Single correct option
A translator rendering a pun faces an unavoidable choice: preserve the source language's exact words and lose the joke, or invent an entirely new pun in the target language and preserve the comic effect at the cost of literal accuracy. Which option counts as more 'faithful' depends on whether one defines fidelity as loyalty to a text's surface form or loyalty to its intended effect. Translation theory, in cases like this, does not eliminate the dilemma; it only makes explicit what is being traded away.
- A. Translation theory can always resolve a translator's dilemmas by specifying a single correct choice for every difficult passage.
- B. Puns are always untranslatable, so translators should simply omit wordplay from their translations entirely.
- C. Whether preserving a text's literal wording or its intended comic effect counts as more faithful depends on one's definition of fidelity, and translation theory clarifies this trade-off rather than resolving it.
- D. Surface-level fidelity is objectively superior to fidelity of intention when translating wordplay.
Show answer and solution
Answer: (C) Whether preserving a text's literal wording or its intended comic effect counts as more faithful depends on one's definition of fidelity, and translation theory clarifies this trade-off rather than resolving it.
The paragraph's final sentence is decisive: theory 'does not eliminate the dilemma; it only makes explicit what is being traded away,' and the earlier sentence frames the choice as dependent on 'whether one defines fidelity' one way or another. Option C mirrors this exactly. Option A contradicts the stated conclusion. Option B is an unsupported prescriptive claim (omission is never suggested). Option D wrongly asserts an objective ranking the paragraph explicitly avoids.
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