The story of a fake sign language translator at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service is deeply offensive, and yet strangely absurd.
Translation, or rather mistranslation, is inherently fraught with potential humor, perhaps because we place so much power into the hands of someone whose job is at once very basic, but absolutely essential. Rather like page turners for pianists (see Victor Borge’s classic sketch), the translator is only noticed when something goes wrong. Translating is high pressure, exhausting, requires great skill, and yet is ultimately thankless work. No one in their right mind would pretend to be able to translate, as the English comedian Catherine Tate does in this famous sketch:
Translators also have control over the nuance of our language. We may choose our words with great care, and couch everything as diplomatically as possible, but it is up to the translator to convey both the text and subtext. Translators are charged with wearing our masks for us, which is the essence of the humor in this Saturday Night Live sketch about New Jersey governor Chris Christie:
And of course there is no such thing as an entirely accurate, completely transparent translation. Indeed, anyone who has ever worked with a translator knows how dangerous it is when translation gets too literal. Great chaos can ensue if the translation isn’t sensitive to the intended message, and the cultural context. That is part of the humor in this very NSFW sketch from the comedy duo Key and Peele, which plays off the perception of President Obama as emotionally cool and reserved, and the old election-season conversation about whether he does or does not belong to the African-American community, often paraphrased as the “black enough” debate. Here, the supposed masks come off.
Article source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2013/12/11/mandelas-memorial-service-highlights-the-humor-of-bad-translation/