Cartoon Annotations and Their Effect on the Reader: A Case Study of The New Yorker

• Main Authors: HUANG, LO-WEN, 黃珞文
• Other Authors: Michael Tanangkingsing
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/4w82ye

碩士 === 輔仁大學 === 跨文化研究所翻譯學碩士在職專班 === 103 === Originating in Europe and gaining cultural influence in the western world starting in the 19th century, Cartoons not only carry a unique quality of compactness but also require a common knowledge background between the author and the reader so that communication can effectively take place. Having been published in The New Yorker primarily for the magazine’s American readers, The New Yorker cartoons have richly used culturally bound words or symbols that had their origins either from Europe or America, ranging in areas from history, religion, fairy tales, to folk legends and others. Composed in a fairly simple formula of just an image plus a caption, with not too many words, this shortened format not only encapsulates much information and meaning but also requires every recipient’s going through a reversely capsulizing process before the original meaning can be unfolded again. The literature review sets out to discuss the four dimensions that are associated with the research topic, they are the cartoon (with the word’s origin), annotation, humor (with the word’s origin), and the quantitative research methods related. This thesis tracked down some differences between the East and the West when referring to cartoon (卡通, katong) and humor (幽默, youmo) in the modern time. In terms of cartoon, I divided the related subjects into two parts, the image and the text, and prepared to answer questions about what should a translator do when culturally-dense meaning is hidden behind the captioned (or, even the caption-less) cartoons? After this examination, I went on to deal with what could translators learn from the cartoon challenges. With regard to topics that are humor related, I found that one of the key issues underlying this research should exist in a statement that humor is essential to cartoon. And if this is true, keeping in mind that by definition, (refer to p. 19 of this thesis) humor is an act refusing to be cooperative in communication, and always seeking to break rules; on the other hand, the comprehension to the wit of the humor is still key to the fun of reading a cartoon. Therefore, I argue that whenever a Chinese reader needs to logically understand a cartoon, annotation should still be added. The research began with the content analysis of three Chinese translated volumes of the New Yorker cartoons published in 2002 in Taiwan. The result seemed to build a case that despite of the fact that culturally bound cartoons in these three volumes are rich, a lot were also left un-dealt with. This probably is related to the fact that some cultural meanings were not expressed through words, but rather, delivered through messages hidden behind images, or even through the invisible mechanism, the link between the text and the image. The research questions are, what is the mechanism at work that makes a cartoon funny? Is annotation a good solution for cartoon translation? To what extent does an annotation best help the readers? Do the readers enjoy reading annotated cartoons? I designed an experiment composed of a questionnaire with 12 cartoons, where each cartoon in its Chinese version was annotated in three different ways varying in their lengths, namely, long, short, and none. A total of 69 participants responded and accordingly rated how much they agreed that those 12 cartoons they read were interesting. But the annotated versions of cartoons they got to read were randomly arranged, without them being aware of it. From the survey results and the statistical treatment, a correlation analysis for the annotation effect was summarized, and the main discovery was that annotations in most cases enhanced cartoon appreciation positively. Four types of cartoons were identified: two were better appreciated by the addition of some annotations (7 cartoons), two with no annotations added (5 cartoons). I tested them all with ANOVA, and then concluded that two ANOVA-passing cartoons which belong to the first group proved to be statistically meaningful. The characterizations of these two cartoons (and the other five in the same group “with the addition of some annotations”) are common in that their long-annotation ratings scored the highest, followed by their short-annotation ratings, and then the no-annotation ones. Mapping the four-type result with some content analysis, I further learned that while cartoons with global topics (for example, modern technology and unemployment issues) can be appreciated without any annotations, the cartoons that have regional, historical, or cultural-bound gaps cannot go without some annotations added. A number of secondary findings from this research are, firstly, with regards to what is the ideal length of an annotation, the answer is that there is no single answer that will fit all. The translator should cultivate a sense towards this issue and make their best judgments. Secondly, the Taiwanese readers showed preference to childlike innocent fun cartoons, for higher interesting ratings among this type of cartoons seem to be obvious. Lastly, more than 70% of the respondents would agree to a statement claiming, "a failure to understand a cartoon would affect the joy of appreciating it." However, interestingly, when a delicately fine cartoon contains multi-layer fun—both a visually easy to spot one and a culturally-bound hidden one—readers who don’t grab that “deeper” one would nonetheless take the easy one and still think that they understood it and it is already good fun for them.