Interpreting Blue Humour In A Kenyan Political Context

Abstract

This study set out to investigate the different forms of blue humour that appear in politicians’ speeches and the strategies used by interpreters to interpret them. Humour is a common coping mechanism that is increasingly used over the world. Politicians are among those who use humour to drive their agenda. Blue humour has gained popularity among Kenyan politicians and interpreters find themselves in some situations where they are required to interpret it. Despite the offensive nature of blue humour, an interpreter ought to effectively render the message to pass across the intention of the speaker as well as the blue humour, where possible. The study used relevance theory and adaptation theory to explain how interpreters interpret blue humour in politicians’ speeches. Relevance theory emphasizes the fact that interpretation entails more than the decoding of a message. An interpreter must understand the intention of the speaker. Adaptation theory, on the other hand, emphasizes the need to understand the context of a speech to render an effective interpretation. Interpreters were given speeches to interpret and a questionnaire to fill and the results of the activities were analyzed. From our analysis, blue humour appears in various forms in politicians’ speeches; Wordplay, double-meaning blue humour, dark blue humour, insult blue humour, impromptu, slapstick, deadpan, satire or awkward blue humour. Interpreters use four main strategies to interpret blue humour; literal translation, summarization, reformulation and paraphrasing. In using these methods, interpreters add, omit, distort or mistranslate blue humour. We recommended strategies that could be used and cases where the strategies would be applicable among other recommendations.