Translating humour in children's literature: Dahl as a case study

Abstract

This study focuses on the strategies and devices used to create humour in children’s literature. No language is a replica of another language and it is generally accepted that a translator has to be creative in order to make the Source Text (ST) meaning available to the Target Text (TT) reader. The research conducted in this study aims to fill a gap regarding the application of humour in the rather under-researched field of children’s literature. A descriptive framework was used to conduct this qualitative study in order to be able to describe the linguistic strategies and devices used to translate the English source text by Roald Dahl, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator into the Afrikaans Target Text, Charlie en die Groot Glashyser by Kobus Geldenhuys. Literary devices to create humour, employed by both the writer and the translator, were identified and analysed. Interviews and reading sessions with ST learners (English) as well as TT learners (Afrikaans) were conducted in order to observe their non-verbal reactions as well as document their verbal comments to complement the data obtained from the textual analysis. The textual analysis showed that the literary device most frequently applied in the ST was the simile and the main trend regarding the transference of humorous devices to the TT was to retain the device with formal equivalence. The most popular translation strategy was direct translation with the most important shifts identified on morphological and lexical level and shifts in expressive and evoked meaning were relatively low. With regard to the reading sessions, the most positive results from both groups of learners regarding humorous devices in the ST and TT were obtained for the device of inappropriate behaviour.