Translation errors can distort the intended meaning of the author or speaker, to the point of absurdity and ludicrousness, giving a humorous and comedic effect.
For instance, idiomatic expressions of Chinese like 多多少少 ( [ˈduɔ duɔ ʃaʊ ʃaʊˈ] ) means ‘to an extent’ in English.
[2] Hence the combination and translation of words expressed must conform to the target culture and literal language interpretation or it would result in hilarious misunderstandings.
Prime examples of such errors come in the form of poorly translated sign posts, notices and menus that fail to cater the intended meaning to both foreign and local speakers.
Below are some components of linguistic stimulus theories that attempts to explain the way humour might be derived from translations, as adapted from "Accidental Humor in International Public Notices Displayed in English" by M. Farghal in 2006.
The interlocutor's erroneous choice of word removed instead of confiscated results in accidental humour in the context as shown in the example above.
Humor, then, results from the interlocutor's inability to grasp the lexical gaps in the target language and linguistic representations may either be over generalised or under-generalised to the point of absurdity.
Accidental humour ensues as a result of the same word coinciding with the unlikely homophone Methodist, which refers to the Christian religious denomination, creating a ridiculous situation in the context of dentistry.
[10] This is an example of the translator trying to fill in the connotations of the lexical unit "free", perhaps because of limited vocabulary competency; this thus resulted in an intralingual error.
All being said, languages do have a productive (linguistics) and recursion property that can also allow words and phrases to combine creatively to fill in the lexical gaps.
The following Telugu idiom refers to situations whereby people spends extravagantly, beyond their means: Minga methuku ledu kaani meesalaki sampenga nooni anta (He has) no food to eat, but has perfumed oil for his moustache And this to a situation of idleness, boredom, or conducting frivolous tasks to fill up time [11] Thochi thoyyanamma thotikodalu putti intiki vellinattu The lady with nothing to do goes to visit her husband's brother's wife's parents' house.
In some cases, incidental humour is produced when interlocutors erroneously use lexemes based on vague morpho-phonological similarity to the target word.
Japan's second-largest tourist agency was bewildered when it initially entered English markets and began receiving overwhelming requests for sexual tours.
Though the Chinese-to-English words sound almost phonetically correct, the pronunciation is easily translatable to a Chinese lexeme of a depressing meaning (e.g. : ‘All die’).
Misspelled words can be portrayed as the most basic level of inducing unintentional humour that occurs in all translations, especially in signs or restaurants' menus.
For example, there are noticeable dialectal differences in the Chinese language used in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and other parts of Asia.
[15][14] Using the wrong reference may change the translator's intended meaning and lead to multiple comical interpretations for the readers, thus, producing various humorous scripts.
This example also highlights the importance of having punctuation to serve as a cohesion device because if the translator were to put a full stop or exclamation point after the word 'Elephants Here', the anaphor 'your' would have been interpreted literally by readers.
Because of to the incorrect placement of the adverbial phrase ‘daily except Thursday’ at the end of the sentence, this script generates unintentional humour in its translation.
In the English original, the character of Beverly Crusher remarks the following about a nebulous image on the Enterprise's viewscreen: Computer, what is that mist I'm seeing?
[18] In the German dub, this is rendered as: Computer, was ist das für ein Mist, den ich da sehe?