Fake Translations as Bilingual Humour

[Alexandre Enkerli]

Honestly, I hadn't really thought of it that way. It does make sense
and makes the gag less directly about language differences.
Maybe we should add a clip of such a Chinese film. Or "What's New
Pussycat?"... ;-)

--
Alex
http://enkerli.com/



On Sun, Aug 22, 2010 at 05:30, galey modan <gmodan at gmail.com> wrote:
> Just a quick note about the Wayne's world Cantonese-with-English-subtitles
> theme. I always interpreted it, not as a reference to Cantonese being a
> 'compact' language, but rather as a play on old Chinese films with English
> subtitles where people speak for minutes with only a few subtitles, giving
> the idea that only a small portion of what's being said is actually being
> translated.
>
> Galey Modan
>
> 2010/7/10 Alexandre Enkerli <enkerli at gmail.com>
>>
>> Does anyone know of interesting examples of language-related humour in
>> the form of fake translations?
>> Seems like we visited a similar topic at some point in the past. These
>> queries often lead to interesting results, including for learning and
>> teaching.
>>
>> Was just having fun with some fake translations, over Twitter. Did it
>> for the fun of it, using pseudo-random phrases to translate "status
>> quo ante bellum," the result of the Anglo-American War of 1812-15. It
>> then got me thinking about how revealing these fake translations can
>> be. In a way, it's impossible to make them both funny and culturally
>> neutral. There could be a Jakobson angle to all this.
>>
>> In some contexts, fake translations constitute a form of
>> exoteric-esoteric humour (as Bill Hansen called it). Exoteric-esoteric
>> verbal art seems especially useful when looking at the negotiation of
>> linguistic identity in contact situations. In other cases, it just
>> reveals stereotypes about a language. As an example of such
>> stereotypes, there's an example about Cantonese in Wayne's World
>> (1992). In that movie, the subtitles for a few syllables of alleged
>> Cantonese are rendered as several sentences in English, going with the
>> idea that very complex thoughts can be expressed in Cantonese with
>> just a few monosyllabic words.
>> You can watch that fake translation unfolding at about 1:30 in the
>> following clip:
>> http://movieclips.com/watch/waynes-world-1992/wayne-speaks-cantonese/
>> (I think I actually mentioned this one in the past. Not that I'm a fan
>> of that movie but this joke did remain on my mind.)
>>
>> In Quebec, there was a series of jokes (some bordering on ethnic
>> slurs) which were based on fake translations which were in fact
>> humorous renditions of Québécois dialect. For instance,
>> "mother-in-law" in Algonquin was allegedly pronounced as «elakawatch»
>> which is Québécois for "she's there, watching." Part of the fun, in
>> those, is that Québécois itself is treated as an "obscure language,"
>> by its native speakers. Given relationships Québécois have been having
>> with other Francophones, it's possibly not that trivial a form of
>> self-deprecating humour.
>>
>> Of course, similar forms of humour can become political issues. Here's
>> a (politically "conservative") reaction to a case involving
>> (politically "liberal") Rosie O'Donnell faking an unnamed East Asian
>> language with a series of utterances sounding like "ching chong":
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qINiw6ub5U
>>
>> Bilingual humour is much broader than just fake translations. For
>> instance, it includes some apparently benign wordplay which is only
>> understood by bilinguals. An Acadian example: "Where do lobsters buy
>> their clothes? Homard-ware." («Homard» is French for "lobster" and
>> "homard-ware" sounds like "Home Hardware," the name of a chain of
>> hardware stores.) Not that revealing of important cultural issues, in
>> my mind. But it could go with issues surrounding bilingualism in
>> Acadian communities.
>>
>> Seems to me, a collection of fake translations would be quite
>> interesting. We've often discussed lists of relevant movie and pop
>> cultural references, around here. In this case, it could make for
>> useful material on our site...
>>
>> Does anyone have some to share?
>>
>> --
>> Alex
>>
>>
>>
>> Alexandre Enkerli
>> Department of Sociology and Anthropology
>> Concordia University
>> http://enkerli.com/
>
>