Translating Humor: Cross-Cultural Challenges in Ramona Quimby Series

Abstract

This paper seeks to identify and analyze potential difficulties in humor translation in children's books, specifically, Beverly Cleary's Ramona Quimby series, translated by Parvin Alipour into Persian. This paper looks at the influence of culture and language in the translation of humor using Newmark's cultural translation frameworks and Attardo's General Theory of Verbal Humor(GTVH). The socio-cultural context of the Ramona Quimby series, framed in the mid-twentieth-century American middle class, can be viewed as problematic regarding translation with special reference to Cultural-Specific Items and idiomatic expressions. The paper's research entails the comparison of both the English and Persian versions, along with identifying certain translation techniques, which include functional transferral, word-for-word translation, and condensation/expansion. Results indicate that the humorsome cannot be translated because it may contain cultural incongruity, but a majority of the humor can indeed be translated. Future studies should be directed toward a better understanding of the research methodology of humortranslation and the ways of employing humor in children's books to facilitate intercultural understanding while preserving the educational and recreational goals of the books.