The pun is as old as Babel, and inveterate punsters like Shakespeare clearly never lacked translators. This book critically examines the evergreen cliché that wordplay defies translation, replacing it by a theory and a case study that aim to come to grips with the reality of wordplay and its translation. What are the possible modes of wordplay translation? What are the various, sometimes conflicting constraints prompting translators in certain situations to go for one strategy rather than another? Ample illustration is provided from Hamlet and other Shakespearean texts and several Dutch, French, and German renderings. The study exemplifies how theory can usefully be integrated into a description-oriented approach to translation. Much of the argument also rests on the definition of wordplay as an open-ended and historically variable category. The book's concerns range from the linguistic and textual properties of Shakespeare's punning and its translation to matters of historical poetics and ideology. Its straightforward approach shows that discourse about wordplay doesn't need to rely on stylistic bravura or abstract speculation. The book is concluded by an anthology of the puns in Hamlet, including a brief semantic analysis of each and a generous selection of diverse translations.

Popular and multimodal forms of cultural products are becoming increasingly visible within translation studies research. Interest in translation and music, however, has so far been relatively limited, mainly because translation of musical material has been considered somewhat outside the limits of translation studies, as traditionally conceived. Difficulties associated with issues such as the 'musicality' of lyrics, the fuzzy boundaries between translation, adaptation and rewriting, and the pervasiveness of covert or unacknowledged translations of musical elements in a variety of settings have generally limited the research in this area to overt and canonized translations such as those done for the opera. Yet the intersection of translation and music can be a fascinating field to explore, and one which can enrich our understanding of what translation is and how it relates to other forms of expression. This special issue is an attempt to open up the field of translation and music to a wider audience within translation studies, and to an extent, within musicology and cultural studies. The volume includes contributions from a wide range of musical genres and languages: from those that investigate translation and code-switching in North African rap and rai, and the intertextual and intersemiotic translations revolving around Mahler's lieder in Chinese, to the appropriation and after-life of Kurdish folk songs in Turkish, and the emergence of rock'n roll in Russian. Other papers examine the reception of Anglo-American stage musicals and musical films in Italy and Spain, the concept of 'singability' with examples from Scandinavian languages, and the French dubbing of musical episodes of TV series. The volume also offers an annotated bibliography on opera translation and a general bibliography on translation and music.

This text examines the social and political impact of the Swahili language.

The book series is dedicated to the study of the multifaceted dynamics of wordplay as an interface phenomenon. The contributions aim to bring together approaches from various disciplines and present case studies on different communicative settings, inluding everyday language and literary communication, and thus offer fresh perspectives on wordplay in the context of linguistic innovation, language contact, and speaker-hearer-interaction. La collection vise à analyser la diversité de la dynamique du jeu de mots en tant que phénomène d’interface. Les contributions réunissent les approches de différentes disciplines et présentent des études de cas de situations de communication variées, incluant tant le langage quotidien que la communication littéraire. Ainsi, elles offrent de nouvelles perspectives sur le jeu de mots dans le contexte de l’innovation linguistique, du contact linguistique, et de l’interaction locuteur-interlocuteur. Editorial Board: Salvatore Attardo (Texas A&M University Commerce, USA), Dirk Delabastita (Université de Namur, Belgium), Dirk Geeraerts (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium), Raymond W. Gibbs (University of California, Santa Cruz, USA), Alain Rabatel (Université de Lyon 1 /ICAR, UMR 5191, CNRS, Université Lumière-Lyon 2, ENS-Lyon, France), Monika Schmitz-Emans (Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany), Deirdre Wilson (University College London, UK)

Wordplay involving several linguistic codes is an important modality of ludic language. This volume offers a multidisciplinary approach to the topic, discussing examples from different epochs, genres, and communicative situations. The contributions illustrate the multi-dimensionality, linguistic make-up, and the special interactive potential of wordplay across linguistic and cultural boundaries, including the challenging practice of translation.