Translatability of English puns into Arabic : Lewis Carroll's Alice adventures in wonderland, George Orwell's animal farm and Charles Dickens's great expectations as case studies

Abstract EN

This study investigates the problems that a translator may encounter when translating English puns into Arabic in three selected novels : Lewis Carroll's Alice adventures in wonderland, George Orwell's animal farm and Charles Dickens's great expectations.

two main problems and interrelated issues are discussed: how puns were translated? and how they should or (can be) translated?.

it is observed that, in some cases, the translators of the three selected novels failed to convey the intended meaning of certain puns; therefore, some strategies were suggested by the researcher.

the study indicates that a translator might face the problem of not being able to translate puns and/or convey their intended meaning (s).

this problem comes as a result of various reasons.

for example, English puns, if sound-based, do not have the same phonetic representations in Arabic.

in addition, English puns sometimes evoke shades of meanings that the tl text cannot show.

therefore, this leads to a serious loss or a distortion of meaning.