Translating Puns in Juvenile's Literature: A Case study of Lewis Carrol's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

Abstract

Writing for children can be controversial, because of the variation of its origin and purpose. The role of translator is critical since not all the people around the world speak the same language especially if the translator has to translate puns and wordplays. This research uses the method of a content based analysis to compare and contrast between the puns in the original source text of Lewis Carrol’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its translation by Shakir Nasr El-Din. Translating puns and wordplays can cause problems and worries for the translators who make an attempt at its translation, because the rendition of wordplay is not just of words but of effect. The translator’s challenge is to deliver the humor behind the pun to his readers. On the linguistic level, Nasr El-Din twists and plays with the text to deliver the message to his readers. However, it does not always work well as he loses the humor of the text and also in some case, the whole meaning of the sentence. The translator follows Venuti’s strategy of visibility and stay visible to his readersWriting for children can be controversial, because of the variation of its origin and purpose. The role of translator is critical since not all the people around the world speak the same language especially if the translator has to translate puns and wordplays. This research uses the method of a content based analysis to compare and contrast between the puns in the original source text of Lewis Carrol’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its translation by Shakir Nasr El-Din. Translating puns and wordplays can cause problems and worries for the translators who make an attempt at its translation, because the rendition of wordplay is not just of words but of effect. The translator’s challenge is to deliver the humor behind the pun to his readers. On the linguistic level, Nasr El-Din twists and plays with the text to deliver the message to his readers. However, it does not always work well as he loses the humor of the text and also in some case, the whole meaning of the sentence. The translator follows Venuti’s strategy of visibility and stay visible to his readers