Ways of translation of pun (based on the "Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland" by Lewis Carroll)

Syntax can be exploited for punning purposes, since statements can sometimes be analysed syntactically in at least two different ways. In the next example, well in the sequence “well in” has two possible syntactic functions. In one of them well is a noun while in the other one it is an adverb. The meaning corresponding to the first analysis is “deep into the well”, while that corresponding to the second is “very deep inside”:

`You can draw water out of a water-well,' said the Hatter; `so I should think you could draw treacle out of a treacle-well - eh, stupid?'

`But they were in the well,' Alice said to the Dormouse, not choosing to notice this last remark.

`Of course they were', said the Dormouse; `- well in.'

“Як, як? - озвався Капелюшник. - Лизнуть меляси, та й точать ляси... Второпала, дурненька?”

“Перепрошую, а що таке ляси? - спитала Аліса, пускаючи повз вуха останнє Капелюшникове слово.”

“ Ляси це баляндраси, - пояснив Сонько.”

“they 're called lessons, they lessen from day to day.”

“Того воно й неука,що день у день коротшає.”

“ Well, I 'd hardly finished the first verse,” said the Hatter, “when the Queen bawled out `He's murdering the time ! Off with his head !'”

“How dreadfully savage !” exclaimed Alice.”

“Ну так от, повів далі Капелюшник, доспівую я перший куплет, коли це Королева як підскочить та як зарепетує: «Це марнування Часу! Він убиває Час! Відтяти йому голову!»”

“Яке дикунство! - Вигукнула Аліса.”

The Queen's reaction to the song is actually more bizarre than the new version of the lyrics. Lullaby songs usually aim at quite children and lull them to sleep. And sleeping represents a sort of time suspension which can be associated to death. Could this justify the Queen's wild behaviour? It's possible, but “killing time” is also a figurative expression, synonym of “wasting time”. The Queen may have thought that the Hatter's talent as a singer was not much and, that being the case, his performance became, in a metaphorical sense, a murder of time. The problem is that, in Wonderland, Time is actually a character and he shares his fellow characters tendency to take meanings literally. The Queen's accusation makes him resent the Hatter and his revenge assumes the form of a crystallization of the tea time.

Morphology-based wordplay is composed by words relatable to other words by means of morphological mechanisms like derivation or compounding. A compound or derivation-based word whose meaning is not deducible from the meaning of the morphemes that constitute it can give rise to a pun. In the following example the White Queen interprets the word addressing as if it was formed by the prefix a- followed by the root -dress-, meaning “being in the process of dressing”.

`Am I addressing the White Queen?'

`Well, yes, if you call that a-dressing,' The Queen said.

`It isn't my notion of the thing, at all.” Alice thought it would never do to have an argument at the very beginning of their conversation, so she smiled and said, `If your Majesty will only tell me the right way to begin, I'll do it as well as I can.'

`But I don't want it done at all!' groaned the poor Queen. `I've been a-dressing myself for the last two hours.'

It would have been all the better, as it seemed to Alice, if she had got some one else to dress her, she was so dreadfully untidy.

-- Перепрошую, я не помиляюся, що мaла нині честь доглянути за Білою Королевою?

-- Ну так, якщо ти це називаєш д-оглянути, -- сказала Королева. -- Бо я д-оглядання розумію геть по-іншому.

Аліса подумала, що починати розмову з суперечки аж ніяк не випадає, тож посміхнулася і сказала:

-- Якщо Ваша Величність зволить порадити мені, як ліпше почати, я зроблю все від мене залежне.

-- Та я взагалі не хочу, щоб ти це робила, -- простогнала Королева. -- Я д-оглядала себе впродовж останніх двох годин.

На думку Аліси, було б значно краще, якби її оглянув хтось інший.

Pun > related rhetorical device

Pun as related rhetorical device can be a play on words by the use of rhyme, alliteration, allusion, etc. Some of these devices can be recognized among the examples from the corpus of this research and will be briefly indicated below.

“THE RABBIT SENDS IN A LITTLE BILL.”

“Кролик крутить Крутихвостом”

`Of course it is,' said the Duchess, who seemed ready to agree to everything that Alice said; `there's a large mustard-mine near here. And the moral of that is - `The more there is of mine, the less there is of yours.'

“Ну, звісно ж, ? притакнула Герцогиня, яка, здавалося, ладна була погоджуватися з кожним Алісиним словом. ?Тут неподалік під горою є великі поклади гірчичного пороху... Звідси мораль: "Не дивись високо запорошиш око!"

“ Mine is a long and a sad tale!” said the Mouse, turning to Alice, and sighing.

“ It is a long tail, certainly,” said Alice, looking down with wonder at the Mouse's tail; “but why do you call it sad ?”

“Моя історія, хвакт звісний, довга і сумна, з зітханням промовила Миша.”

“Як хвіст мій? ? Перепитала Аліса, не розчувши гаразд Мишиного "хвакт звісний" (саме так у неї вийшло). ?Авжеж, він у вас і справді довгий, але чому сумний ніяк не збагну.”

A phonological pun can be termed paronymic when words are similar but not identical in spelling and pronunciation. In the next sequence, Latin and Greek are apparently taken for Laughing and Grief:

“ I never went to him,” the Mock Turtle said with a sigh : “ he taught Laughing and Grief, they used to say.”

“ So he did, so he did,” said the Gryphon, sighing in his turn, and both creatures hid their faces in their paws.

“На жаль, я не ходив до нього на уроки, - зітхнув Казна-Що-Не-Черепаха. - Казали, він дуже добре знався на забиванні баків?”

“Достеменно так... о, так!.. Його мороки забивали памороки! ? Незрівнянний мучитель! - І собі зітхнув Грифон.”

“I had not !” cried the Mouse, sharply and very angrily.

“A knot!” said Alice, always ready to make herself useful, and looking anxiously about her. “Oh, do let me help to undo it !”

“На п'ятому з ослів! ? Люто крикнула Миша.”

“На п'ятому з вузлів? ? Спантеличено перепитала Аліса. ? Ой, дайте, я допоможу розплутати!.. (Вона завжди готова була стати комусь у пригоді.)”

`You might make a joke on that-- something about “horse” and “hoarse,” you know.'

“Ти могла б зробити з цього жарт... знаєш, щось таке про «сича» і «просичав» .”

Zero > pun

“they had to pinch it”

“решті чаєпивців довелося його вщипнути”

“and then the different branches of Arithmetic--Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.” “I never heard of “Uglification”,' Alice ventured to say. `What is it?”

“Далі йшли чотири дії матимачухи: добивання, відбивання, вноження і обділення.” “Вперше чую про вноження, ? ризикнула вставити слово Аліса. ? Що воно таке?”

The one that puzzles Alice the most is `Uglification'. We don't need a dictionary to understand the meaning of the word. The wordplay process is simple. We take a recognisable everyday word, such as `ugly', and, using the rules of word formation, we turn it into a verb, `uglify', or a noun, `uglification'. This brings us back to Wittgenstein's comment on grammar and its descriptive nature. Indeed, grammar rules are at the mercy of creative writer such as Carroll who is able to challenge and subvert them, recreating language one word at the time.

“ It does the boots and shoes,” the Gryphon replied very solemnly.

Alice was thoroughly puzzled. “ Does the boots and shoes !” she repeated in a wondering tone.

“Білугують чоботи й черевики? - Вражено перепитала Аліса. - Та вона ж із породи китових...”

“3 котових, авжеж... А чим, до речі, ти чистиш свої черевики? - Запитав Грифон.”

`She must go by post, as she's got a head on her-- '

“Чим клеїти дурня, краще б наклеїла на себе марку та відправилася поштою”

Instances of usage of other techniques from Delabastita's list were not found among the solutions to puns based on polysemy, homonymy and homophony that were taken from the six translations of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. This does not mean that the remaining techniques were not used in the texts at all. Rather, as this research is focused on a certain type of puns and their translation, no additional exemplification will be given, as it surpasses the topic of this paper and might cause confusion. To sum up, in the translation of polysemous, homonymous and homophonous puns examined in this paper, the following techniques from Delabastita's list are used. As it will be described in the following section, some of the translation solutions found in the target texts were not recognized as techniques from Delabastita's list. These include target text puns based on syntax, morphology and portmanteau words.

CONCLUSION

The present study aims to analyse wordplay translation on the basis of the three aspects mentioned in the titleе: wordplay typology, translation techniques and relevant factors. The theoretical framework is eclectic but draws particularly on Delabastita. The present study deals with the translation of wordplay based on polysemy, homonymy and homophony from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Translation from English into Ukrainian serves as the corpus for this analysis. In order to do it, the translation solutions to puns are categorised according to Delabastita's division of pun translation techniques.

Additionally, a brief discussion of the notion of the pun and its various definitions is given early in the paper to avoid possible misunderstandings when it comes to the use of the term.

Therefore, the `pun > pun' and `pun >non-pun' techniques are applied in the majority of pun translations. However, within these techniques there are significant deviations from the original type of wordplay. In further research, the two groups of translations may be analysed in more detail and reveal some other similarities or differences. As pun is a matter of great concern for translators, not every single pun can be translated. Defenders of full pun translatability may emphasize that there are compensation techniques, such as non-pun > pun or zero> pun. These techniques, however, may be used only in translation of longer text, where there is more material for the translator to work on and therefore more environments for pun production may occur.

This theme was illustrated by the numerous examples presented in this study. Without question it can be said that the loss of wordplay in translation does not mean that the cause of laughter is lost as well. By using different translation strategies and reproducing the humour of the source text, we can observe that puns play great role in “Alice's Adventure in wonderland” and are its keystone.

By analyzing the main ways of translation of wordplay from original language, we see that Ukrainian has a lot of its equivalents and can render its meaning almost in full way.

РЕЗЮМЕ

У цій курсовій роботі розглянуто особливості утворення стилістичного прийому pun (гра слів), способи його передачі з мови оригіналу на мову перекладу, проаналізовано шляхи перекладу гри слів на матеріалі художніх текстів. Необхідною умовою адекватного перекладу є відтворення структурно-семантичних та функціонально-прагматичних особливостей оригіналу. Саме тому неабиякий інтерес у сучасному перекладознавстві викликає проблема передачі гри слів у художньому перекладі, оскільки гра слів це не лише стилістичний засіб, а й особливість авторського стилю. Це важливий елемент цілісної мовної картини твору оригіналу, тому переклад каламбуру вимагає відтворення не тільки стилістики твору, а й національно-культурної специфіки оригіналу. Утім, це не найпростіше завдання, беручи до уваги відмінності різних мов, національну та стилістичну своєрідність кожного тексту. Основна стилістична мета гри слів - зосередити увагу читача на комічному ефекті або сатиричному звучанні визначеного пункту тексту. В основі гри слів лежить помилкове тлумачення висловлювання одного мовця іншим. Як будь-який інший стилістичний засіб, гра слів залежить від контексту, який може бути досить розширеним, а іноді й дорівнювати цілому літературному твору.

Отже, гра слів не простий для перекладу стилістичний засіб, який потребує не тільки перекладацьких навичок, а й і почуття гумору, письменницьких задаток та уміння передати гумористичний епізод, не сильно вирізняючи його від оригінального.

Ключові слова: переклад, каламбур, гра слів, проблеми перекладу, Льюїс Керролл.

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