A relevance-theoretic account of translating jokes with sexual innuendos in Modern Family into
Spanish
The main purpose of this paper is to analyse jokes containing sexual innuendos in ambiguous utterances from the first two
seasons of Modern Family and their translation into Spanish using relevance theory. More often than not, the ambiguity and
sexual innuendos are also reflected in the Spanish versions analysed. Hence, in all those cases, in relevance-theoretical terms, the
cognitive effects intended in the source text (ST), including humorous ones, will also be accessible to target text (TT) viewers. It,
therefore, follows that the pragmatic scenario is preserved in the TT, sometimes at the expense of a sacrifice in the semantic scenario. In
audio-visual texts, ambiguity may also impact the visual channel. Although in some cases the visual component may render the translator’s
task difficult, in others it may act as an aid to both the translator and TT viewer, contributing to the yielding of humorous effects.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Relevance theory, humour and translation
- 3.Description of the corpus: Modern Family
- 4.Ambiguity in the verbal component
- 4.1Language-based jokes
- 4.2Language-based and culture-based jokes
- 5.Ambiguity in the visual component
- 5.1The polysemiotic nature of audiovisual texts
- 5.2Visual channel as an aid to the translator
- 5.3Visual channel as a challenge to the translator
- 6.Concluding remarks
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
References
References (45)
References
Allan, Keith and Burridge, Kate. 2006. Forbidden Words: Taboo and the Censoring of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Attardo, Salvatore. 2018. “Universals in Puns and Humorous Wordplay.” In Cultures and Traditions of Wordplay and Wordplay Research, ed. by Esme Winter-Froemel, and Verena Thaler, 89–110. Berlin & Boston: De Gruyter.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Blake, Barry J. 2007. Playing with Words: Humour in the English Language. London: Equinox.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Carston, Robyn. 2002a. Thoughts and Utterances. Oxford: Blackwell. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Carston, Robyn. 2002b. “Linguistic Meaning, Communicated Meaning and Cogntive Pragmatics.” Mind & Language 171: 127–148. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Chaume, Frederic. 2012. Audiovisual Translation: Dubbing. Manchester: St. Jerome.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Chiaro, Delia. 1992. The Language of Jokes. Analysing Verbal Play. London & New York: Routledge. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Chiaro, Delia. 2008. “Verbally Expressed Humour and Translation.” In Primer of Humour Research, ed. by Viktor Raskin, 569–608. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Davies, Christie. 1998. Jokes and Their Relation to Society. Berlin & New York: Walter de Gruyter. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Delabastita, Dirk. 1993. There’s a Double Tongue. Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Delabastita, Dirk. 1997. “Introduction.” In Traductio. Essays on Punning and Translation, ed. by Dirk Delabastita, 1–22. Manchester: St. Jerome.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Díaz Cintas, Jorge, and Remael, Aline. 2014. Audiovisual Translation: Subtitling, 2nd ed. London and New York: Routledge. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Díaz-Pérez, Francisco Javier. 2014. “Relevance Theory and Translation: Translating Puns in Spanish Film Titles into English.” Journal of Pragmatics 701: 108–129. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
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, ed. by Jesús Romero-Trillo, 163–194. Heidelberg: Springer. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Díaz-Pérez, Francisco Javier. 2017. “The Translation of Humour Based on Culture-Bound Terms in Modern Family. A Cognitive-Pragmatic Approach.” In Monografías de Traducción e Interpretación 9. The Translation of Humour/La traducción del humor, ed. by Juan José Martínez Sierra, and Patrick Zabalbeascoa Terran, 49–75. Alicante: Universidad d’Alacant, Universidad de Valencia, Universidad Jaume I.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Díaz-Pérez, Francisco Javier. 2018. “Translation Problems in the Translation of Two Film Versions of Alice in Wonderland into Spanish. A Cognitive-Pragmatic Approach.” In On the Verge between Language and Translation, ed. by Marcin Walczynski, Piotr Czajka, and Michał Szawerna, 161–189. Berlin: Peter Lang.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Franco Aixelá, Javier. 1996. “Culture-Specific Items in Translation.” In Translation, Power, Subversion, ed. by Román Álvarez, and M. Carmen Africa Vidal, 52–78. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Gottlieb, Henrik. 1997. Subtitles, Translation and Idioms. Copenhaguen: Centre for Translation Studies, University of Copenhaguen.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Gutt, Ernst-August. 1998. “Pragmatic Aspects of Translation: Some Relevance-Theory Observations.” In The Pragmatics of Translation, ed. by Leo Hickey, 41–53. Clevedon, etc.: Multilingual Matters.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Gutt, Ernst-August. 2000. Translation and Relevance: Cognition and Context, 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Gutt, Ernst-August. 2004. “Challenges of Metarepresentation to Translation Competence.” In Translationskompetenz: Proceedings of LICTRA 2001: VII. Leipziger Internationale Konferenz zu Grundfragen der Translatologie, ed. by Eberhard Fleischmann, Peter A. Schmitt, and Gerd Wotjak, 77–89. Tübingen: Stauffenburg.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Gutt, Ernst-August. A. 2005. “On the Significance of the Cognitive Core of Translation.” The Translator 11 (1): 25–49. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Gutt, Ernst-August. 2010. “Relevance and Translation: On the Value of a Good Theoretical Foundation of Translation.” In In the Mind and across Minds: A Relevance-Theoretic Perspective on Communication and Translation, ed. by Ewa Walaszewska, Marta Kisielewska-Krysiuk, and Agnieszka Piskorska, 267–282. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Haywood, Louise, Michael Thomson, and Sandor Hervey. 2009. Thinking Spanish Translation. A Course Translation Method: Spanish to English. 2nd ed. London & New York: Routledge.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Jaki, Sylvia. 2016. “
Sie haben feuchte Nüsse ‒ The Translation of Verbal Humour in German Subtitles of US American Sitcoms.” In Crossing Languages to Play with Words, ed. by Sebastian Knospe, Alexander Onysko, and Maik Goth, 357–378. Berlin & Boston: De Gruyter.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Juckel, Jennifer, Steven Bellman, and Duane Varan. 2016. “A Humor Typology to Identify Humor Styles Used in Sitcoms.” Humor 29 (4): 583–603. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Karamitroglou, Fotios. 1998. “A Proposed Set of Subtitling Standard in Europe”. Translation Journal 2 (2). [available at [URL]]
Martínez Sierra, Juan José. 2008. Humor y traducción. Los Simpson cruzan la frontera. Castelló: Universitat Jaume I.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Martínez Sierra, Juan José. 2009. “El papel del elemento visual en la traducción del humor en textos audiovisuales: ¿un problema o una ayuda?” TRANS. Revista de Traductología 131: 139–148.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Martínez Sierra, Juan José. 2010. “Using Relevance as a Tool for the Analysis of the Translation of Humor in Audiovisual Texts.” In Los caminos de la lengua. Estudios en homenaje a Enrique Alcaraz Varó, ed. by José Luis Cifuentes, Adelina Gómez, Antonio Lillo, José Mateo, and Francisco Yus, 189–209. Alicante: Universidad de Alicante.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Padilla Cruz, Manuel. 2015. “On the Role of Vigilance in the Interpretation of Puns.” Humor 28 (3): 469–490.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Ross, Alisson. 1998. The Language of Humour. London and New York: Routledge.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Sperber, Dan and Deirdre Wilson. 1986. Relevance. Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Sperber, Dan and Deirdre Wilson. 1995. Relevance. Communication and Cognition. 2nd edition. Oxford: Blackwell.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Venuti, Lawrence. 1995. The Translator’s Invisibility. London & New York: Routledge.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Wilson, Deirdre. 2012. Metarepresentation in Linguistic Communication. In Meaning and Relevance, ed. by Deirdre Wilson and Dan Sperber, 230–258. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Wilson, Deirdre, and Robyn Carston. 2007. “A Unitary Approach to Lexical Pragmatics: Relevance, Inference and Ad Hoc Concepts.” In Pragmatics, ed. by Noel Burton-Roberts, 230–259. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Wilson, Deirdre, and Dan Sperber. 2004. “Relevance Theory.” In The Handbook of Pragmatics, ed. by Laurence R. Horn, and Gregory Ward, 607–632. Oxford: Blackwell.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Yus, Francisco. 2009. “Visual Metaphor Versus Verbal Metaphor: A Unified Account.” In Multimodal Metaphor, ed. by Charles J. Forceville, and Eduardo Urios-Aparici, 147–172. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Yus, Francisco. 2012. “Relevance, Humour and Translation.” In Relevance Theory: More than Understanding, ed. by Ewa Walaszewska, and Agnieszka Piskorska, 117–145. New Castle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Zabalbeascoa, Patrick. 2005. “Humor and Translation – An Interdiscipline.” Humor 18 (2): 185–207. ![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Cited by (2)
Cited by two other publications
Mensah, Eyo, Idom Inyabri & Romanus Aboh
2023.
Sexual jokes in Nigerian stand-up comedy.
The European Journal of Humour Research 11:3
► pp. 54 ff.
![DOI logo](//benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
Sang, Zhonggang
2022.
Functional relevance as a principle of translation problem-solving.
Frontiers in Psychology 13
![DOI logo](//benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.