An Analysis of Humour in Translation from German into Thai: A Case Study of “Eine Woche voller Samstage” by Paul Maar

การวิเคราะห์การแปลอารมณ์ขันจากภาษาเยอรมันเป็นภาษาไทย : กรณีศึกษาวรรณกรรมเยาวชน เรื่อง Eine Woche voller Samstage ของ พอล มาร์

Abstract

This research aims to study types of humorous language, analyze strategies used in translating humorous language, and study problems found in translating humorous language in the Thai young-adult fiction "แซมเพื่อนรักมหัศจรรย์ ตอน ทุกวันเป็นวันเสาร์ (2005)" by Hattaya translated from a German young-adult fiction "Eine Woche voller Samstage (1973)" by Paul Maar, by using the concepts of incongruity and ambiguity as criteria to select the language of humor. The concept of adaptation was used for analyzing translation strategies. The results of the study showed that there were 2 main types of humorous language as follows: (1) humor from playing on words and (2) humor from creating new words. As for the strategies used in translating humorous language, there were 6 strategies: (1) transcription of the original, (2) translating with transliteration, (3) creation, (4) situational or cultural adequacy, (5) expansion, and (6) omission. Moreover, the results of a survey on the opinions of 3 academic experts on the German language revealed that the main problems with expressing humor in the translated version (Thai version) of this young-adult fiction could be divided into 4 issues: (1) some missing and incomplete messages in this translation, (2) some words from transliteration affecting understanding of humor, (3) some excessive or different messages from the original version, and (4) misinterpretation, causing inaccurate understanding of the original version.