Verbal-visual punning in translational perspective

In the paper a specific phenomenon at the interface between intersemioticity and translation is discussed. Intersemiotic punning occurs when a relation of equivoque obtains not between two meanings encoded in the same semiotic layer, the verbal one, but between two different layers, e.g. verbal text and image. In the contribution renditions (actual and potential) of verbal-visual puns between English, Polish and Russian are considered. It is demonstrated that intersemiotic puns take different forms, which results in varied degrees of translational difficulty. A typology is proposed, including verbal-visual equivoques, visual-verbal ones, puns relying on implicit verbal-visual relations but expressed only verbally, or only visually. Translational implications of the presented examples are indicated, as well as possible solutions to the tasks and the limits of translation. It is illustrated that intersemiotic equivoques occur in a surprising variety of media, and therefore constitute a practical problem for translators working in many fields. To address this, an algorithm for translation procedures is outlined.