35.1597, Review: Children's Response to Humor in Translated Poetry: Morta (2023)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-35-1597. Wed May 29 2024. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 35.1597, Review: Children's Response to Humor in Translated Poetry: Morta (2023)

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Date: 30-May-2024
From: Laura Dubcovsky [lauradubcovsky at gmail.com]
Subject: Applied Linguistics: Morta (2023)


Book announced at https://linguistlist.org/issues/35.168

AUTHOR: Alice  Ross T. Morta
TITLE: Children's Response to Humor in Translated Poetry
SERIES TITLE: LOT Dissertation Series
PUBLISHER: Netherlands Graduate School of Linguistics / Landelijke
(LOT)
YEAR: 2023

REVIEWER: Laura Dubcovsky

SUMMARY

Morta’s “Children’s Response to Humor in Translated Poetry” discusses
general issues in the field of children’s literature, such us the
tension within the dual (adult/children) readership and the prevalent
challenges involved in the translation of poetry, especially directed
to young audiences. Moreover, the dissertation addresses specific
aspects of the Filipino context, such as idiosyncratic cultural values
and cosmovision, literary traditions, and linguistic patterns that
influence both content (through connotations, sayings, idiomatic
expressions, etc.) and form (rhythm, rhyme, accents, etc.). In the
“Introduction’ (Chapter 1) Morta explains that her research was
intended primarily to explore children’s reactions toward the poetic
genre, particularly humorous poems received in translation. Since she
chose intermediate school graders, the author incorporates
psychological, cognitive, and developmental factors, which contribute
to a more comprehensive understanding of physical and mental changes
expected at the selected age level. Additionally, she considers
language preference, among English, Tagalog and a combined “Taglish,”
usually included in the poems, as well as preferred modes to approach
them, from listening, to reading along, and to being read. The
introduction finalizes with a clear layout of the book, including
theoretical foundation (Chapters 2-5), empirical description (Chapters
6-7), and conclusions (Chapters 8-9).Chapter 2, “Children’s
Literature,” reiterates difficulties found to define the discipline,
as shown by multiple studies that complement, enrich, and even
contradict viewpoints. After summarizing most frequent
conceptualizations, Morta circumscribes her study to four criteria:
textual features, types of audiences, content, and industry practices.
The former emphasizes traits of brevity, repetition, and abundant
dialogue that commonly characterize children’s texts, as well as the
ubiquitous presence of children and animals as main protagonists,
linear and plot oriented-actions, and a sequential structure of
straightforward beginning-middle-end steps. The author also underlines
the tension between the double type of audiences, since adults
(parents/teachers) are usually in charge of (pre-)reading, selecting,
and prescribing the “appropriate” literary material, while children,
who are the “natural” recipients of this kind of books, do not have
voice to choose and decide what to read. However, the dual adult/child
relationship is situated along a reading continuum that enables
readers to cross over literary genres, rather than confront opposite
categories. Therefore, universal masterpieces that were never intended
for children may captivate them intensely, while purposely written
children’s stories may draw adults’ motivation with genuine interest.
The criterion based on content has also experienced shifts throughout
the centuries that reflect different conceptualizations of childhood
and education and accompany changing values and patterns across time
and space. For example, traditional canon would include sugar-coated
stories that encompasse the children’s supposed naiveté, while books
tend to expose children to current problematic wars and violence,
immigrants and refugees, gender and race discrimination and inclusion,
etc., following very narrowly the cultural, social, and educational
values of adult society. The final criterion addresses industry
practices, as the book market has grown dramatically, incorporating
multiple forces that compete and regulate each other to set norms and
expectations. Thus, authors, illustrators, translators, publishers,
mediators, and readers interact dynamically and influence one another
to control the types of subject matter, languages, styles,
translations, and illustrations that compose the literary conditions.

Chapter 3, “Translation of Children’s Literature in the Philippines,”
starts by presenting a historical perspective, and continues by
situating the phenomenon in a polysystem framework (Even-Zohar, 2012).
The author draws from multiple social, cultural, and historical layers
that transverse, intersect, and integrate the Filipino translation
process. Following the multilayered variants, Morta explains
translators’ possible centralized or peripheral positionings, as well
as dominant or marginal roles languages may hold. Overall, the
theoretical framework enables us to visualize factors of power,
control, and status that impact on the translation task. Situated in
the Philippines context, the author notices a still marked preference
for children’s books written in English, although national publishing
companies are gradually raising awareness of the value of producing
and disseminating their literature. Consequently, native authors are
increasingly encouraged to write in Tagalog about local issues, and
editors are stimulated to publish bilingual versions, offering more
choices to the reader. Finally, the polysystemic foundation provides
writers and translators with richer linguistic and cultural
information, by which they can make more educated decisions about
several aspects. For example, they are better equipped to choose
whether to maintain or adapt proper names, transliterate or change
names of places, highlight or replace internal subjects, accommodate
or assimilate original plots, and incorporate or omit cultural values.

Morta addresses the challenges of “Translating Poems: Form versus
Content,” in Chapter 4. The prevalent meaning/structure conflict is
even more evident in humorous poetry for children, as the genre
demands not only suspension of disbelief, but also unconditional trust
in the absurd. Moreover, funny poems typically include nonsense, word
games, tongue twisters, puns, and neologisms, extremely difficult to
translate between languages. Therefore, translators usually show
ambiguity between privileging formal features of length, rhythm,
rhyme, and musicality, which may cause the loss or replacements of
core meaning, and remaining faithful to the content, which may in turn
weaken inherent poetic effects (Nida, 2012). To overcome the tension,
Morta lists a range of strategies, such as mimetic, analogical,
organic, and deviant types of translation (Holmes, 1971). Some
researchers focus on phonological aspects of rhythmic calques and
substitutions, while others move onto a wholistic interpretation of
the poem, treating it as an entire “macrometaphor” (Kenesei, 2010),
and other critiques propose a genre transformation, from an original
lyric piece to a narrative text in the target language (Kochol, 1971).
The chapter closes with more specialized techniques designed to solve
specific translating challenges, such as the mentioned selection of
proper names and toponyms, so frequent in children’s literature. As a
matter of fact, since characters’ names usually describe qualities,
personalities, and behaviors, and places’ names are generally
associated to past and recent events, proper names and toponyms carry
linguistic, cultural and symbolic connotations that require close
attention to meanings (Fernandes, 2006).

Morta completes the definitions of general children’s literature,
specific children’s poetry and challenges in translation, with the
conceptualization of “Humor.” Chapter 5 starts with a summary of
previous classifications of humorous genres (jokes, anecdotes, tall
tales, funny poems, etc.), incorporating different viewpoints of the
phenomenon, such as physical responses (Landsberg, 1992) and
intentions and effects (Vandaele, 2002). Among common mechanisms that
provoke children’s laughter, the author enumerates an abundance of
funny names, repetitions, exaggerated actions, and nonsensical rhymes
that interweave with the sequence of and events. She also refers to
distinctive comprehension, appreciation, and production levels to
access poetry, especially relevant for intermediate school students,
who are experiencing cognitive (Suls, 1983) and developmental
(Zimmermann, 2014) changes. Therefore, the
expected exposure to the poetic genre (Ruch & Heintz, 2019) is
necessary but not sufficient to appreciate difficult notions of
humorous constituents, such incongruity, relief, and superiority,
which demand systematic interventions from adults who can explain,
facilitate, and create opportunities to practice them (Lintott, 2016).
Finally, the author delves deep into cultural aspects that on the one
hand, help discern what people consider laughable and appropriate
within different societies, and on the other hand, provide
idiosyncratic elements that contribute to build individuals’ identity,
sense of nationality, and community affiliation (Jiang, Li & Hou,
2019).

In the following two chapters Morta synthesizes the study
“Methodology” (Chapter 6) and “Results and Analysis” (Chapter 7). The
first part describes participants, profiles, and modes of recruitment,
as well as the format of semi-structured interviews, reading sessions,
and group discussions. The author details the coding process
implemented in the cross-tabulation data analysis of form and content
and includes some of the participants’ responses. She highlights the
care to respect the poetic structure (rhyme, length, rhythm,
accentuation, etc.) and meaning (sense of humor, word glosses and
vocabulary, proper names, cultural references, etc.) in the selected
material as strengths of the study design, while recognizing the low
number of participants, age level constraint, and some
inconsistencies, omissions, and incompletion during the conducted
interviews. Despite these limitations, the dire COVID circumstance
under which the study was conducted also brought gains in flexibility
to accommodate students, and readiness to make unforeseen changes. The
second part follows children’s participation, positive/negative)
attitudes toward poetry, and preferences according to gender (boys and
girls), language (Tagalog, English, Taglish), and literary genre
(narrative and lyric). Morta also examines adults’ feedback, types of
input and modes, such as reading aloud, silent reading, listening, and
visualizing practices, given in formal (classroom) and informal
(home/community) environments. The author finds that students with
active participation and positive attitudes toward humorous poetry
show higher levels of comprehension than those groups with less
interest and negative disposition, who show weaker levels of
comprehension. The finding aligns seamlessly with previous studies on
the strong connection between social interactions and levels of
understanding. Moreover, the outcomes confirm the prevalence of
narrative texts over all other kind of genres, and a remarkable
preference for narrative poems over other types of categories, within
the lyric genre. Finally, neither the language of choice nor the modes
of input interfere with Filipino children’s understanding and
enjoyment of humorous poems, despite the persistent challenge of
balancing content and form during the translation.

The last section of the book summarizes important points of the entire
exposition and delineates further steps in the research. Morta offers
a brief “Discussion” (Chapter 8) centering mainly on the relevant role
played by cultural factors in understanding, accepting, and enjoying
different kinds of humor. As an example, she highlights that in the
Filipino’s educational system children are trained to posit high value
on other fellow humans (Aguas, 2016), which may contrast with some
sarcastic or ironic tone often found in Western poems, leading into
misinterpretations of hostility or aggression (Reyes, 2015). The case
in point illustrates the possibility that children from different
languages and cultures may not laugh about the same issues, and
consequently, different reading practices, preferences and
cross-cultural values can generate misunderstandings, reluctant
reactions, or suspicion toward a more distant sense of humor.
Certainly, cultural aspects become decisive in the translating process
to facilitate a thorough comprehension and appreciation of content and
form (Bell, 2015). Chapter 9 restates “Conclusions” and suggests
expanding the poetic repertoire for children, incorporating other
modalities to transmit poetry, and broadening levels of acceptance and
inclusion of different linguistic and cultural patterns. Morta
encourages stronger and interactive social networks between and across
readers of all ages and in varied kinds of settings that better
reflect current diverse and multilingual societies (O’Sullivan, 1993).
Above all, she encourages further studies that incorporate children’s
voices, in order to pave the way for a stronger children’s literature
discipline, encouraging as well investigating and publicizing
localized children’s books in the Philippines.

EVALUATION

Morta’s dissertation “Children's response to humor in translated
poetry” develops aspects of children’s literature, humorous poetic
genres, challenges in translation, and specific problems within the
Filipino context in clear and straightforward manner. The book
addresses children’s reactions toward humor and poetry, integrating
culture, genre, language, and literary experiences as capital factors.
Among the book’s assets, embedded study in the Filipino context
constitutes a major contribution, as the author includes some texts
that illustrate Tagalog, translations into English, bilingual and
combined “Taglish” production, frontloading a less explored literary
tradition. Finally, chapters refer to local publishing companies,
editors, and authors, mostly ignored even by experts in Western
societies. To transform the study into a stronger contribution, we
recommend the author incorporates more texts and the respective
analyses, so that both lay and specialized readers can visualize the
number of difficulties involved in the translations, and appreciate
stylistic contrasts as well as significant changes of meaning.

Likewise, the author would also include more Spanish texts and compare
similarities and differences with Tagalog, not only to honor the
Hispanic tradition in Filipino literature, but also to examine lexicon
and stanzas derived from the Spanish lyric repertoire. Overall, a
larger collection will enrich the theoretical concepts with empirical
evidence, while rendering visibility and recognition of Filipino
writers and poems. Besides already mentioned limitations, we suggest
the author monitor more closely the citations within the chapters and
between the body and final bibliography, as the book shows many
mismatches, inconsistencies, and incomplete references; far from
representing superficial mistakes, these diminish considerably the
quality of the study, preventing researchers and specialists from
reaching sources and disseminating new knowledge.

REFERENCES

Aguas, J. (2016). The Filipino value of pakikipagkapwa-tao vis-a-vis
Gabriel Marcel's notion of creative fidelity and disponibilité.
Scientia Research Journal of the College of Arts and Sciences, San
Beda University Ch8
Aveling, H. (2005). Two approaches to the positioning of translations:
A comparative study of Itamar Even-Zohar's polysystem studies and
Gideon Toury's descriptive translation studies and beyond. Kritika
Kultura, 6(5), 24. Ch 3
Bell, N. (2015). We are not amused. Failed humor in interaction.
Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Ch8
Even-Zohar, I. (2012). The position of translated literature within
the literary polysystem. In L. Venuti The translation studies reader
(3rd edition). New York: Routledge. Ch 3 Fernandes, L. (2006).
Translation of names in children's fantasy literature: Bridging the
young reader into play. New Voices in Translation Studies, 2, 44-57.
Ch 4 Holmes, J. (1971). Forms of verse translation and the translation
of verse forms. Translation. Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton. Ch 4
Jiang, T., Li, H., & Hou, Y. (2019). Cultural differences in humor
perception, usage and implications. Frontiers in Psychology, 10. Ch 5
Kenesei, A. (2010). Poetry translation through reception and
cognition: The proof of translation is in the reading. UK: Cambridge
Scholars Publishing. Ch 4
Kochol, V. (1971). The problem of verse rhythm in translation. In The
Nature of Translation. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. Ch 4
Landsberg, M. (1992). Liberating laughter. American Educator, 16,
34-40, 45-48. Ch 5 Lintott, S. (2016). Superiority in humor theory.
Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 74, 347-358. Ch 5
Nida, E. (2012). Principles of correspondence. In L. Venuti (Ed.), The
translation studies reader. New York: Routledge.Ch 4
Reyes, J. (2015). Loób and kapwa: An introduction to a Filipino virtue
ethics. Asian Philosophy, 25, 148-171. Ch 8
O'Sullivan, E. (1993). The fate of a dual addressee in the translation
of children's literature. New Comparison, 16, 109-119. Ch 9
Ruch, W., & Heintz, S. (2019). Humor production and creativity:
Overview and recommendations. In Creativity and Humor. San Diego:
Academic Press. Ch 5 Suls, J. (1983). Cognitive processes in humor
appreciation. In Handbook of humor research. New York: Springer. Ch 5
Vandaele, J. (2002). (Re)constructing humour: Meanings and means. The
Translator, 8, 149-172. Ch 5
Zimmermann, K. (2014). Children humor research. In Encyclopedia of
humor studies. California: SAGE. Ch 5

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Laura Dubcovsky is a retired instructor and supervisor from the
Teacher Education Program in the School of Education at the University
of California, Davis. With a Master’s in Education and a Ph. D in
Spanish linguistics/with special emphasis on second language
acquisition, her interests tap topics of language, bilingual
education, and bilingual children’s literature. She has taught
bilingual teachers to use and practice communicative and academic
Spanish needed in bilingual classrooms for more than ten years. She is
currently helping with professional development courses for bilingual
teachers, interpreting in parent/teachers’ conferences, and
translating for several institutions, such as Davis and Riverside
Joint Unified School Districts, the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento,
YoloArts in Woodland, Davis Art Center, STEAC, and the Zapotec Digital
Project of Ticha. Laura is a long-standing reviewer for the Linguistic
listServe and the California Association of School -University
Partnerships (CASUP), and she also reviews articles for the Elementary
School Journal, Journal of Latinos and Education, Hispania, and
Lenguas en Contexto. She published “Functions of the verb decir (‘to
say’) in the incipient academic Spanish writing of bilingual children
in Functions of Language, 15(2), 257-280 (2008)
and the chapter, “Desde California. Acerca de la narración en ámbitos
bilingües” in ¿Cómo aprendemos y cómo enseñamos la narración oral?
(2015). Rosario, Homo Sapiens: 127- 133.



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