It can be a challenge to communicate with a sense of humour in a diverse and multicultural society. Humour relies on words and phrases that are unexpected, playful, absurd, or ridiculous for their effect. Wordplays (puns), double-meanings, irony, satire, sarcasm, slapstick, or references shared by a common group can be lost in translation and can lead to misunderstandings. It is important to understand your audience when transcreating or transposing content.

Why is a sense of humour important in communication?

Humour builds intimacy with your target audience by appealing to shared references. When done right, it builds rapport and can have a powerful effect.

Our global economy often calls for language adaptation of movies, advertisements, marketing communications, educational tools, video games, etc. But a joke or reference in one language will likely not have the same effect in another. 

As multilingual marketing specialists, we have assisted clients of all sizes to step into multilingual markets, adapting content to the preferences and cultural sensitivities of each target market. A humorous tagline may be great in English, but confusing or lost in another language.

We explored some of the challenges of communicating and translating humour and provided a few useful tips to avoid those pitfalls.

Via TV Tropes

What happens when we try to translate humour?

Humour often creates a distinct mental image. However, during the translation process, a translated word or phrase may not evoke the same mental image. This is often why humour rarely translates successfully.

When is humour offensive?

One of the challenges of translating humour is the risk of offending your audience due to cultural differences. Your audience may not understand the sense of humour due to different cultural norms or taboos in their country. 

Some cultures may not consider a certain topic appropriate for humour, whereas others may find the same topic hilarious. One word or phrase can have very different meanings in different cultures, which can lead to different interpretations. 

The word “spicy” for example can refer to food in some cultures. In others, it refers to people with an aggressive nature, and for some, it may even have sexual connotations.

Here’s another example:

Pissed

U.S – Angry

U.K – Drunk

Double-meaning sentence– “I am really pissed” (source)

To avoid cultural faux pas, understanding the targeted audience is essential. What are their cultural preferences? What are their taboos?

This video further illustrates our point.

Different registers of humour and their translation challenges

Humour is more than a funny quip or a silly pun. It can be a subtle tone, an unusual situation, or even a humorous ambiguity. One of the challenges of translating humour is differentiating between the different registers. Some can easily be adapted to another language, while others can’t. 

Translating humorous messages into another language is a tough task even for a professional translator or interpreter. Translators and interpreters are generally expected to translate the entire message in order to accurately relay the meaning of the message.

A sense of humour often relies on cultural references, puns, wordplay, and regionalisms that are difficult to understand without a thorough knowledge of the language and context.

Source: European Scientific Journal – Nov’14

Puns use words that spell or sound similar but have different meanings. For example, the word “knight” and “night” have similar pronunciations and English speakers would understand the joke below. However, the effect would be lost in translation.

Which humour is best?

When translating humour, you should first identify the register of humour. Then, you can choose options that will resonate with the target audience while remaining true to the original meaning. You should also identify the context. 

Sometimes, simply changing the order of sentences or adding context can make a joke work. You could also consider rewording or adding a visual element that the reader can connect with. We need to remember that humour is very subjective and that everyone has different tastes. Adapting humour across cultures is challenging, but can be done! It simply requires an understanding of the target audience to do so respectfully, while keeping the tone and intention.

Tip 1: Check for cultural sensitivities

Depending on the culture, some topics can be sensitive. Political, religious, and other sensitive topics can trigger strong reactions for some.

You should consider adapting the language to make it more appropriate and avoid words or phrases that might offend your audience. You can also consider rewording a sentence to avoid misunderstandings.

When you communicate a humorous message with a respectful and genuine approach, you’ll see extraordinary results in your marketing campaigns. Check out how Dollar Shave Club delivers razors and grooming products with a campaign that did an excellent job of targeting their specific audience through humour.

Tip 2: Provide context for non-humorous idioms and expressions

Some idioms or expressions related to humour may not be based on wordplays or double meanings. If the humour is based on an idiom or an expression with no equivalent in the target language, you can add context. 

Simply provide the definition of the idiom or expression or rewrite the original sentence to add your own context. 

Here are some examples that demonstrate this point:

How is humour perceived in different parts of the world?

Humour in the US and Canada: A sense of humour in the US can be seen as fast-paced and a lot of it is derived from certain stereotypes. American humour is also seen as making general instances absurd, while Canadian humour generally reflects mild satire, parody, and irony.

Humour in Asia: In China, humour is not perceived as a desirable personality trait, as opposed to western countries.

However, the increasing popularity of performance art comedy in China portrays people of a certain cultural and economic background.

Here’s an example reflecting how certain words and meanings would be relevant to a specific culture.

Below is a mixture of Chinese cabbage and a dog, created by a Japanese artist. It is one of a series called Vegetable Fairy Animals. Since this figurine entered the Chinese market, it has been extremely popular and achieved huge business success. It is because 菜狗, literally translated as cabbage dog, is Chinese slang to describe bad players, and people often use this expression to mock themselves.

Japanese humour involves frequent usage of puns often referred to as “old man” jokes. The narration of long comic stories featuring silly characters is also common.

Indian humour is diverse and revolves around the roasting of individuals from rival regions with different lifestyles or daily habits. People in India, generally the younger generations, also make jokes about their own cultural practices. A typical example includes a modern daughter-in-law sparking several humorous instances revolving around arguments with the mother-in-law, and the son/husband is caught in the middle. 

Check out one more example of a humorous reference to which Indian children would relate well!

 
 
 
 
 
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Here is a video of various gestures around the world and their different meanings.

The benefits of humour

There are plenty of benefits of incorporating humour into your daily life, including stress reduction and a positive influence on those around you. Humour also helps you build relationships with other people, which is especially important for anyone looking to make new connections within their company or industry.

Laughter is a universal language, but it doesn’t always translate across cultures. As with any language, humour is subject to the nuances of the speaker’s culture and background. 

If you have any questions about this topic, or if you wish to incorporate humour in your business communications with culturally-sensitive translations, we’ve got you covered! Get in touch with us here!

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