translation

Translation howlers 57
marshaled to show the humorous potential of mistranslation. When Fiorello
and Driftwood conclude an agreement to bring the Italian tenor to New
York (though they both have a different tenor in mind), Driftwood produces
a contract. The contract scene is partly a play on the sublanguages of
English and how misunderstanding can result from terms inappropriately
applied. Driftwood starts reading the contract for the illiterate Fiorello
saying, ‘The party in the first part shall be known as the party in the first
part’ and then goes on to say, ‘the party in the second part shall be known as
the party in the second part.’ When Fiorello intimates that he does not like
the second party, Driftwood replies, ‘Well you should have gone to the first
party, we didn’t get home till four in the morning.’ The scene is partly a
parody of legal sublanguage in English but it is also a reminder that translation
is as much an intralingual as an interlingual phenomenon.
The language of contract is in a sense as impenetrable to native speakers
of the language as it is to foreign learners. Tearing off parts of the contract
as Driftwood reads through it is as much an admission of internal defeat
(impossible to translate the contract into intelligible, standard English) as it
is of external incomprehension (impossible to translate the contract into
anything that makes sense in any other language). In the pun on ‘party’
Driftwood is, of course, exploiting his superior knowledge of the English
language, and it is the polysemic nature of language which is an obvious trap
for learners attempting to make sense of what they hear. What makes languages
difficult to translate, the presence of ambiguity, is also what makes them
difficult to learn. The pun, the verbal game, exposes the vulnerability of
language acquisition and the peculiar trials of translation. When Driftwood
at the end of his reading of the contract refers to the clause that the contract
is null and void if any of the parties to the contract are found to be mentally
unsound, he refers to the provision as the ‘sanity clause.’ Fiorello’s response
is immediate, ‘You aint foolin’ me. There aint no Sanity Clause.’ What the
scene draws on for comic effect is Fiorello’s imperfect knowledge of the
English language revealed in the unwitting pun of ‘sanity clause’ and ‘Santa
Claus.’ He translates what he hears into what he knows, but knowledge and
understanding are not always co-terminous.
The migrant speaker translates what he hears into a known cultural
referent but his imperfect knowledge of the language leaves him open to the
pratfall of misunderstanding. On the other hand, his misconstrual of what he
hears reveals a creative dimension to migrant translation in that he brings
out a possible meaning to ‘sanity clause,’ which might have otherwise
remained opaque to native speakers of the language. The contract is the
basis of Fiorello and Driftwood’s relationship and the reason for their journey to
the United States. The contract is a written document and part of Fiorello’s
difficulty is, of course, that he cannot read or write. But the difficulty is further
compounded by the fact that although the scene takes place in English it is
not supposed to be his native language. His contractual relationship as a
migrant is not only with a new business partner but also with a new language,