Comedy in confusion:

One, Two, Three.

Multilingualism as a

vehicle for humour

Giuseppe De BonisPhD Course in Translation,

Interpreting and Intercultural Studies

University of Bologna at Forlì (Italy)

TRANSLATA II

2nd International Conference on Translation

and Interpreting Studies

"Translation Studies and Translation Practice"

Innsbruck, 30th October – 1st November 2014

One, Two, Three! (Billy Wilder; USA, 1961)

Uno, due, tre! (Italian dubbed version)

Three main functions

of multilingualism on screen

• 1) Realistic rendering: multilingualism is meant as a means to enhance viewers’ perception of the reality depicted on screen;

• 2) Conflict: multilingualism as a means to claim cultural diversity: lingua-cultural identities are sharply depicted and strongly maintained on screen (communicative problems; drama films);

• 3) Confusion: lingua-cultural identities are mixed up on screen in a “somewhat” disorderly fashion (leitmotiv of comedies staging intercultural encounters).

(Multilingual) Comedy in Confusion

• “Comedy relies upon confusion, and in screwbal these confusions are engendered by the way characters talk, the way they listen, and the way they (mis)interpret what they’ve heard.” (Kozloff 2000: 198, emphasis added).

• Cross-culture talk as a form of humour (see Chiaro 2007, 2010; Delabastita 2002, 2005, 2010; Zabalbeascoa 2012a).

Multilingualism

as a vehicle for humour

• Beyond verbally expressed humour stricto sensu (i.e. as puns and wordplay),

• BUT a wider area, in which language itself, and especially lingua-cultural identity, contributes to accomplishing a comic effect.

• A type of verbally express humour which can be rather labelled as “Non-specific VEH” (Chiaro 2004: 44), that is “a good line, a clever remark” which may be “difficult to define in humorous terms” (Chiaro, id: 45).

Playing with languages vs.

playing through languages

• The film’s plot is extremely ‘language’ as

opposed to ‘action’ based (Chiaro 2004: 44).

• Chiaro (1992: 89) differentiates between:

a) Playing with language (‘creative’ use of

language, like in poetry and most of the jokes);

b) Playing through language (literary prose, ‘OK’

jokes and humorous/funny graffiti).

Yankee go home! / Russki go home!

• Interesting example of Graffito joke in an intercultural context like the bilingual couple Froggie go home! - Et ta soeur? (Chiaro 1992).

• Lingua-cultural identities in contrast: humour playing one culture off against another.

• Double-layered humour: even in the case that one does not share the same socio-cultural knowledge (i.e. culture) on which humour is based, a humorous effect may be achieved all the same.

Multilingual comedy in translation

• Two different solutions adopted by Italian dubbing professionals to manage multilingualism in comedy:

1) no translation of secondary languages in order to maintain the same degree of confusion present in the original version through devices such as (Baldo 2009a, 2009b):

• Contextual translation: aka “translating mise en scène”(O’Sullivan 2011);

• Translation on screen: interpretation performed by acharacter, aka “diegetic interpreting” (O’Sullivan 2007,2011; Bleichenbacher, 2008) or “intratextual translation”(Zabalbeascoa 2012a, 2012b).

“Typical” or stereotypical accent

2) dubbing secondary languages into Italian to explicate the humorous meaning such languages possess in the film by resorting to the “typical” or stereotypical accent foreigners are presumed to have if trying to speak viewers’ mother tongue.

• Risk: a more foregone stigmatisation of foreigners (“bad” Germans or “loose” Russians) at which multilingualism simply hints in the original version.

• Also due to a technical constrain: revoicing secondary languages (particularly Russian).

Concluding remarks

• Multilingualism on screen sheds some light both on the nature of humour tout court and on the challenges it poses (both linguistically and culturally) when it has to be managed in translation.

• “Certain genres, such as comedies, for example, are in a certain sense perceived as being detached from reality and therefore offer more room for ‘unorthodox’ solutions in film translation.” (Heiss 2004: 211)

• Multilingualism is employed in comedy as a flexible means.

Thank you!

Vielen Dank!

Spasiba bolshoi!

giuseppe.debonis2@unibo.it