The Rabbit Hole of Fidelity: Trends for translating puns from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland into Russian
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2016
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Swarthmore College. Dept. of Linguistics
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Thesis (B.A.)
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en_US
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Full copyright to this work is retained by the student author. It may only be used for non-commercial, research, and educational purposes. All other uses are restricted.
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Abstract
The notions of formal equivalence (fidelity to the text's linguistic aspects) and dynamic
equivalence (fidelity to the text's effect on its reader) come to a critical intersection in the
translation of puns, which convey both linguistic content and metalinguistic effects to the reader.
This study analyzes the shifting relationship between formal and dynamic equivalence in the
translation of what are called syntagmatic homonym (specifically homophone) puns from
English into Russian, using data from four Russian translations of Lewis Carroll's Alice's
Adventures in Wonderland. I posit that pun translation can be analyzed as involving three steps:
the translator selects how many senses to maintain, the target language's structure determines
available linguistic forms for the pun, and the translator implements individual stylistics. For
Russian in particular, I predict which forms and what levels of graphemic and/or phonetic
correspondence translated puns will exhibit, based on how many senses the translator selects to
maintain. Lastly, I suggest that some pervasive trends exist for pun translation into Russian, such
as the prevalence of homonymous roots and a preference for incorporating derivational
morphology into puns prior to inflectional morphology. These trends suggest that some effects of
Russian's linguistic structure may transcend a translator's individual preference in determining
how puns are translated.