Cover not available
Part of
Analysing Chinese Language and Discourse across Layers and Genres
Edited by Wei Wang
[Studies in Chinese Language and Discourse 13] 2020
► pp. 195–218

Chapter 11
Translating puns in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

A relevance-theoretic approach to (un)translatability

| The University of Sydney

This paper takes a pragmatic perspective and draws upon a relevance-theoretic approach to examine how the issue of (un)translatability is addressed in English to Chinese translation, based on three Chinese translations of the English classic Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland taken from three significant periods in China’s contemporary literary and socio-economic history. Pun emerges in the novel, which has been renowned for its “impossibility” to be translated, as the most outstanding type of (un)translatability. A successful translation under the relevance-theoretic framework, which views translation as a communicative act, calls for an interpretive resemblance between source text and target text rather than equivalence (Sperber and Wilson 1986; Gutt 1991, 2014). This paper takes the translation of puns in Alice in Wonderland, as a case study, and employs Delabastita’s (1996) typology of puns and translation methods to analyse and contrast the three translators’ strategies. By assessing the degree of relevance achieved in the three translations and to what extent the new relevance resembles the original one, this study finds that the translators show different patterns in their approaches towards (un)translatability. The socio-cultural environments and the translators’ own subjectivity are found to be major contributive factors in communicating what’s deemed relevant to the target text audience.

Keywords: relevance theory, (un)translatability, pun, English Chinese translation, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • The (un)translatable pun
  • The relevance-theoretic account of translation and (un)translatability
  • Puns in Alice in Wonderland and translation methods
  • Case study
  • Discussion
    • Yuen Ren Chao
    • Chen Fu’an
    • Leng Shan
  • Conclusion
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 28 August 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/scld.13.11xu
References
Carroll, Lewis
1981 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Alisi manyou qijing ji 阿丽丝漫游奇境记). Translated by Chen Fu’an 陈复庵. Beijing: China Translation & Publishing Corporation.Google Scholar
2002 Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (Alisi manyou qijing ji 阿丽思漫游奇境记). Translated by Yuen Ren Chao 赵元任. Beijing: The Commercial Press. First published 1922.Google Scholar
2010 Alice in Wonderland (Ailisi mengyou xianjing 爱丽丝梦游仙境). Translated by Leng Shan 冷杉. Beijing: China Social Sciences Press.Google Scholar
Catford, J. C.
1965 A Linguistic Theory of Translation. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
de Pedro Ricoy, Raquel
1999 “The Translatability of Texts: A Historical Overview.” Meta: Journal des traducteurs/Meta: Translators’ Journal 44 (4): 546–559. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Delabastita, Dirk
1993 There’s a Double Tongue: An Investigation into the Translation of Shakespeare’s Wordplay, with Special Reference to Hamlet. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
1996 “Introduction.” The Translator 2 (2): 127–139. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Díaz-Pérez, Francisco Javier
2014 “Relevance Theory and Translation: Translating Puns in Spanish Film Titles into English.” Journal of Pragmatics 70: 108–129. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Feng, Zongxin
2009 “Translation and Reconstruction of a Wonderland: Alice’s Adventures in China.” Neohelicon 36 (1): 237–251. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gopnik, Adam
. “Who Can Be Finished with Alice?” The New Yorker 11 October 2015, [URL]
Gutt, Ernst-August
1991 Translation and Relevance: Cognition and Context. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
2014 Translation and relevance: Cognition and context. 2nd ed. London; New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hofstadter, Douglas R.
1997 Le Ton Beau de Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Hu, Rong
2010 “Zhao Yuanren’s Translation of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its Significance in Modern Chinese Literary History.” Frontiers of Literary Studies in China 4 (3): 425–441. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jakobson, Roman
1959/2000 “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation.” In The Translation Studies Reader, ed. by Lawrence Venuti, 113–118. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Jing, He
2010 “The Translation of English and Chinese Puns from the Perspective of Relevance Theory.” The Journal of Specialised Translation (13): 81–99.Google Scholar
“
Leng Shan.” accessed 1 September 2019, [URL]
Levenson, Rosemany
1977 Yuen Ren Chao: Chinese Linguist, Phonologist, Composer and Author, China Scholars Series. The Bancroft Library, University of California Berkeley.Google Scholar
Nida, Eugene A.
1964 Toward a Science of Translating. Leiden: E. J. Brill.Google Scholar
Nida, Eugene A., and Charles R. Taber
1969 The Theory and Practice of Translation. Leiden: E. J. Brill.Google Scholar
Ning, Minfeng 宁敏峰
2004 “Wusi Xinwenhua yundong zhong de Shangwu yinshu guan gaige 五四新文化运动中的商务印书馆改革 [The reform of the Commerical Press in the May Fourth New Culture Movement].” Tansuo yu zhengming 探索与争鸣 [Exploration and diversity] (5): 46–48.Google Scholar
Palumbo, Giuseppe
2009 Key Terms in Translation Studies. London; New York: Continuum International Publishing Group.Google Scholar
Pellat, Valerie
2017 “Translation of Chinese Paratext and Paratext of Chinese Translation.” In The Routledge Handbook of Chinese Translation, ed. by Chris Shei and Zhaoming Gao, 164–185. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ptaszyński, Marcin
2004 “On the (Un)translatability of Jokes.” Perspectives: Studies in Translatology 12 (3): 176–193. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rickard, Peter
1975 “”Alice” in France or Can Lewis Carroll Be Translated?” Comparative Literature Studies 12 (1): 45–66.Google Scholar
Smith, Kevin Gary
2002 “Translation as Secondary Communication. The Relevance Theory Perspective of Ernst-August Gutt.” Acta Theologica Supplementum 2: 107–117.Google Scholar
Sperber, Dan, and Deirdre Wilson
1986 Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Sun, Baichang 孙柏昌
2010 “Wo de laoshi Chen Fu’an 我的老师陈复庵 [My teacher Chen Fu’an].” Di huo 地火 [Buring Ground] 2: 140–141.Google Scholar
Wilss, Wolfram
1982/2001 The Science of Translation: Problems and Methods. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.Google Scholar
Wu, Qingjun 吴清军
2011 “Zhao Yuanren: Yanjiu yuyan shi weile “haowan” 赵元任：研究语言是为了“好玩” [Yuen Ren Chao: Studying language is “purely for fun”].” In Qinghua chuanqi 清华传奇 Legend of Tsinghua University, 15–18. Beijing: New World Publishing House.Google Scholar
Xu, Xiumei, and Qinyan Gong
2012 “Translatability vs Untranslatability: A Relevance-Theoretic View.” Babel: Revue Internationale de la Traduction/International Journal of Translation 58 (4): 408–422. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zhang, Qunxing
2017 “Creation for Fidelity: Zhao Yuanren’s Translation of Lexical Nonsense in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.” International Journal of Comparative Literature and Translation Studies 5 (1): 71–79. DOI logoGoogle Scholar