Accidental Humor in Consecutive Interpreting: Accidentally Useful Food for Thought

Year 2021, Volume: 31 Issue: 2, 783 - 810, 06.12.2021

Nihal Yetkin Karakoç

https://doi.org/10.26650/LITERA2021-887195

Abstract

Unlike humor translation, humor in translation, caused by translation errors, is underresearched in translation studies. Accidental humor, as a subgroup of humor, has been analyzed in translation contexts, but to the best knowledge of the author, not in the interpreting context. This descriptive study, being the first of its kind dealing with the accidental humor in consecutive interpreting, is intended to fill the gap in the verbal manifestations of resources in the English-Turkish interpreting context along with the possible reasons for resources of accidental humor in consecutive interpreting class. As a result of the study, a total of 38 accidentally humorous instances are found. The verbal resources are analyzed and divided into main and sub-categories, and for each, examples from the corpus are discussed. In addition, new linguistic resources were discovered, which may be exclusive to this context. The detected items are by no means meant to be exhaustive, as also stated by the former studies, but nevertheless enables greater understanding about the types and possible causes of accidental humor which may occur during the consecutive interpreting process. Given the dearth of literature on accidental humor in consecutive interpreting, this study may provide some insight for remedial teaching/learning in interpreting studies, as well as linguistics. Future studies may examine, among the others, verbal resources in the simultaneous interpreting context and compare the verbal resources in depth in consecutive with those in simultaneous interpreting.

Keywords

Accidental humor, consecutive interpreting, humor, humor in translation, verbal resources

Supporting Institution

-

Project Number

-

Thanks

-

References

• Agbedo, C. U., & Krisagebedo, E. C. (2014). ‘My Oga at the top’: Pragmatic failures in the Nigerian inter-lingual communication context and the linguistic mechanism of accidental humor. Innovare Journal of Social Sciences, 2(4), 28-34. google scholar
• Ageli, N. (2014). For better or for worse: The challenges of translating English humour into Arabic. Journal of Human Science, 23, 414-426. Retrieved from https://journal.uob.edu.bh/bitstream/handle/123456789/1229/ JHS20140209. pdf?sequence=1 google scholar
• Al-Kharabsheh, A. (2008). Unintentional humour in the translation of Jordanian shop signs. Journal of Intercultural Communication, 17, 1-21. Retrieved from http://www.immi.se/intercultural/nr17/kharabsheh. pdf google scholar
• Askildson, L. (2005). Effects of humor in the language classroom: Humor as a pedagogical tool in theory and practice. Arizona Working Papers in SLAT, 12(1), 45-61. google scholar
• Attardo, S., & Raskin, V. (1991). Script theory revis(it)ed: Joke similarity and joke representation model. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, 4(3/4), 293-347. https://doi.Org/10.1515/humr.1991.4.3-4.293 google scholar
• Bainum, C, Lounsleury, K., & Pollio, H.R. (1984). The development of laughing and smiling in nursery school and children. Child Development, 55, 1946-1957. doi:10.1111/J.1467-8624.1984.TB00436.X google scholar
• Beckett, S. (1953). Watt. Paris: The Olimpia Press. google scholar
• Bröne, G. (2008). Hyper- and misunderstanding in interactional humor. Journal of Pragmatics, 40 (12), 2027-2061. doi: 10.1016/j.pragma.2008.04.011 google scholar
• Bucaria, C. (2004). Lexical and syntactic ambiguity as a source of humor: The case of newspaper headlines. Humor-International Journal of Humor Research, 17(3), 279-310. google scholar
• Consalvo, C. (1989). Humor in management: No laughing matter. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, 2, 285-297. https://doi.org/10.1515/humr.1989.2.3.285 google scholar
• Corder, S.P. (1973). Introducing Applied Linguistics. Middlesex: Penguin. google scholar
• Court. (2021, 25 February). In Merriam Webster. Retrieved from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ court#:~:text=(Entry%201%20of%202),king%20held%20a%20general%20court. google scholar
• Cousins, N. (1991). Anatomy of an illness as perceived by the patient. New York: Bantam. google scholar
• Critchley, S. (2002). On humour. London & New York: Routledge. google scholar
• Deneire, M. (1995). Humor and foreign language teaching. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, 8(3), 285-298. https://doi.org/10.1515/humr.1995.8.3.285 google scholar
• Dijkstra, T., Grainer, J., & van Heuven, Walter J. B. (1999). Recognition of cognates and interlingual homographs: The neglected role of phonology. Journal of Memory and Language, 41, 496-518. Retrieved from https:// www.andrew.cmu.edu/user/natashat/bilingualism/dijkstra.pdf google scholar
• Farghal, M. (2006). Accidental humor in international public notices displayed in English. Journal of International Communication, 12(2). Retrieved from http://immi.se/intercultural/ nr12/farghal.html. google scholar
• Freud, S. (2003). Espriler ve bilinçdışı ile ilişkileri. Freud Kitaplığı 7. (E. Kapkın, Trans.), (4.Ed.). İstanbul: Payel Kitabevi. (Original work published 1905). google scholar
• Garner, R. (2004). Humor in pedagogy: How HA Ha can lead to AHa! College Teaching, 54(1), 177-180. https://doi. org/10.3200/CTCH.54.1.177-180 google scholar
• Gile, D. (1995). Basic Concepts and Models for Interpreter and Translator Training. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. google scholar
• Gile, D. (1999). Testing the effort models’ tightrope hypothesis in simultaneous interpreting: a contribution. Hermes 23, 153-172. google scholar
• Grice, H. P. (1975). Logic and conversation. In P. Cole & J. Morgan (Ed.), Syntax and Semantics, Speech Acts 3 (pp.41-58). New York: Academic Pres. google scholar
• Hadla, S. L. (2015). Coherence in translation. Research on Humanities and Social Sciences, 5(5), 178-185. www.iiste. org ISSN (Paper)2224-5766 ISSN (Online) google scholar
• Holmes, J., & Marra, M. (2006). Humor and leadership style. Humor, 19(2), 119-138. doi:10.1515/HUMOR.2006.006 google scholar
• Ibraheem, S. D., & Abbas, N.F. (2016a). Pun and (un)intentional humor. Journal of American Academic Research. google scholar
• Retrieved from https://asels.org/wp-content/themes/asels/uploads/12867_5c4f64b05722b.pdf. google scholar
• Ibraheem, S. D., & Abbas, N.F. (2016b). A pragmatic study of humor. Advances in Language and Literary Studies, 7(1), 80-87. google scholar
• Jagatia, A. (2019, November). Why you might be counting in the wrong language. BBC Future. Retrieved from https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20191121-why-you-might-be-counting-in-the-wrong-language google scholar
• Lemhöfer, K., & Dijkstra, T. (2004). Recognizing cognates and interlingual homographs: Effects of code similarity in language-specific and generalized lexical decision. Memory & Cognition, 32(4), 533-550. google scholar
• MacHovec, F. J. (2012). Humor- Theory, History, Applications. Bloomington: iUniverse, Ic. google scholar
• Macharia, D. M. (2019). A linguistic analysis of translation errors on selected public notices in Kenya. Editon Cons. google scholar
• J. Lit. Linguist. Stud. (1),1-12. doi: https://doi.org/10.51317/ecjlls.v1i1.54 google scholar
• Morreall, J. (1983). Taking laughter seriously. Albany, NY: State University of New York. google scholar
• Nijholt, A. (2015). The humor continuum: From text to smart environments (keynote paper). In Proceedings International Conference on Informatics, Electronics & Vision (ICIEV) (pp. 1-10). Fukuoka: IEEE Xplore. google scholar
• Nilsen, A. P., & Nilsen, D. L. F. (2000). Encyclopedia of 20th-Century American humor. Phoenix: Oryx Press. google scholar
• Oaks, D. D. (1994). Creating structural ambiguities in humor: Getting English grammar to cooperate. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research, 7(4), 377-401. google scholar
• Pavlicek, M., & Pöchhacker, F. (2002). Humour in simultaneous conference interpreting. The Translator, 8(2), 385400. doi: 10.1080/13556509.2002.10799139. google scholar
• Pöchhacker, F. (1993). This isn’t funny. A note on jokes in simultaneous interpreting. In C. Picken (Ed.), Proceedings of the XIIIth World Congress of FIT. Vol. 1 (pp. 455-464). London: Institute of Translation and Interpreting. google scholar
• Raphaelson-West, D. (1989). On the feasibility and strategies of translating humor. META XXXIV(1), 128-141. doi:https://doi.org/10.7202/003913ar google scholar
• Raskin, V (1985). Semantic mechanisms of humor. Boston: D. Reidel. google scholar
• Rishel, M, A. (2002). Writing humor: Creativity and the comic mind. Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press. google scholar
• Ross, B. (1992). That’s a good one! Corporate leadership with humor. San Marcos, CA: Avant Books. google scholar
• Ruch, W, Platt, T, Proyer, R. T., & Chen, H-C. (2019). Editorial: Humor and laughter, playfulness and cheerfulness: Upsides and downsides to a life of lightness. Frontiers in Psychology. 10: 730. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00730. google scholar
• Sabato, G. (2019, June). What is so funny? The science of why we laugh. Scientific American, Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/whats-so-funny-the-science-of-why-we-laugh/ google scholar
• Sellers, N. (2018). Spoonerisms: An analysis of language processing in light of neurobiology. All Regis University Theses. 896. https://epublications.regis.edu/theses/896 google scholar
• Shah, H., & Warwick, K. (2017). Machine Humour: Examples from Turing test experiments. AI&Soc 32, 553-561. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-016-0669-0 google scholar
• Stephenson, R. (1951). Conflict and control functions of humor. American Journal of Sociology, 56(6), 569-574. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/2772475 google scholar
• Straus, I. J. (2014). Incongruity theory and the explanatory limits of reason. UVM Honors College Senior Theses. 26. https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/hcoltheses/26 google scholar
• Viaggio, S. (1996). The pitfalls of metalingual use in simultaneous interpreting, The Translator, 2(2), 179-98. https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.1996.10798973 google scholar
• Vymetalova, D. (2017). Strategies of interpreting humour in the European Parliament (Master’s Thesis, Palacky University Olomouc). Retrieved from https://theses.cz/id/3971eo/Vymetalova_Daniela_DP.pdf google scholar
• Wu, G. & Wang, K. (2009). Consecutive interpretation: A discourse approach. Towards a Revision of Gile’s Effort Model. Meta, 54(3), 401-416. https://doi.org/10.7202/038305ar google scholar
• Yetkin-Karakoç, N. (2015). Analyzing misunderstanding in consecutive interpreting in sensitive settings and interpreter training. Edebiyat Fakültesi Dergisi, 32(1), 277-288. google scholar
• Zheng, W. (2014). The principle of brevity in simultaneous interpreting. In Proceedings 2nd International Conference on Education, Management and Social Science (ICEMSS 2014) (pp. 136-138) Atlantis: Atlantis Press. google scholar
• Zillmann, D., & Stocking, S. H. (1976). Putdown humor. Journal of Communication, 26(3), 154-163. https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1976.tb01919.x google scholar
• Ziv, A. (1988). The influence of humorous atmosphere on divergent thinking. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 8, 68-75. https://doi.org/10.1016/0361-476X(83)90035-8 google scholar