic chaos was pivotal to showing the absurdity of the war through the deforming lenses of thecomedy. This paper analyses various mechanisms of the multilingual humour in the original filmand in its subtitled version in Italian, in order to see how the dynamics of humour change in thecase of L3TT which becomes L2 in translation (Italian), especially when the point of the view of theaudience is subverted and the viewers identify with the protagonist rather than the Polishcharacters in the movie.

Multilingual humour in a polyglot multicultural author:

Author(s): Cristina Vezzaro,Katrien Lievois / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2019

This paper focuses primarily on the Dutch and Italian translations of Fouad Laroui’s works,in which the two central features of his writing, i.e. humour and multilingualism, are strictlyrelated. Laroui is a transcultural author fluent in French, English, Dutch, dialectal Arabicand classical Arabic, and his works reflect the different layers of experiences and languageshe has gathered during his life. Humour, on the other hand, is a way for him to present, in anaxiological opposition, different viewpoints that mostly cross cultures, nationalities andsocial hierarchies. Our analysis of Le Jour où Malika ne s’est pas mariée and Une annéechez les Français has allowed us to pinpoint the interaction between the two main features ofhis writing and examine the creation of puns by means of different languages or loanwords.We have then analysed the various strategies adopted by translators and commented theirdifferent solutions. Our analysis has allowed us to identify three different ways in which athird language (L3) in the source text – often connected to humour – is rendered in the targettext, i.e. (1) taken as it is, (2) distorted or adapted to the target language and (3) kept with anintertextual or paratextual element or replaced altogether.

Academic event report

Author(s): Kerry Mullan / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2019

Conversational humour in a Nigerian radio news programme:

Author(s): Blessing T. Inya,Onwu Inya / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2018

This paper investigates the Generic Structure Potential (GSP) of Lati inu aka aka Biodun/Kayode (LIABK), a Nigerian secondary gatekeeping radio news programme, with the aim of indicating the stages of the genre where conversational humour typically occurs, and then it analyses humour types in the data through the neo-Gricean concept of untruthfulness and pragmatic act theory. The data for the study constitute a ten hour audio recording of Lati inu aka aka Biodun/Kayode from two radio stations in Ekiti and Ondo States, South-Western Nigeria. The GSP of LIABK is constituted by five obligatory elements: Opening (O), Advertisement (A), Pre-news Presentation (PnP), News Presentation (NP) and Closing (C). The genre-based expectations for O, PnP and C, and then NP are to provide entertainment and information to the listeners respectively. Thus, humour typically occurs in the O, PnP, and C stages of the programme, and rarely occurs in NP. Four humour types are indicated: song-as-humour, absurdity, joint fantasising, and speaker-meaning-telic humour respectively. While song-as-humour resists being neatly categorised as autotelic humour, absurdity and joint fantasising are easily characterised as thus. The pragmatic act analysis reveals the incremental, sequential, and co-constructed nature of the humour types. Furthermore, the pragmemes of entertainment and offering of opinion by the news presenters constitute the affordances or genre-based expectations that constrain the social activities that constitute LIABK. The study contributes to the scholarship on secondary gatekeeping in Nigeria broadcast media, conversational humour, and pragmatics.

Sharing a laugh at others:

Author(s): Béatrice Priego-Valverde / Language(s): English Issue: 3/2018

The aim of this article is to clarify the fuzzy notion of “successful humour”. It focuses on humorous sequences in French face-to-face interactions which are both successful and have a same type of target: a collective “Other” (foreign culture, a French or foreign institution, a French or foreign socio-professional group). It will be shown that laughing about/at others (with all the aggressiveness this could imply) is not inconsistent with the necessary collaborative aspect of the conversation. On the contrary, the necessary collaboration between the participants will be highlighted through analysing humour in two different but complementary ways. Firstly, analysing humour through one specific target (the collective “Other”) will show that the participants rely on shared knowledge to display fictitious identities allowing them to construct humour. Secondly, a structural analysis of successful humorous sequences will deepen the notion of successful humour, highlighting two different structures: a two-part structure and a three-part structure. While the terms “successful humour” will be restricted to the former, the notion of “humorous convergence” will be proposed to refer to the latter. This study is based on 51 successful humorous sequences extracted from three face-to-face interactions audio- and video-recorded in an anechoic room at Aix-Marseille University, France.

Humour in online comments regarding Montenegro’s accession to NATO

Author(s): Milena Dževerdanović-Pejović / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2018

The empirical analysis in this paper deals with establishing humour examples based on script opposition patterns in online comments regarding Montenegro’s accession to NATO. It is established that the opposing scripts prevailing in the comments on political setting in Montenegro are heavily dependent on Montenegro’s turbulent history and dominant collective scripts such as pride and bravery. As online comments are an emerging genre, a reference to the influence of computer-mediated communication was also made, where pragmatic interpretation called for the help of critical discourse analysis. The results show that the script opposition parameters enable not only linguistic but also pragmatic revelations about Montenegrin people and their chief values or scripts. Script opposition examples within commenters’ standpoints are explained with reference to diachronic level and the modern values in Montenegro.

Humour of the intimate:

Author(s): Şenay Yavuz Görkem / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2018

This study focuses on the women policies of the Turkish government and the female humour that is created in response to these policies. A humour magazine is used as the main source since this specific magazine, which is named Bayan Yanı (The Seat Next to a Lady), has the privilege of being the only humour magazine created solely by female caricaturists and writers in Turkey. Six samples of female humour related to intimate matters are selected purposefully from 16 issues of this magazine published between January 2015 and June 2016 and analysed in content, tone, and function. The aim is to develop an understanding on female humour, especially the humour of the intimate, created to lead the public to question the effectiveness of political decisions and practices related to women policies.

Academic event report

Author(s): Anna Krasowska / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2018

Book review

Author(s): María Angeles Ruiz-Moneva / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2018

Does religion shape people’s sense of humour?

Author(s): Karl-Heinz Ott,Bernard Schweizer / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2018

Using an empirical approach, this study addresses the question whether followers of different religious beliefs (Christians, Muslims, and Hindus), as well as Atheists and Agnostics manifest different senses of humour when rating a variety of jokes. The study further investigates whether one’s religious background influences the threshold of what is considered offensive. And finally, it seeks to answer whether jokes targeting religions other than one’s own are always perceived as funnier. Analysing the results of a public survey (N=783) containing a blend of religious and non-religious jokes (including irreverent ones), we found that Hindus demonstrate overall the highest humour appreciation among all the groups, while Christians were the least amused by the jokes presented on the survey. Muslims had overall robust humour responses, despite reporting the highest incidence of being offended. Atheists were the least likely to be offended, and they generally enjoyed irreverent jokes. All groups agreed that if a joke was seen as offensive, its funniness was reduced.

“I get it, but it’s just not funny”:

Author(s): Adrian Hale / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2018

Failed humour can be explained by communicative gaps, at either the semantic or pragmatic levels, but sometimes, after all is ‘said and done’, people resist humour for purely discursive reasons. Some may recognise the divisive nature of a humorous text, and experience conflicting feelings. Others may welcome humour purely because of its appeal to ideology, while the text itself may not be considered as being very funny. Then there are people who ‘go along with the joke’ purely to avoid losing face. Political humour is a site of great power, where the stakes are high. For example, Donald Trump rejected Baldwin’s SNL parody, finding his ‘alter ego’ “unwatchable” and “not funny”. Other politicians, and members of the public, however, choose to respond to political humour in diverse ways. The reception of humour, therefore, is more complex than it appears. We might resist humour because of a deficiency in linguistic competence, but we might also resist humour because of literacy competence. This paper will theorise that there exists a ‘default setting’ in a person’s discourse, such that when encountering an instance of humour, we all employ a Discursive Defence Mechanism (DDM), and that there are ‘triggers’ which provoke this DDM.

Why are you amused:

Author(s): Qiaoyun Chen,Guiying Jiang / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2018

This paper looks at multimodal humour through the lens of prototype theory in the framework of conventional incongruity theory of humour, aiming for a unified linguistic and semiotic approach to humour. From this perspective, humour can be achieved through the following three aspects of linguistic and non-linguistic categories: 1) prototypicality versus nonprototypicality of category members; 2) the family resemblance shared by category members; 3) vague inter-categorical boundary. The cognitive mechanisms behind this type of multimodal humour and its comprehension are discussed. The intermodal relationships involved are examined and categorised into two major types: complementary and noncomplementary ones.

Investigating the potential of humour in EFL classrooms:

Author(s): Talip Gonulal / Language(s): English Issue: 1/2018

Studies on humour have indicated that humour has a lot to offer to both language teachers and learners. Creating a positive classroom environment and lowering affective barriers to language learning are among the several effects of humour. However, the appreciation of humour can be culture-specific and context-dependent. For example, greater values may lie in the employment of humour in English as a foreign language (EFL) settings such as Turkey where the communicative-oriented teaching methods are still in their infancy stage. The current study, therefore, examined the potentials of humour from Turkish EFL learners’ perspective to elicit their opinions regarding the importance and potent roles of humour in EFL classrooms. In this attitudinal study, a mixed-methods design was used. A comprehensive humour perception questionnaire and semi-structured interviews were employed. Two hundred and fifty college EFL students completed the humour survey and eight of them participated in the follow-up interviews. The results indicated that Turkish college-level EFL students have largely positive attitudes towards using humour in English classrooms. Additionally, students considered humour as an effective pedagogical tool that can increase their attentiveness, attention span, confidence in English classrooms, and teacher-student solidarity, as well.

Билингвистическое пространство образования как ресурс развития творческих способностей и социально-психологической адаптации детей с нарушением слуха

Author(s): Olga Yuryevna Piskun,Inessa Solomonovna Baskina,Valentina Anatolyevna Petrochenko,Elena Dmitrievna Shtatnyh,Ruben Oganesovich Agavelyan / Language(s): Russian Issue: 2/2021

Introduction. The article addresses the problem of bilingualism of deaf children in the educational process with the main focus on enhancing their creative abilities and socio-psychological adjustment. The purpose of the research is to study and describe the resource for the development of creative abilities and socio-psychological adaptation of children with hearing impairment. Materials and Methods. In this paper the authors provide a review of Russian and international studies into the role of bilingualism in deaf education. The evaluation of creative abilities and socialization of children with hearing impairment was conducted using the following projective methods: ‘Measurement of creative thinking’ (E. Torrance’s Incomplete figure test), N. V. Shaidurova’s measurement of older preschoolers’ creativity, ‘A picture of the family’ by T. G. Khomentauskas (adaptated by O. Y. Piskun and R. O. Agavelyan) as well as sets of survey methods including M. A. Panfilova’s “Sociometric questionnaire for children” and V. V. Tkacheva’s “Questionnaire for parents”. The sample consisted of 16 senior preschool age deaf children and their parents (n = 16). Results. Results. The authors identify the features of the development of creative abilities in children with hearing impairment: a slow formation of verbal speech, role-play interaction, and abstract thinking. The study reveals low socio-psychological adaptation, high parental deprivation and anxiety. In some cases, children are deprived of constructive interaction with their parents. It is emphasized that bilingual learning environment can be considered as a tool of deaf children’s social adjustment. The relevant learning environment can be created within the center of development and psychological and educational support for individuals with special education needs. Competent professionals (including those with disabilities) who use Russian sign language are motivated to communicate with deaf children and their parents for subsequent successful social integration and adjustment. Conclusions. The study concludes that within a personality-centered paradigm of a bilingual educational environment for creative development of children with hearing impairment and their socio-psychological adjustment, the leading factor is the bilingual approach to creating the center for psychological and educational support for families with the main focus on constructive interaction with deaf children.

Editorial: laughter and humour in communication

Author(s): Sergey Troitskiy,Aleksandr Lavrentev,Alyona Ivanova,Liisi Laineste / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2021

The editorial article for the special issue of EJHR “Laughter and Humour in Communication” provides an overview of all the presented articles and highlightsthe general idea of the issue.

Editorial:

Author(s): KSENIA M. SHILIKHINA / Language(s): English Issue: 2/2017