GOOD MOANING ! THE HUMOROUS ALTERATIONS AND TRANSLATION MECHANISMS IN THE LINES OF ‘ALLO ‘ALLO!’S OFFICER CRABTREE
Keywords:
incongruity theory, wordplay, morphological changes, morphosyntactic changes, English, Serbian, translation mechanismsAbstract
Officer Crabtree is a memorable character from the British sitcom ‘Allo ‘Allo!, characterized
by his pseudo-English speech. The ways in which his language deviates from the standard
English bring about a very humorous effect. This paper introduces the main tenets of the
incongruity theory and the main types of wordplay through which Crabtree’s speech is delivered,
before defining the relevant morphological and morphosyntactic shifts which dominate his lines
in the series. Next, the paper collects all of his original lines from the show, analyzes them for
different morphological changes and classifies them accordingly, while the Serbian translation of
his lines is also taken into account and analyzed for further morphological and morphosyntactic
shifts. Additionally, the direct translation mechanisms from English to Serbian are analyzed and
classified as well. The results are first expressed in terms of percentage, and then compared between
the two languages, with the aim to discover which of the presented alterations dominate
in creating the comical effect for the audience.
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