e-ISSN: 2695-8465

ISSN: 2255-3703

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Corpus Lift? The Use of Wordplays in Translator Training

Classes

Adauri Brezolin

Universidade Metodista de São Paulo (Brasil)

brezolinadau@yahoo.br

Fecha de recepción: 20.11.2020

Fecha de aceptación: 10.12.2020

Abstract: If wordplays pass unnoticed by translators, addressees may be deprived

of the effect intended in the source text. Exposing novice translators to wordplays

and their subsequent rendering can be a useful activity to encourage both

metalinguistic awareness and creativity. A set of 14 wordplays was collected in a

corpus compiled from synopses and reviews of American reality television series

Botched. To verify if students could recognize and then appropriately translate such

constructions, a questionnaire with the occurrences was circulated to native speakers

of Brazilian Portuguese who had to rate them as creative or not, humorous or not,

and easy/hard to translate, and then present a translation. My discussion mainly

draws on studies about wordplays (Delabastita 1996; Zirker & Winter-Froemel 2015),

and their translation (Delabastita 1996; Silva 2019). The results reveal, above all, that

all participants perceived the wordplays in the segments, even though, could not

translate all of them as such, confirming that this task is in fact difficult and

challenging, as such, recommended for training translation students.

Key words: irrealia, particulares ficcionales, neologismo, procedimiento de

formación, creación léxica.

Corpus Lift? El uso de juegos de palabras en clases de formación

de estudiantes de traducción

Resumen: Si los juegos de palabras pasan desapercibidos para los traductores, los

destinatarios pueden verse privados del efecto deseado en el texto original. Exponer

a traductores novatos a juegos de palabras y su posterior interpretación puede ser

una actividad útil para fomentar tanto la conciencia metalingüística como la

creatividad. Se recopiló un conjunto de 14 juegos de palabras en un corpus

compilado a partir de sinopsis y reseñas de la serie de telerrealidad estadounidense

Botched. Para verificar si los estudiantes podían reconocer y luego traducir

apropiadamente tales construcciones, se circuló un cuestionario con las ocurrencias

a hablantes nativos de portugués brasileño, quienes debían calificarlos como

creativos o no, cómicos o no, fáciles/difíciles de traducir, y luego presentar una

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traducción. Mi discusión se basa principalmente en estudios sobre juegos de

palabras (Delabastita 1996; Zirker & Winter-Froemel 2015) y su traducción

(Delabastita 1996; Silva 2019). Los resultados revelan, sobre todo, que todos los

participantes percibieron los juegos de palabras en los segmentos, aunque no

pudieron traducirlos todos como tales, lo que confirma que esta tarea es de hecho

difícil y desafiante, por lo que se recomienda para la formación de estudiantes de

traducción.

Palabras clave: Formación de traductores. Lingüística de corpus. Traducción.

Juegos de palabras.

Sumario: 1. Introduction. 2. What is a wordplay? 3. How can wordplays be created? 4. The

study corpus and the wordplays collected. 5. How can wordplays be translated? 6. The

classroom activity, how participants reacted and performed. 7. Final remarks.

1. Introduction

Readers must (or should) have noticed that the title of this article

starts with a wordplay: “corpus lift”? Should not it be “body lift”? Yes, it

should: “(a) body lift improves the shape and tone of the underlying tissue

that supports fat and skin. Excess sagging fat and skin are also removed”

1

.

Readers who captured the wordplay understood that, considering “corpus”

as the Latin word for “body”, both are, at least theoretically, synonymous.

However, the expected collocation is “body lift”. According to Kjellmer (1991:

112):

(a) large part of our mental lexicon consists of combinations of words

that customarily co-occur. The occurrence of one of the words in such

a combination can be said to predict the occurrence of the other(s).

In this case, as the presence of the word “corpus” seems to be

semantically incompatible in the combination, a wordplay is generated

through the manipulation of the conventionalized linguistic structure “body

lift”. This is possible since at least two senses of “corpus”, “(t)he main part of

a bodily structure or organ” and “(a) collection of writings or recorded

remarks used for linguistic analysis”

2

, are preserved (Attardo 1994). The

creation of this wordplay was motivated by two facts: 1) the occurrences of

wordplays (used in the activity proposed to novice translators in this article)

1

AMERICAN SOCIETY OF PLASTIC SURGEONS (2020): Body Lift – Improving Shape and

Tone (online). Retrieved: November 16, 2020. Available at:

<https://www.plasticsurgery.org/cosmetic-procedures/body-lift>

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were collected from a television series, which follows two doctors as they

remedy extreme plastic surgeries that have gone wrong, and 2) the

principles and tools of corpus linguistics have been applied for data

collection and analysis.

As I believe the use of a wordplay in a text is to cause an initial effect

of surprise, if it passes unnoticed, its primary goal is not achieved. The lack

of the linguistic and cultural knowledge to successfully recognize a wordplay

seems to pose a more significant challenge to translators who,

consequently, can deprive readers/viewers of the effect intended by the

author in the source text. Bearing that in mind, one of my objectives was to

expose novice translators to wordplays and their subsequent rendering as a

useful activity to encourage both metalinguistic awareness and creativity, a

kind of activity that can help them become less naïve towards the uses of

language in general.

Thus, this paper intends to verify if novice translators could recognize

and then appropriately translate wordplays from English into Portuguese.

For that, my discussion mainly considers studies on wordplays (Delabastita

1996; Zirker & Winter-Froemel 2015), and their translation (Delabastita

1996; Silva 2019). Next, I briefly discuss how wordplays can be defined and

generated.

2. What is a wordplay?

In the literature on wordplay, several definitions can be found. Let us

examine the following:

a) “any adaptation or use of words to achieve a humorous, satirical,

dramatic, critical, or other effect” (MacArthur 1992: 787);

b) “the function of most wordplay is to create a comic effect and attract

the attention of the reader or listener to a specific point in the text”

(Veisbergs, 1997: 159);

c) “the stylistic manipulation of the lexis (and semantics) of fixed

expressions and idioms is perhaps to provide some sort of

defamiliarization, and typically providing humour” (Moon 1998: 170);

d) “wordplay is characterized as a clever and creative exploitation of

the meaning and form of words” (Langlotz 2006: 195), and

e) “the clever manipulation of the form of a language string or the use

of polysemy resulting in an amusing effect” (Arnaud, Maniez & Renner

2015: 136).

As it can be noticed, if, according to Arnaud, Maniez & Renner (2015:

136); “wordplay”, above all, “must involve manipulation”, these definitions

are, to a certain extent, converging and supplementary. On the one hand,

the idea of “manipulation” seems to permeate most of them, through

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“manipulation” itself, “adaptation” and “exploitation”, implying, then, that

wordplays entail a certain type of intervention in the use of language.

Besides, some of them include the idea of humor, through ¨humorous”,

“comic” and “amusing”, implying that wordplays, in general, must provoke a

certain reaction in the reader/listener. On the other hand, some of the

definitions add extra components to wordplays: “cleverness” and “creativity”,

implying that they are the result of an ingenious and imaginative perception

of a linguistic occurrence susceptible to transformation.

The definition of wordplay by Delabastita (1996: 128) is worthy of

attention:

Wordplay is the general name for the various textual phenomenon in

which structural features of the language(s) used are exploited in order

to bring about a communicatively significant confrontation of two (or

more) linguistics structures with more or less similar forms and more or

less different meanings.

Curiously, Delabastita’s definition does not include humor, like “most

definitions” usually do (Arnaud, Maniez & Renner 2015). His definition of

wordplay; however, also places emphasis on the idea of “manipulation”, or

on the exploitation of “structural features of the language(s)” to cause a

confrontation of “linguistic structures with more or less similar forms and

more or less different meanings” (1996: 128).

Doubtlessly, I agree with authors that include humor in their

definitions, but I prefer to prioritize the inherent (and maybe undeniable)

feature of manipulation of a conventionalized linguistic structure, which, by

defeating the expectation of addressees, may produce a wordplay, not

necessarily and primarily intended for causing a comic effect, but an initial

effect of surprise. This initial effect may, then, produce subsequent effects of

humor, criticism, and so on, depending on how addressees interpret the

manipulated linguistic structure and its environment. In view of that,

wordplay is here defined as: any clever and creative manipulation through

the confrontation of meaning and forms of one or two words, or of multi-word

combinations, capable of causing, in readers/listeners/viewers, a primary

reaction of surprise; subsequently, bringing about amusing, comic, critical,

dramatic, humorous, satirical, and other effects.

The function of wordplays is another feature that needs attention.

Though function and effect may, sometimes, be interpreted as the same

thing, function can be expanded. Part of Veisbergs’ definition, to “attract the

attention of the reader or listener to a specific point in the text” (1997: 159),

may be a useful starting point. Then, as Zirker & Winter-Froemel (2015: 1-8)

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postulate, a wordplay “may fulfil a wide range of functions and be

entertaining and comical, it may be used to conceal taboo, and it may

influence the way a speaker’s character is perceived”, and it also “invites to

and is expressive of metalinguistic reflection”. From that, it can be inferred

that wordplays can have different functions as ludic, critical, poetic, or

metalinguistic, among others. In this paper, I will place emphasis on

wordplays functioning as a didactic resource to be used with translation

students. Now, I turn to how wordplays can be generated.

3. How can wordplays be created?

Based on my definition of wordplay, the mechanisms involved in the

generation of wordplays are now presented considering two levels: one or

two words and multi-word combinations.

First, referring to Delabastita (1996); Tagnin (2005); Giorgadze

(2014), and Renner (2015), I shed some light on the most common

mechanisms used to create wordplays through the manipulation of one or

two words. I illustrate the mechanisms with my own examples.

According to Delabastita (1996: 128), wordplays operate on different

aspects of language through its phonological, graphological, lexical,

morphological, syntactic structures. Based on that, he suggests five basic

mechanisms that can be used to create wordplays: homonymy [identical

sound, identical spelling, as in bark (verb)/bark (of a tree)]; homophony

[identical sound, different spelling, as in time/thyme]; homography [different

sound, identical spelling, as in lead (verb) /li:d/, and lead (metal) /led/];

paronymy (similar sound, similar spelling, as in imminent/eminent)], and

polysemy (same spelling, different, but related sense, as in mouth

(face)/mouth (of a river)]. Tagnin (2005) suggests practically the same

mechanisms: homonymy, homophony, paronymy, and polysemy

3

.

Giorgadze’s (2014: 273) suggestions, which have been summarized here for

reasons of space, also include similar mechanisms: homonymy,

homophony, and polysemy. In terms of semantic relations, I add synonymy

to this group of mechanisms, as can be seen in “corpus lift” (discussed

above), as confronted with “body lift”.

I move on now to a mechanism that involves, at least, two words, the

so-called lexical blending, blend, or portmanteau word. Renner (2015), in his

comprehensive study on lexical blending, presents a detailed discussion

3

It should be noted that, in her article, Tagnin (2005: 247) suggested that such mechanisms,

linguistic manipulations, can be used “to cause a breach in the listener’s/reader’s expectations”

as a way to create humor; however, they can also be used to generate wordplays.

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about such process, defining it as “the act of coalescing several words into

one after an act of clipping, of overlapping, or of both clipping and

overlapping” (2015: 121). Based on several authors and different ideas on

this process, he presents a rich typology of lexical blending (2015: 124-129):

⎯ formal complexity

4

[ambisextrous (ambidextrous + sex); humongous

(huge + monstrous); avigation (avi + navigation – aerial navigation)];

⎯ structural transgression [smang (smash + bang – have sex);

planetesimal (planet + infinitesimal – miniature planet); Brangelina (Brad

+ Angelina)];

⎯ graphic play on words [pharming (pharmaceutical + farming – production

of pharmaceuticals from genetically altered plants or animals)];

⎯ semantic play on words [underwhelm (under + overwhelm)], and

⎯ functional ludicity [bit (binary + digit)].

Next, I briefly discuss the ideas by Veisbergs (1997) on potential

devices for the generation of wordplays that confront meaning and forms of

multi-word combinations.

Though multi-word combinations include a wide range of fixed

expressions such as: collocations; idioms; binomials; similes; compounds;

phrasal verbs; speech act formulae; attitudinal formulae; commonplaces;

proverbs; slogans; politeness formulae; stock phrases; quotes, among

others (Granger & Paquot 2008; Tagnin 2013); the wordplays encountered

in my study corpus basically represent transformed binomials, citations,

collocations, idioms, sayings, slogans, and titles.

Manipulated multi-word combinations, idiom-based wordplays for

Veisbergs (1997: 157158), refer to “(t)he various types of idiom

transformations” that “fall into two basic groups”, structural transformations,

“which affect both the structure and meaning of the idiom”, and semantic

transformations, in which “the idiom’s structure remains intact but its

meaning undergoes some change”, which is “possible and activated by the

contextual environment of the idiom. Structural transformations normally

result from devices such as addition, insertion, allusion, ellipsis, or

substitution

5

, and semantic transformations, from sustained or extended

metaphor, zeugma and dual actualization

6

.

4

Under formal complexity, Renner (2015: 126) mentions a very curious case: multiple blending

[turducken (turkey stuffed with a duck which is stuffed with a small chicken, and

Christmahanukkwanzadandiwalstice [Christmas + Hanukkah + Kwanzaa + Ramadan + Diwali +

(Winter) Solstice Winter – inclusive term for December holidays].

5

Similar mechanisms can be found in Barta (2005, 2006), deletion, addition, substitution, and

permutation, who has studied changes in a specific type of multi-word combination: the proverb.

6

Viégas-Faria (2004), Dore (2010), and Brezolin (2020), for instance, investigated wordplays

based on semantic idiom transformations.

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In this paper, though, my analyses of the mechanisms that produced

the wordplays from my corpus will focus on the following devices:

substitution associated with alliteration, homophony, lexical blending, and

paronymy, the most common in the participants’ solutions.

4. The study corpus and the wordplays collected

My study corpus consisted of synopses and reviews

7

of Botched, the

American reality television series, which follows doctors Terry Dubrow and

Paul Nassif as they remedy extreme plastic surgeries that went wrong.

8

The

television show (6 seasons/92 episodes) was featured on Channel E!

(NBCUniversal Cable Entertainment Group division) in the USA, from 2014

to 2020, and has been broadcast in its dubbed version on Channel E!

(NBCUniversal/HBO Latin America Group) in Brazil since then. The

synopses and reviews were copied, and, before they were pasted into a .txt

file, technical information, such as numbers of seasons and episodes, air

date, and number of USA viewers, was removed. The final corpus, totalling

7,168 tokens, was run with the AntConc concordance tool (Anthony 2020).

Using basic features of the software, a word list was obtained (1,396 types),

and compared with a word list of a reference corpus of 277,728 tokens

(compiled from TV shows scripts). This comparison produced a keyword list

of 242 words, out of which words related to parts of the body and plastic

surgery were selected for further analysis through the concordance feature

of the software. In my search, I also gave attention to some eye-catching

terms, such as “bimbofication”. Then, a set of 14 wordplays was obtained.

Next, the segments with the wordplay (in bold), its context, the mechanism

involved in its creation, and the source word(s)/phraseologism are

presented.

(1) a Supa Woman shows off her ass-ets (a woman shows off huge butts

after a few surgeries) – lexical blending by means of graphic play on

words, resulting in homophony (Renner 2015: 126), source word:

assets;

(2) a woman with franken-tits (woman with frightening breasts after

unsuccessful surgeries) - lexical blending, source words: Frankenstein +

tits;

(3) Bigger isn’t breast (patient wishes to get a breast reduction) –

substitution in one element of the saying, resulting in paronymy, source

phraseologism: Bigger isn’t best;

7

IMDB (2019): Botched – Episodes (online). Retrieved: November 16, 2020. Available at:

<https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3781836/episodes?year=2019>

8

WIKIPEDIA (2020): Botched (TV Series) (online). Retrieved: November 16, 2020. Available at:

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botched_(TV_series)>

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(4) Face misfor-chin (chin surgery that went wrong) - lexical blending,

resulting in homophony, source words: misfortune + chin;

(5) Four leeches and a funeral (man says farewell to his nose with a funeral

after fixing it with the extra help of leeches) – substitution in one element

of the movie title, source phraseologism: Four weddings and a funeral.

(6) It's called bimbofication (a woman wants to look like a “blowdoll”, or a

bimbo) - lexical blending: Bimbo + modification;

(7) Make titties great again (a patient hopes to regain her confidence with

new breasts) – substitution in one element of slogan popularized by

Donald Trump: Make America great again;

(8) Mother knows breast (a young woman undergone double mastectomy

to beat cancer after her mother had died of the disease) – substitution in

one element of idiom, resulting in paronymy: Mother knows best.

(9) Nothing butt trouble (young woman, whose multiple silicone removal

surgeries have left her with a distorted derriere) – substitution in one

element of idiom, resulting in homophony: Nothing but trouble.

(10) Say yes to the breasts (former actress who fought a flesh-eating

disease wants to reconstruct her breasts) – substitution in one element

of a reality television series, resulting in paronymy: Say yes to the dress;

(11) Short-changed at the nipple bank (a woman seeks breast

reconstruction after double mastectomy) – insertion of one element in

idiom: short-changed at the  bank;

(12) Silicone Valley (silicone began to leak and migrate throughout the body

of a transgender) -substitution in one element of binomial, resulting in

paronymy: Silicon Valley;

(13) The serial filler (a patient hopes to erase the physical reminders from a

fatal car accident that gave her a lip filler) – substitution in one element

of the adjectival collocation, resulting in paronymy: The serial killer;

(14) To implant or not to implant (a woman with jarring pain from her

previous breast implants is not sure if she wants new ones) –

substitution in two elements of famous quote from Hamlet by

Shakespeare: To be or not be.

As it can be noticed, most of the wordplays are creative context-

motivated constructions, prompted by the setting of plastic surgery, or more

precisely, of plastic surgery gone wrong. Since the episodes feature the

disastrous consequences of medical malpractice, and most patients disclose

disfigured or deformed parts of their body, one might say that a television

series should not show something not acceptable to mention, or that is a

taboo. However, as the television show is presented in a relaxed and

informal atmosphere, the tension that discussing botched and traumatic

surgeries would generate is relieved by using wordplays to refer to the

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results of negligent conduct. As I mentioned before, if, on the one hand,

wordplays may be used “to conceal taboo” (Zirker & Winter-Froemel 2015:

1); on the other, they may also be used to address taboo issues without

sounding rude or inappropriate.

5. How can wordplays be translated?

If languages have morphological, phonological, lexical, syntactic,

semantic, and pragmatic particularities, and there is no one-to-one

interlingual correspondence, translators, relying on their linguistic abilities

and creativity, may resort to some of the following translation strategies to

deal with the challenging task of translating wordplays. These are

Delabastita’s suggestions (1996: 133-134)

9

:

1) PUN into PUN: the pun in the source text is translated by a pun in the

target text, considering the grammatical features and limitations of the

target language;

2) PUN into NON-PUN: the pun is translated by a non-punning phrase;

3) PUN into RELATED RHETORICAL DEVICE: the pun is replaced by

some wordplay-related rhetorical device (repetition, alliteration, rhyme,

among others), aiming to recapture the effect of pun in the source text;

4) PUN into ZERO: omission of the portion of the text containing the

wordplay;

5) PUN S.T. = PUN T.T.: the translator reproduces the wordplay in the

target text, without actually translating it;

6) NON-PUN into PUN: a wordplay is introduced in a portion of the text

where there was none in the source text, as a way to make up for lost

wordplays elsewhere;

7) ZERO into PUN: the translator introduces totally new textual material

containing wordplay in target text, possibly as a compensatory device;

8) EDITORIAL TECHNIQUES: the translator adds footnotes or other types

of annotations to explain the source-text wordplay, for example.

To show how participants tackled the wordplays, some of these

strategies will be resumed in my analyses, returning to the device

substitution associated with alliteration, homophony, lexical blending, and

paronymy, the most used mechanisms by participants, especially when the

result was PUN into PUN.

9

For an expansion of Delabastita’s wordplay translation strategies, refer to Silva (2019).

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6. The classroom activity, how participants reacted and performed

As put by Arnaud, Maniez & Renner (2015: 149), wordplays depend

not only on the intention of the speaker/writer, but also on the

reader’s/listener’s reaction; “intended wordplay may well fall flat or pass

unnoticed and thus fail as such”. To observe how participants (from now on,

referred to as P1, P2, P3, P4, and P5) reacted to the occurrences, they were

asked to check if the segments were “creative or not”, “humorous or not”,

“easy/hard to translate”, “explain why”, and, finally, present a translation into

Portuguese. Attention should be given to the fact that, in no part of the

questionnaire, was “wordplay” mentioned, I preferred to call them “linguistic

combinations”, and I chose not to exclude obvious wordplays, such as (5),

(7), (12), (13), and (14), for example. I deliberately took this decision to make

participants spontaneously recognize the wordplays, either evident or not.

The 14 occurrences were also followed by these questions: “After you

translated (or tried to translate) the excerpts, did you find the activity

challenging? Yes/No. Why?”; “In general terms, while translating, did you

think of any translation theory? Yes/No. Justify your answer.”, and “How can

an activity like this help translation students?” (Appendix 1). The answers

participants gave to these questions will be discussed in my final remarks.

The contexts of wordplays (Appendix 2) were also sent to participants as

extra help.

The questionnaire was then circulated to more than 20 novice

translators (all native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese) who were expected

to fill it out on a volunteer basis. Only five, three females (aged 21 to 22),

and two males (aged 24 and 26) completed and returned the questionnaire.

All respondents

10

have completed an 8-semester translation undergraduate

program at a private university in Greater São Paulo, State of São Paulo,

Brazil.

Table 1 shows how participants reacted to the segments with

wordplays, considering if they were “creative or not”, “humorous or not”, and

“easy or hard to translate”.

10

I owe them a deep debt of gratitude for their contributions.

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Segments

Creative?

Humorou

s?

Easy to

translate?

1. a Supa Woman shows off her ass-

ets

Yes/ No.

5/0

Yes/ No.

4/1

Yes/ No.

0/5

2. a woman with franken-tits

Yes/ No.

5/0

Yes/ No.

5/0

Yes/ No.

2/3

3. Bigger isn’t breast

Yes/ No.

4/1

Yes/ No.

1/4

Yes/ No.

0/5

4. Face misfor-chin

Yes/ No.

5/0

Yes/ No.

4/1

Yes/ No.

1/4

5. Four leeches and a funeral

Yes/ No.

3/2

Yes/ No.

1/4

Yes/ No.

5/0

6. It’s called bimbofication

Yes/ No.

3/2

Yes/ No.

1/4

Yes/ No.

0/5

7. Make titties great again

Yes/ No.

5/0

Yes/ No.

5/0

Yes/ No.

2/3

8. Mother knows breast

Yes/ No.

5/0

Yes/ No.

4/1

Yes/ No.

1/4

9. Nothing butt trouble

Yes/ No.

5/0

Yes/ No.

4/1

Yes/ No.

1/4

10. Say Yes to the breasts

Yes/ No.

3/2

Yes/ No.

2/3

Yes/ No.

2/3

11. Short-changed at the nipple bank

Yes/ No.

5/0

Yes/ No.

5/0

Yes/ No.

1/4

12. Silicone Valley

Yes/ No.

4/1

Yes/ No.

2/3

Yes/ No.

4/1

13. The serial filler

Yes/ No.

5/0

Yes/ No.

3/2

Yes/ No.

2/3

14. To implant or not to implant

Yes/ No.

5/0

Yes/ No.

1/4

Yes/ No.

5/0

Totals

66/9

(88 %/12

%)

42/33

(57 %/

44 %)

29/46

(39 %/

61 %)

Table 1. How participants reacted to the segments containing wordplays

According to the participants’ reactions, most of the wordplays were

considered creative, accounting for 88 % of all occurrences. Taken in

isolation, segments (1), (2), (4), (7), (8), (9), (11), (13), and (14) were

unanimously considered creative, followed by less creative ones: (3), (12),

(5), (6), and (10). In terms of humor, only 57 % of all occurrences were

considered humorous, with segments (2), (7), (11), as the most humorous,

and segments (3), (6), and (14), as the least humorous. As to the level of

translation difficulty, segments (1), (3), and (6) were considered the hardest

ones by all participants. In general terms, 61 % of all segments were

considered “hard” to translate.

Next, I present how participants translated the segments. Each

segment is followed by the way they reacted to how easy or hard was to

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translate them, the translations proper, and whether their solutions resulted

in wordplays or not. The participants’ translations that I classified as

wordplays were expected to evoke the same context of the source wordplay,

and to represent a linguistically and pragmatically plausible structure in the

receiving language. Consequently, successful wordplays should privilege

effect over form, and sound natural in the target language, as put by Tagnin

(2015).

Segment 1- a Supa Woman shows off her ass-ets

Participants

Easy to

translate?

Translations

Resulted in

P1

P2

P3

P4

P5

No.

Um mulherão aBUNDAnte

Uma super mulher exibe seu traseiro

maravilha

Uma Super-mulher mostrando sua

abundância

A mulher exibe sua abundância

Uma Super Mulher mostra sua

abundância

PUN

NON-PUN

PUN

Curiously, considering that all participants rated segment (1) as hard

to translate, P1, P3, P4 and P5 came up with highly satisfactory pragmatic

solutions, that is, PUN into PUN. P1 used the adjective abundante

(“abundant”), whereas P3, P4 and P5 used the noun abundância

(“abundance”), in all cases, the word bunda (“butt”), inserted in middle

position, provides a double reading as in English, “abundant resources” and

“big butt”. P1 also managed to resort to the same mechanism used in the

original: lexical blending by means of graphic play on words.

Segment 2- a woman with franken-tits

Participants

Easy to

translate?

Translations

Resulted in

P1

P2

P3

P4

P5

No.

Yes.

No.

A criatura Franken-seios

Uma mulher com peitos de outro mundo

uma mulher com franken-tetas

Os peitos de Frankenstein da mulher

uma mulher com frankentetas

NON-PUN

PUN

NON-PUN

PUN

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In this case, I considered only P3’s and P5’s solutions as effective

wordplays, for they chose a word for “breasts”, tetas, which is closer to the

phonological effect of the original, “tits”. In both cases, the same mechanism

for generating the wordplay was lexical blending, as in the original segment.

It is worth mentioning that, although P2 rated segment 2 as “easy to

translate”, his/her solution was not up to the mark.

Segment 3- Bigger isn’t breast

Participants

Easy to

translate?

Translations

Resulted in

P1

P2

P3

P4

P5

No.

Quanto maior o seio, maior é sua queda

Maior não é melhor

Tetamanho não é documento

Quanto menos, melhor

Peitão não é tão bom

PUN

NON-PUN

PUN

NON-PUN

RRD

In segment (3), though all participants tried to use an analogue multi-

word combination (a saying) to generate a wordplay as in the source text,

only P1, P3, and P5 were successful in their endeavor. Their success relies

on the fact that they could retrieve the exact component that created the

source wordplay, “breast”, by using possible correspondents in Portuguese,

seio (“breast”), teta (“tit”), peitão (“big breast”). P1, for example, used an

existing saying in the target language, Quanto maior a altura, maior a queda

(“The higher you climb, the harder you fall”), and by substitution, created

Quanto maior o seio, maior a sua queda (“The bigger the breast, the harder

it falls”). P3 resorted to Tamanho não é documento (“Size does not matter”),

and by lexical blending, created Tetamanho (teta+tamanho) não é

documento (“Having big breasts does not matter”). P5 replaced the wordplay

with a RELATED RHETORICAL DEVICE (RRD), alliteration (peitão

/pejtˈɐw/, não /nˈɐw/ tão/tˈɐw/ bom /bˈɐw/

11

, that is, Peitão não é tão bom

(“Big boob is not so good”).

11

Informal pronunciation of bom /bˈ/.

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Segment 4- Face misfor-chin

Participants

Easy to

translate?

Translations

Resulted in

P1

P2

P3

P4

P5

No.

Yes.

No.

De queixo caído

Queixando-se

De queixo caído

O queixocontecimento facial

Um contra-mento facial

PUN

NON-PUN

In this segment, P1 and P3 came up with the same solution by

creating ambiguity through De queixo caído, which suggests two readings, a

literal one, “My chin dropped” (“My chin is deformed”), and a figurative one,

“My jaw dropped” (“I am surprised, astonished”). P2 used the verb queixar-

se (“to complain”), phonologically close to queixo (“chin”), in the present

participle, creating “Queixando-se” (“Chinning”/ “Complaining about the

chin”). P4 tried a lexical blending queixo + acontecimento (“chin +

happening”), and P5 produced a compound word using synonymy (mento =

queixo = “chin”); however, according to my appreciation, both failed as

wordplays.

Segment 5- Four leeches and a funeral

Participants

Easy to

translate?

Translations

Resulted in

P1

P2

P3

P4

P5

Yes.

Quatro sanguessugas e um funeral

Quatro sanguessugas e um jeans viajante

Quatro sanguessugas e um funeral

PUN

NON-PUN

PUN

As expected, this segment was obvious, and all participants deemed it

as “easy to translate”. P1, P2, P4 and P5, by referring to the source movie

title in Portuguese, Quatro casamentos e um funeral (“Four weddings and a

funeral”), replaced casamentos (“weddings”) with sanguessugas (“leeches”),

also creating a wordplay by substitution, and making justice to the context.

P3, as it seems, tried to create a wordplay, referring to another movie

(Quatro amigas e um jeans viajante, whose original title in English is “The

sisterhood of the traveling pants”); however, it did not fit in the context.

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Segment 6- It’s called bimbofication

Participants

Easy to

translate?

Translations

Resulted in

P1

P2

P3

P4

P5

No.

O nome disso é “bimboficação”

Trata-se de uma plastificação

Quero virar uma Barbie

Isso chama bimboficação

Isso que eu chamo de embonecar

PUN S.T. into

PUN T.T.

NON-PUN

PUN

PUN S.T. into

PUN T.T.

PUN

As it can be observed, P1 and P4 used the mechanism Delabastita

classifies as PUN S.T. into PUN T.T., in which the translator reproduces the

wordplay in the target text, without really translating it. This way, according

to my appreciation, this type of solution does not constitute a wordplay since

the result might be understood only by a very restricted audience. P2 tried to

retrieve part of the wordplay (“-fication”) through an existing word in

Portuguese plastificação (“plastification”), but it resulted in no wordplay

either. P3 managed to create a wordplay through ambiguity since “Barbie”

can refer to a plastic doll and to “a conventionally attractive young woman

typically perceived as lacking substance, character, or intelligence”

12

; this

way, the idea of plastic surgery and of an unintelligent woman is conveyed.

A similar solution was arrived at by P5, who generated a wordplay through

ambiguity too (Isso que eu chamo de embonecar / “It’s called dolling up”),

since the verb embonecar can mean “to doll up” or “to transform into a doll”.

Segment 7- Make titties great again

Participants

Easy to

translate?

Translations

Resulted in

P1

P2

P3

P4

P5

Yes.

No.

Yes.

No.

Torne o seio americano grande novamente

Peitos acima de tudo, silicone acima de

todos

Faça as peitcholas grandes novamente

Torne os peitos bons novamente

Para o peito seguir aumentando

PUN

NON-PUN

PUN

12

Barbie. (2020): Merriam-Webster.com.dictionary. Retrieved: November 16, 2020. Available at:

<https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/barbie>

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The wordplay in segment 7, based on Donald Trump’s presidential

campaign slogan (“Make America great again”), prompted two clever and

creative solutions. P2 and P5 also transformed presidential campaign

slogans: Jair Bolsonaro’s Brasil acima de tudo, Deus acima de todos (“Brazil

above everything, God above all”) into Peitos acima de tudo, silicone acima

de todos (“Breasts above everything, silicone above all”), and Dilma

Rousseff’s Para o Brasil seguir mudando (“For Brazil to keep on changing”)

into Para o peito seguir aumentando (“For the breast to keep on

augmenting”); respectively. P1’s solution was considered a wordplay since it

is clearly based on the source slogan, Torne o seio americano grande

novamente (“Make American titties great again”), though the wordplay in

English makes no reference to the USA. P3 came up with a wordplay by

graphically transforming peitos (“breasts”) into peitcholas (“titties”), a much

more colloquial word for peitolas (“tits”), which replaced “America” in the

slogan. P4’s solution was considered NON-PUN in that the replacement of

“great” for “good” (bons) does not evoke the original slogan.

Segment 8 - Mother knows breast

Participants

Easy to

translate?

Translations

Resulted in

P1

P2

P3

P4

P5

Yes.

No.

A “mama” sabe tudo

Mães sempre sabem mais

Respeitos à mãe

Sua mãe sabe mais

A mama sempre tem razão

PUN

NON-PUN

PUN

NON-PUN

PUN

P2’s and P4’s solutions, to some extent, translated the wordplay

considering the source phraseologism (“Mother knows best”) into Mães

sempre sabem mais (“Mothers always know best”), and Sua mãe sabe mais

(“Your mother knows best”); respectively, which resulted in no wordplay in

Portuguese since they make no reference to “breasts”. Differently, P1 and

P5, using the same linguistic mechanism, homophony, since mama can

mean “mother” and “breast” in Portuguese, created wordplays transforming

two existing sayings As mães sabem de tudo (“Mothers know best”), and O

cliente sempre tem razão (“The customer is always right”) into A “mama”

sabe tudo (“Mamma knows best”), and “The mamma is always right”). P3

created a lexical blending by coalescing respeito (“respect”) and peitos

(“breasts”), ResPEITOS à mãe, something like “ResPECTUS to the mother”

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(“respect” + “pectus”)

13

, but could have placed graphic emphasis on peitos,

as I have done.

Segment 9- Nothing butt trouble

Participants

Easy to

translate?

Translations

Resulted in

P1

P2

P3

P4

P5

Yes.

No.

Problemas aBUNDAntes



Nada com nádegas

Abundância de problemas

Mas que nádega

PUN



NON-PUN

PUN

NON-PUN

Segment 9 contains a wordplay that prompted solutions like those

produced in segment 1. For example, P1 used the adjective abundante

(“abundant”), and by resorting to lexical blending through graphic play on

words, created Problemas aBUNDAntes (“Abundant problems”), and P4

used the noun abundância (“abundance”), generating Abundância de

problemas (“Abundance of problems”), again, in both cases, the word bunda

(“butt”), inserted in middle position, provides a double reading as in English,

“butt” (derriere) and “but” (conjunction). P3 came up with the strategy PUN

into RELATED RHETORICAL DEVICE, using alliteration, but created no

wordplay since the idea of problem was eliminated. P5 justified in the

questionnaire that he/she tried to allude to the Brazilian song Mas que nada

(“Nothing but”); however, the solution does not refer to a problematic

situation.

Segment 10- Say Yes to the breasts

Participants

Easy to

translate?

Translations

Resulted in

P1

P2

P3

P4

P5

No.

Yes.

No.

Yes.

No.

O seio ideal

Diga sim aos peitos

Peitões à obra

O peito ideal

Diga sim aos Peitinhos

PUN

NON-PUN

PUN

NON-PUN

13

Pectus. (2020): Merriam-Webster.com.dictionary. Retrieved: November 16, 2020. Available

at: <https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pectus>

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In cases like in segment 10, where a wordplay is based on a television

show (“Say yes to the dress”), the translator faces two challenges: to

recognize the referent, and to find how it is entitled in his/her country. In

Brazil, the show is broadcast as O vestido ideal (“The ideal dress”), so P1

and P4 captured the wordplay and translated accordingly O seio/peito ideal

(“The ideal breast”). P2 and P5 rendered the wordplay literally, which does

not refer to the show title as played in Brazil. P3 produced a very humorous

wordplay by referring to another television series, the Canadian “Property

Brothers”, broadcast in Brazil as Irmãos à obra (“Brothers at work”), which

resulted in Peitões à obra (“Big titties at work”).

Segment 11 - Short-changed at the nipple bank

Participants

Easy to

translate?

Translations

Resulted in

P1

P2

P3

P4

P5

No.

Yes.

No.

Uma mastectomia barata pode sair cara



Re-peito é bom e eu gosto

Uma pequena transferência no Banco dos

Peitos

Peitinho ou Peitão, Eis a Questão!

PUN



PUN

NON-PUN

PUN

By far, segment 11 was one of the most difficult ones to translate, as

four of the participants attested. Besides, based on P4’s suggestions, my

impression is that “short-changed” was misunderstood as “short of cash”,

Uma pequena transferência no Banco de Peitos (“A small amount

transferred into the nipple bank”). P1 produced a solution that was based on

the context rather than on the source wordplay proper, since he/she

understood that, after two mastectomies, the patient needed to reconstruct

her breasts. He/she then came up with Uma mastectomia barata pode sair

cara (“A mastectomy: you get what you pay for it”), based on the popular

saying O barato sai caro (“You get what you pay for”). P3 was very creative

by referring to a popular saying Respeito é bom e eu quero (“Respect is

welcome and I want it”), and produced a wordplay through lexical blending,

coalescing respeito (“respect”) and peito (“breast”), re-peito, something like

“re-pectus”, from “respect + pectus”.

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Segment 12- Silicone Valley

Participants

Easy to

translate?

Translations

Resulted in

P1

P2

P3

P4

P5

Yes.

No.

Vale do Silicone

PUN

Differently from the previous segment, this was one of the easiest

wordplays to translate, as the solutions produced by all participants could

attest. Although silício and silicone are not paronyms, as their

correspondents in English (“silicon”/ “silicone”), the substitution in

Portuguese constitutes a wordplay.

Segment 13- The serial filler

Participants

Easy to

translate?

Translations

Resulted in

P1

P2

P3

P4

P5

Yes.

No.

Yes.

Enchimentos em série

Enchimento por acidente

Preenchimento letal

O preenchimento assassino

O preenchedor em série

NON-PUN

PUN

Like segment 11, this was a difficult one to translate. As the source

phraseologism “serial killer” is commonly used as a loanword in Portuguese,

translating the wordplay “serial filler” becomes even more challenging. First

of all, as far as cosmetics is concerned, the equivalent word for “to fill” in

Portuguese is preencher, so P1’s and P2’s solutions had to be discarded,

since they used words derived from a different verb encher, resulting in

enchimento. According to my interpretation, P3 and P4 created wordplays in

Portuguese by referring to movie titles through substitution: Preenchimento

letal (“Lethal filling”), based on Virus letal (“The viral factor”), and O

preechimento assassino (“The killing filler”), based on Brinquedo assassino

(“Child’s play”). P5 opted for O preenchedor em série, a literal rendering,

which according to him/her refers to O assassino em série, rendered literally,

also used in Portuguese.

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Segment 14- To implant or not to implant

Participants

Easy to

translate?

Translations

Resulted in

P1

P2

P3

P4

P5

Yes.

Implantar ou não implantar, eis a questão

Novos implantes ou não? Eis a questão

Implantar ou não implantar

Fazer ou não fazer o implante

Implantar ou não implantar

PUN

Like segment 12, this was an easy wordplay to translate. All

participants managed to use structures that resembled the well-known

quotation from Hamlet by Shakespeare “To be or not to be”. To make the

wordplay in Portuguese more evident, P1 and P2 added part of the quote

not included in source wordplay (“That is the question”/ Eis a questão/). In

my opinion, translations that used infinitives (P1, P3, P4 and P5) rather than

other structures produced more effective wordplays.

Considering all the solutions in Portuguese (70 wordplays = 14

occurrences x 5 participants), 64 % (45) of the translations resulted in PUN.

First impressions might imply that some participants did not notice the

wordplays in the segments, and then did not translate them as such.

However, according to the participants’ comments from the questionnaires,

they rated most of the occurrences (61 %) as difficult to translate exactly

because the segments contained wordplays.

7. Final remarks

The results have shown that, although participants’ performance was

reasonably satisfactory and consistent in several segments, only 64 % of

their solutions resulted into wordplays. This is likely to be connected with the

fact that translating wordplays is in fact a difficult and challenging task, as

their replies, edited below, confirm: “it is difficult to translate because it

involves different aspects of languages and cultures, requiring not only

linguistic knowledge, but also creativity and awareness of the type of

audience the translation is intended for”. However, curiously, only 61% of all

segments were deemed as hard to translate.

Their opinion also signalled that not all wordplays analyzed are

creative (88 %), nor humorous (57 %). All participants mentioned that this

kind of activity is an “interesting”, “excellent” exercise to develop creativity,

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and to resolve dilemmas, they will possibly face in future real-life translation

assignments.

Participants also mentioned that, while they were translating the

wordplays, they remembered theoretical aspects of translation, such as

“adaptation” “foregnization/domestication”, and “functional translation”, and

theoreticians, such as Delabastita, and Tagnin, for instance. Even

considering that participants were deeply involved in the activity, individual

performance was not uniform. The results show that P3, P1, and P5, with

12, 11, and 11 successful solutions; respectively, did better than, P4, and

P2, with 7 and 5 successful solutions; respectively. The results suggest,

then, that it will not suffice for translators just to recognize a wordplay, they

will have to translate it as such.

In sum, an activity like the one I proposed to novice translators raises

the possibility of using it with translation students, since it can potentialize

the metalinguistic function of wordplays. If wordplays, in general terms,

encourage or demand metalinguistic reflection from the addressee, the

translator, as a special addressee, must have great linguistic knowledge to

be able to perceive a wordplay and to translate it into a wordplay.

Consequently, this type of activity can provide fruitful insights not only from

the linguistic, but also from the theoretical, pragmatic, and cultural points of

view.

References

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Appendix 1 - Questionnaire circulated to participants

I am investigating the occurrence of linguistic combinations extracted from the

American reality television series Botched, which follows doctors Terry Dubrow and

Paul Nassif as they remedy extreme plastic surgeries gone wrong.

You are being requested to analyze the segments below. Then, circle the

answers corresponding to your reaction to each of them, and justify. Later, please

suggest a translation into Brazilian Portuguese. Some of the segments refer to the

titles of the episodes. Feel free to visit https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3781836/episodes

to obtain more information about the episodes. If you happen to watch any of the

episodes in their dubbed version, please inform how the segment(s) has/have been

translated into Portuguese.

The results of this enquiry will be treated anonymously, but the following

information is needed:

Your age: Your sex: M/F

Thank you for your contribution.

Segment

Creative?

Humorous?

Easy to

translate?

Why?

Your

trans.

1.

a Supa Woman

shows off her

ass-ets

Yes/ No.

2.

a woman with

franken-tits

Yes/ No.

3.

Bigger Isn’t

Breast

Yes/ No.

4.

Face Misfor-

Chin

Yes/ No.

5.

Four Leeches

and a Funeral

Yes/ No.

6.

It’s Called

Bimbofication

Yes/ No.

7.

Make Titties

Great Again

Yes/ No.

8.

Mother Knows

Breast

Yes/ No.

9.

Nothing Butt

Trouble

Yes/ No.

10.

Say Yes to the

Breasts

Yes/ No.

11.

Short-Changed

at the Nipple

Bank

Yes/ No.

12.

Silicone Valley

Yes/ No.

13.

The Serial Filler

Yes/ No.

14.

To Implant or

Not to Implant

Yes/ No.

After you translated (or tried to translate) the excerpts, did you find the activity

challenging? Yes/No. Why?

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In general terms, while translating, did you think of any translation theory?

Yes/No. Justify your answer.

How can an activity like this help translation students?

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Appendix 2 – The context of wordplays sent to respondents along with

questionnaire.

(1) A woman shows off huge butts after a few surgeries.

(2) A woman with frightening breasts after unsuccessful surgeries.

(3) A patient wishes to get a breast reduction.

(4) A chin surgery that went wrong.

(5) A man says farewell to his nose with a funeral after fixing it with the extra

help of leeches.

(6) A woman wants to look like a “blowdoll”, or a bimbo.

(7) A patient hopes to regain her confidence with new breasts.

(8) A young woman undergone double mastectomy to beat cancer after her

mother had died of the disease.

(9) A young woman, whose multiple silicone removal surgeries have left her

with a distorted derriere.

(10) A former actress who fought a flesh-eating disease wants to reconstruct

her breasts.

(11) A woman seeks breast reconstruction after double mastectomy.

(12) Silicone began to leak and migrate throughout the body of a

transgender.

(13) A patient hopes to erase the physical reminders from a fatal car

accident that gave her a lip filler.

(14) A woman with jarring pain from her previous breast implants is not sure

if she wants new ones.