The Challenges and Solutions of Translating Puns and Jokes from English to Indonesian

Translating puns and jokes is often perceived as the most challenging task in translation field. The difficulties of translating puns emerge because the sense of humor in the puns and jokes can be disappeared after being translated into the target language. This study aims to see the challenges that English Education Department’s students have as well as the solutions they can implement in translating puns from English to Indonesian. This study applies qualitative method with content analysis technique. The data were generated from the translation products of puns translated by English Education Department students. The data were then analyzed by using reader-response technique to find out the readers’ response toward the puns and jokes that have been translated into Indonesian. After analyzing the data, the results indicate that most students experienced difficulties to translate the puns from English to Indonesia. The biggest challenge that the students encountered is not only in translating the cultural humor, but also in translating the linguistic humor and the universal humor. Students who implement free translation method and domesticating ideology were able to produce a better target language oriented translation to let the readers understand the humor behind the puns and the jokes they read. These findings suggest that the solution to the challenge of translating puns is that students should use free translation and domesticating ideology in translating cultural text, such as puns and joke