Background of the Study

1 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION

1.1. Background of the Study

Though more than fifty years have passed, numerous novels written by Roald Dahl 1916-1990 still enchant new generations of young as well as adult readers. Most of his books have been translated into various languages around the world and some have been made into widely popular films such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The BFG. The popularity of Roald Dahl’s stories might lie in his talent to enchant readers by a combination of adventure and his fascinating works on language which utilize amusing verses and clever sayings. One of the most notable features of the language that Dahl used in his books for children is the great number of wordplays. These wordplays generally produce humorous effect to light up the mood of each situation. We can found his witty language in almost every page of his books that makes the stories even more playful and funnier. Wordplays have a great value in Dahl’s writing that it would be a serious loss to target readers if they were ever lost in translation. Even though it has been more than 50 years since Dahl’s first story was published in America, his works were just translated into Indonesian for the first time in 2006 and published by Gramedia Pustaka Utama. Dahl’s stories garnered wide attention from Indonesian readers after the movie adaptation release of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in 2005 directed by Tim Burton. Translating Dahl’s works is a challenging task for any translator. The target readers of Dahl’s books are children and translating children’s literature is not as easy as it seems to be. The translator should take into consideration the characteristics of child readers; their interests as well as their level of reading and comprehension abilities. Another factor that makes translating Dahl’s books particularly challenging is the difficulty to preserve the funny-playful side and humorous effect created by wordplays which frequently found in the books. Chiaro 2005: 135 says that the translation of humor is ‘a notoriously arduous task the results of which are not always triumphant .’ In line with Chiaro, Diot in Vandaele 2010: 142 states that ‘when it comes to translating humor, the operation proves to be as desperate as that of translating poetry .’ The difficulties of wordplay translation, according to Chiaro 2005:137 are due to the f act that ‘the translation of humour manifestly touches upon the most central and highly debateable issues in translation study, those of equivalence and translatability ’. Wordplay, a common source of humor, uses certain structural characteristics of the source language to produce its meaning and humorous effect. These special characteristic is hardly found in the target language because of the linguistic system differences. When dealing with wordplay which involves phonological structure i.e. a homophone, a homograph, a homonym, for example, the possibility to find the same type of wordplay is extremely rare. Hence, when translating those types of wordplays, a translator is likely forced to compromise. Chiaro 200 5: 137 suggests that ‘as far as the translation of verbal humour is concerned, formal equivalence is sacrificed for the sake of dynamic equivalence .’ In other words, it is unavoidable to do some compromises as long as the wordplay in target language serves the same function as the wordplay in source language. Some features of the source text might be sacrificed in exchange for a gain in the target language. Wordplay is, in fact, an inseparable part of Dahl’s writings. Wordplay, as discussed above, is closely related to certain characteristics of linguistic system of the source language and source culture which leads to equivalence and translatability issues when it comes to its translation. Certain strategies are also needed for its treatment. Therefore, translating Dahl’s works into other languages, including Indonesian, is a formidable task. Another factor that encourages me to choose this topic is, as a big fan of literary works, especially of genre fiction, I find myself disappointed more often than not with the quality of translated books. Most authors who write in English express their ideas with dry wit, sarcastic humor, wordplay, and interesting vocabularies. These characteristics that make reading books so much fun, often get lost in translations. Therefore, a research project about the translation of wordplay, a form of humor which is considered as a proper object of linguistic study, captures my interest.

1.2. Research Questions