THE TRANSLATION OF PUNS AND WORDPLAY IN LEWIS CARROLL'S "ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND"

291 Vol. 5, No. 11 – Special Issue (EJAR) ISSN: 2181-2020 LPTIENP International Scientific-Practice Conference on “Linguistics and Pedagogical Technologies: International Experience and National Practice” Denau, November 20, 2025 in-academy.uz/index.php/ejar THE TRANSLATION OF PUNS AND WORDPLAY IN LEWIS CARROLL’S “ALICE’S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND” Salomova Dilnoza Bozor qizi Iskandarova Xusnora Xurshid qizi Xudoyberdiyeva Laylo Abdumalik qizi Abduvastayeva Dilnora Davron qizi Students of Denau Institute of Entrepreneurship and Pedagogy Rasulova Dilbar Rasulovna Teacher of Denau Institute of Entrepreneurship and Pedagogy https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17630010 Abstract: Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland is widely recognized for its rich use of linguistic creativity, particularly puns and wordplay. This paper explores the functions of puns and wordplay in Carroll’s novel and examines the strategies and difficulties involved in translating them into Uzbek. Translation by M. Zohidova was selected. Comparing the work of this translator makes it possible to understand the main trends and approaches to translating Lewis Carroll’s fairy tales existing worldwide. The theoretical significance of this thesis lies in the fact that the patterns identified in the process of studying the transmission of puns from English to Uzbek. The practical value of the work consists in the possibility of applying its provisions in courses on stylistics, interpretation of literary texts, translation theory, typological stylistics, and, most importantly, in translation practice. The results showed that the functions of puns found in the two chapters were of five kinds: creating humor, showing mastery over language, provoking the reader, drawing the attention to certain phenomena, and satirizing social practices. The study concludes that while the full equivalence of puns across languages is often unattainable, creative translation strategies such as adaptation, compensation, and functional substitution can effectively convey the humor and intent of the original text. Key words: wordplay, puns, Alice, humor, playfulness, translation, literary, language game, linguistic, metaphor, character,adventures, magic, wonder, style. Аннотация: “Приключения Алисы в Стране чудес” Льюиса Кэрролла широко известны своим богатым использованием лингвистического творчества, в частности, каламбуров и игры слов. В данной статье исследуются функции каламбуров и игры слов в романе Кэрролла, а также стратегии и трудности их перевода на узбекский язык. Был выбран перевод М. Зохидовой. Сравнение работ этого переводчика позволяет понять основные тенденции и подходы к переводу сказок Льюиса Кэрролла, существующие в мире. Теоретическая значимость данной диссертации заключается в выявлении закономерностей в процессе изучения передачи каламбуров с английского языка на узбекский. Практическая ценность работы заключается в возможности применения её положений в курсах по стилистике, интерпретации художественных текстов, теории перевода, типологической стилистике и, что наиболее важно, в практике перевода. Результаты показали, что функции каламбуров, выявленные в двух главах, можно разделить на пять видов: создание юмора, демонстрация мастерства владения языком, провокация читателя, привлечение внимания к определённым явлениям и высмеивание общественной практики. В исследовании сделан вывод о том, что, хотя полная эквивалентность каламбуров в разных языках часто недостижима, такие творческие стратегии перевода, как адаптация, компенсация и функциональная замена, могут эффективно передать юмор и замысел исходного текста. Ключевые слова: игра слов, каламбуры, Алиса, юмор, игривость, перевод, литературный, языковая игра, лингвистический, метафора, персонаж, приключения, волшебство, чудо, стиль. 292 Vol. 5, No. 11 – Special Issue (EJAR) ISSN: 2181-2020 LPTIENP International Scientific-Practice Conference on “Linguistics and Pedagogical Technologies: International Experience and National Practice” Denau, November 20, 2025 in-academy.uz/index.php/ejar Annotatsiya: Lyuis Kerrollning “Alisaning mo’jizalar mamlakatidagi sarguzashtlari” lingvistik ijodkorlik asari, xususan, so’z o’yinlaridan keng foydalanilganligi bilan dunyo miqyosida tan olingan. Ushbu maqolada Kerroll romanidagi so‘z o‘yini va so‘z o‘yini funksiyalari o‘rganilib, ularni o‘zbek tiliga tarjima qilishdagi strategiya va qiyinchiliklar ko‘rib chiqiladi. Bu maqola uchun M. Zohidova tarjimasi tanlab olindi. Ushbu tarjimonning ishini ko’rib chiqish Lyuis Kerrollning butun dunyoda mavjud ertaklarini tarjima qilishning asosiy tendentsiyalari va yondashuvlarini tushunish imkonini beradi. Bu maqolaning nazariy ahamiyati shundan iboratki, so‘z birikmalarining ingliz tilidan o‘zbek tiliga o‘tishini o‘rganish jarayonida aniqlangan qoliplarni o’rganish. Ishning amaliy ahamiyati uning qoidalarini stilistika, badiiy matnlarni sharhlash, tarjima nazariyasi, tipologik stilistika kurslarida va eng muhimi, tarjima amaliyotida qo‘llash imkoniyatidan iborat. Natijalar shuni ko’rsatdiki, ikki bobda topilgan so’z o’yinlarining vazifalari besh xil: hazil yaratish, til ustidan mahorat ko’rsatish, o’quvchini g’azablantirish, ayrim hodisalarga e’tiborni jalb qilish va ijtimoiy amaliyotlarni satirik qilish. Tadqiqot shuni ko’rsatadiki, tillardagi so’z birikmalarining to’liq ekvivalentligiga ko’pincha erishib bo’lmaydigan bo’lsa-da, moslashtirish, kompensatsiya va funksional almashtirish kabi ijodiy tarjima strategiyalari asl matnning hazil va maqsadini samarali tarzda o’quvchiga yetkazishi mumkin. Kalit so’zlar: so’z o’yini, so’z o’yinlari, Elis, hazil, o’ynoqilik, tarjima, adabiy, til o’yini, lingvistik, metafora, xarakter, sarguzashtlar, sehr, hayrat, uslub. INTRODUCTION Literary texts are often admired for their ability to communicate complex ideas through indirect linguistic devices such as irony, metaphor, and wordplay. In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), Lewis Carroll skillfully uses puns to construct a whimsical world where logic is inverted, and language becomes both a tool of humor and a means of social critique. Translated into many languages, they remain some of the most famous books in the world today, attracting the interest of millions of people. However, translators face a serious problem when translating these works, as many situations, amusing lines, and characters in the books are not accidental but deeply motivated and entirely built on wordplay, literal interpretation of phraseological components, enlivening metaphors, puns, and folklore. Literal translation causes the humor and playfulness to disappear, while associative translation no longer allows one to speak of Carroll’s Alice. To this day, there is no unified approach to translating this work in the field of literary translation. Thus, the aim of this work is to investigate the features of pun usage in Lewis Carroll’s fairy tale “Alice in Wonderland”. To achieve this goal, we set the following tasks: -to consider the concept of pun and its stylistic characteristics; -to familiarize with the main types and classifications of puns; -to analyze examples of pun usage in Lewis Carroll’s work “The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland”; -to create a brochure with explanations for the fairy tale “Alice in Wonderland” for readers. The object of the study: contexts selected during the research of the text of Lewis Carroll’s literary work “Alice in Wonderland” and the translation by M. Zohidova. Puns and Wordplays In “Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland” The term “language game” implying a plurality of meanings, was introduced in 1945 by the Austrian philosopher and logician Ludwig Wittgenstein to describe language as a system of conventional rules in which the speaker participates. In domestic linguistics, the term “language 293 Vol. 5, No. 11 – Special Issue (EJAR) ISSN: 2181-2020 LPTIENP International Scientific-Practice Conference on “Linguistics and Pedagogical Technologies: International Experience and National Practice” Denau, November 20, 2025 in-academy.uz/index.php/ejar game” entered wide scientific use after the publication of the eponymous work by E. A. Zemskaya, M. V. Kitaygorodskaya, and N. N. Rozanova. As stated in this work, these are “phenomena when the speaker ‘plays’ with the form of speech, when a free attitude to the form of speech receives an aesthetic task, even if the most modest one. This can be a simple joke, a more or less successful witticism, a pun, and various types of tropes (similes, metaphors, periphrases, etc.)” [8, 172]. Language play is based on the violation of generally accepted linguistic and speech norms, and the unusual is noticed faster and more willingly than the usual, evoking many associations. It is quite obvious that playful techniques are designed to attract readers’ attention to certain themes or microthemes of the work. Carroll believed that language as a system “functions within pre-agreed rules, providing, like logic and mathematics, a refined pleasure from skillful manipulation of its elements. Mastering the rules requires effort and persistence, but the result, according to Carroll, will be the obvious advantages of the connoisseur over the uninitiated” [1, 129]. In Carroll's works, wordplay largely defines the character of the style, and the writer constantly plays with words, making his work one of the most difficult to translate, as it contains many witticisms, allusions, and puns. Often, the author refers the reader to the realities, customs, and morals of English society, its traditions, and folklore. This makes it clear that this work requires the translator to have a certain thesaurus, as well as possible comments and explanations during translation. It is also necessary to consider the fact that the work is perceived differently by children, for whom a dynamic and intricate plot is important, and adults, for whom the deeper meaning and linguistic component matter. According to some researchers, there are two types of language play: banter, not related to speech transmission, and wittiness, when an unusual form of expression contributes to the actualization of the author’s thought and the creation of a more figurative transmission of content [8, 175]. Thus, language play is a special form of the writer's linguistic creative activity, having an associative nature [7, 383]. In Lewis Carroll’s fairy tales “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” the language itself becomes an object of special attention, acting as a kind of “character” [2, 5]. It should be noted that the main problem in both the theory and practice of literary translation is the fidelity (accuracy, adequacy) of reproducing the original text. The struggle between two diametrically opposed approaches—literal (word-for-word) and free (creative) translation—has continued throughout the existence of interlingual contacts. To some extent, this struggle is the driving progressive force in this field of artistic creativity, carried out by the writer-translator. This contradiction still exists today and can be explained by the fact that, although the requirement of translation adequacy is considered inviolable, the essence of this term is not exhaustively defined and is interpreted differently by translation theorists. When approaching a literary work from a translation perspective, it is inevitable to distinguish two levels to be conveyed in the translated text—the general and the particular. Literal translation prioritizes conveying the general, so it only replaces elements at the level of linguistic (lexical) equivalents, while what tends toward the particular remains untransmitted, to the detriment of connotative shades of meaning and other stylistic devices. In this case, free translation proves to be more adequate. While preserving the general, it conveys all parameters and characteristics of the particular through substitutions, insertions, and other translation transformations. This occurs not at the linguistic, lexical level, but at the speech, communicative equivalence level. The translator replaces the national specificity of the original with the specificity of their own linguistic environment, thereby achieving a similar effect of the translated text on the reader [9, 59]. Considering the above in relation to the translations of fairy tale, we can conclude that children will probably find the free retelling translation by M. Zohidova more understandable and 294 Vol. 5, No. 11 – Special Issue (EJAR) ISSN: 2181-2020 LPTIENP International Scientific-Practice Conference on “Linguistics and Pedagogical Technologies: International Experience and National Practice” Denau, November 20, 2025 in-academy.uz/index.php/ejar relatable. Despite deviations not present in the original, the writer brought it closer to L. Carroll’s text through the atmosphere and playfulness of his own style. The events in the fairy tale “Alice in Wonderland” take place in an underground magical world where the girl finds herself during sleep. The dream context in the tale creates an alternative reality in which, contrary to common sense, Alice encounters absurd situations, and the characters she meets cause her bewilderment. It can be argued that dialogue and its lexical content are one of the main tools for creating nonsense in “Alice”: - “Drink some wine,” the March Hare cheerfully suggested. Alice looked at the table but saw neither bottle nor glasses. - “I don’t see any wine,” she said. - “Of course not! There isn’t any here!” replied the March Hare. - “Then why are you offering it to me?” Alice asked angrily From this rather strange conversation, as well as from many others found throughout the text, we see that Alice and the other characters seem to be on different poles, since what is clear to them is not clear to Alice. The effect of absurdity arises from the use of the verbal sequence Alice-winebottle-glasses. These words are associated with alcohol consumption, which is absurd in itself for Uzbek reader: a little girl is offered to drink alcohol. This situation is brought to complete absurdity by two contradictory lines from the March Hare: “Drink some wine.” – “There is none here.” By combining the incompatible, Carroll in the above dialogue creates a playful philosophical paradox (wine can be drunk by a girl, wine exists – wine cannot be drunk, it does not exist). Such wordplay makes the literary text more vivid and expressive. It should be noted that in Carroll’s fairy tales many paradoxes and jokes are extremely complex and diverse. They are addressed to English readers of another century: to fully appreciate the uniqueness of “Alice,” one must know much of what lies beyond it. “Moreover, some of Carroll’s jokes were understood only by those who lived in Oxford; others were intended for an even narrower circle – only the charming daughters of Rector Liddell,” notes the famous American mathematician and writer, Carroll commentator M. Gardner [3]. Such are the characters of the second chapter (“The Pool of Tears”), where amazing birds swim in a sea of tears: Duck, Dodo, Lory, Eaglet. The parrot Lory represented the eldest sister of the Liddell family – Lorina (“I am older than you and know better what’s what!”), the eaglet Ed – the younger Liddell – Edith (“Speak human. I don’t know half of these words! And I think you don’t understand them yourself”), and the words of the Eaglet are addressed to the ridiculous bird Dodo, in whose image the author portrayed himself. Under the guise of Robin Goose is the fifth participant of the famous boating trip – Dodgson’s friend and colleague – Robinson Duckworth. Thus, one of the difficulties in translating “Alice in Wonderland” is conveying the names of characters and the original’s cultural references. This situation is related to conveying allusive information, which arises when the speaker organizes the context so that the word, phrase, or idiomatic expression hints at a particular linguistic, literary, or social fact. The association arising in the reader’s or listener’s mind constitutes the content of the allusive information. If the allusion carries no information for the recipient, its use loses meaning. Examples include the famous Cheshire Cat and the characters of the “Mad Tea Party” – the Hatter and the Hare. - “Please tell me, why does your Cat smile like that?” Alice timidly said. She knew she should not start the conversation, but could not help herself. - “Because,” said the Duchess, “it's the Cheshire Cat – that’s why!” 295 Vol. 5, No. 11 – Special Issue (EJAR) ISSN: 2181-2020 LPTIENP International Scientific-Practice Conference on “Linguistics and Pedagogical Technologies: International Experience and National Practice” Denau, November 20, 2025 in-academy.uz/index.php/ejar In Carroll’s time, people often said: “smiles like a Cheshire cat,” i.e., mysteriously and strangely. Therefore, the listeners and readers of the fairy tale understood this comparison, whereas a Russian-speaking reader is unlikely to have such background knowledge. The mystery of the smiling Cheshire Cat, capable of gradually disappearing leaving only the smile, has spawned many theories, but it is almost certainly known that L. Carroll was not the creator of the phrase “to grin like a Cheshire cat”. The original meaning of this phrase is unfamiliar to Uzbek readers, so its content without reference to the English proverb is perceived simply as something very strange and unusual, like the Cat itself. The heroes of the “Mad Tea Party” – the Hatter and the Hare – are characters from English idioms that have no equivalents in Uzbek: “as mad as a hatter” and “as mad as a March hare”. The saying about the hatter is connected to the fact that in the 19th century, mercury was used in the production of felt for hats, and chronic mercury poisoning causes mental disorders, while the madness of March hares is explained by their mating season in spring. Thus, the allusive linguistic play has a certain meaning and achieves its effect, evoking a smile, laughter, or an ironic attitude toward the subject of speech if the necessary conditions of the play are met. In M. Zohidova’s translation, the Hatter is the Madcap, which creates an association with a fool (a simpleton). A pun is a type of wordplay aimed at producing a comic effect. Puns come in various types: polysemous, homonymic, antonymic, and paronymic [6, 150]. In Carroll’s fairy tale “Alice in Wonderland”, paronymic puns are often used, based on the collision of paronomasias—words that sound alike but are not cognate and therefore have nothing in common in their semantic structure. Let us see one of the original texts: And here Alice began to get rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself, in a dreamy sort of way, “Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?” and sometimes, “Do bats eat cats?” for, you see, as she couldn’t answer either question, it didn’t much matter which way she put it… Here Alice felt her eyes growing heavy. She drowsily muttered: − Do cats eat midges? Do cats eat midges? Sometimes she managed: − Do midges eat cats? Alice did not know the answer to either the first or the second question, so it did not matter to her how she said it. She felt herself falling asleep…[4] In the original, the pun is built on the rhyming paronomasias cats and bats, which are swapped in the text, thus creating a wordplay characteristic of Carroll’s nonsense. In Uzbek, the words cats (mushuk) and bats (ko’rshapalak) do not sound alike and do not rhyme, so translator M. Zohidova used the paronomasia mushuk (cats) – kuchuk (dogs), which are also swapped in the text [5]. As a result, the text produces a humorous effect caused by the unexpectedness and absurdity of the statements (“Do cats eat dogs,” “Do dogs eat cats”). Both the English and Uzbek puns here, in our view, also serve a satirical function. They mock empty philosophizing: Alice rejects meaningless questions that cannot and need not be answered. CONCLUSION Undoubtedly, the work “Alice in Wonderland” is unique and remains popular to this day, and its plot and characters are familiar to everyone, even those who, for some reason, have not read the fairy tale. However, the original text is complex and ambiguous. The wordplay underlying “Alice in Wonderland” allowed Carroll, and later the translator-authors, to create many absurd situations with a philosophical subtext and to convey the national peculiarities of his eccentric nonsense. Analyzing existing translations of “Alice in Wonderland” and considering the fact that this fairy tale has been 296 Vol. 5, No. 11 – Special Issue (EJAR) ISSN: 2181-2020 LPTIENP International Scientific-Practice Conference on “Linguistics and Pedagogical Technologies: International Experience and National Practice” Denau, November 20, 2025 in-academy.uz/index.php/ejar translated into dozens of languages (and within one language by very different translators), it can be stated that there is no single fundamental approach to its transmission (translation, retelling). Obviously, one of the most difficult tasks in translating Carroll’s fairy tale is conveying the names of characters and the original’s cultural references. Most of them are “speaking” names, meaning they conceal certain cultural realities, allusions, literary associations, humorous substitutions, and other stylistically colored elements that give the entire work its unique character. Altering names, both proper and common, in translating this fairy tale plays a primary role and represents a very challenging task. Moreover, this task allows for numerous variants depending on the approach chosen by the translator. The use of appropriate translation transformations not only presupposes but inevitably entails recreating wordplay in the text to translate cultural realities and literary allusions capable of producing on the reader an effect analogous or similar to that of the original. The tale of Alice remains popular to this day, inspiring representatives of other art forms: it has been translated into many languages and has numerous illustrated versions, many films and cartoons based on this book have been made in different countries around the world, computer games have been created, and many websites on the internet are dedicated to it. It should be noted that it is impossible to single out one exact and perfect translation of “Alice in Wonderland”, as the work itself is multifaceted and ambiguous, and each translator, competing with the author and showing inventiveness, reveals it in their own way. The main paradox in the fate of “Alice” is that this children’s book over time attracts more adults than children. Books more often experience the opposite fate: they go from “adult” to children’s, becoming too clear and seemingly exhausting their meaning, which once constituted the book’s appeal; once “adult”, they often regress into childhood with age. The adventures written by Lewis Carroll are a rare and almost unique case of significant “maturing” of a book. The extraordinary fate of the Alice tales largely reflects the extraordinary character of their creator and the genre he proposed, as well as the special historical-literary contexts, one of which gave rise to them and into which they later fit. Books have their own destinies; once out of their creator's hands, they sometimes acquire meanings far from the author's subjective intentions, becoming part of new and new historical-cultural constructs, playing their sometimes unexpected role in the literature of the future. References: 1. Ananyina O.A. Lewis Carroll: the art of play (a study of L. Carroll’s dilogy about Alice in the light of play poetics). Rostov-on-Don, 2002. 2. Auden W.H. Today’s Wonder-World Needs Alice. - “New York Times Magazine”, July 1, 1962. 3. Gardner M. “Annotated ‘Alice’” [Electronic resource] URL: http://www.lewis carroll.ru/library/annotirovannaya-alisa.html (accessed: 13.04.2016). 4. Lewis Carroll // “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”, November, 1865. 5. Luis Kerroll // “Alisa mo’jizalar mamlakatida” // Tarjimon M. Zohidova. Toshkent: Yangi asr avlodi, 2016. 6. Skovorodnikov A.P. Pun // Encyclopedic dictionary-reference book. Expressive means of the Russian language and speech errors and shortcomings. Moscow, 2005. pp. 149-151. 7. Skovorodnikov A.P. Language play // Encyclopedic dictionary-reference book. Expressive means of the Russian language and speech errors and shortcomings. Moscow, 2005. pp. 383-390. 297 Vol. 5, No. 11 – Special Issue (EJAR) ISSN: 2181-2020 LPTIENP International Scientific-Practice Conference on “Linguistics and Pedagogical Technologies: International Experience and National Practice” Denau, November 20, 2025 in-academy.uz/index.php/ejar 8. Zemskaya E.A., Kitaygorodskaya M.A., Rozanova N.N. Language play // Russian Colloquial Speech. — Moscow, 1983. 9. Zhulidov S.B. Linguistic representation of proper names in translation (using the example of L. Carroll’s fairy tale “Alice in Wonderland”). - Philological Sciences. Questions of Theory and Practice, No. 6 (36) 2014, part 2.