Master's Thesis from the year 2009 in the subject English - Pedagogy, Didactics, Literature Studies, grade: 1, Wroclaw University of Technology (Institute of English Studies), language: English, abstract: With the development and growing popularity of new technologies, audiovisual translation is becoming of paramount importance in recent translation studies. One of the most intricate forms of translation is subtitling because of its semiotic composition and limitations. In addition, different kinds of movies can be found in the media, for example comedies, that also involve particularly intricate aspects. One of them is humor, which requires extra attention. This multifarious phenomenon entails handling language- and culture-specific elements. While watching a subtitled foreign comedy, we do not realize what a complex process the translator has carried out. This paper will study the idea of how humor is best rendered in subtitles and evaluate selected techniques used in translating humorous excerpts of movies. The theoretical part of this paper comprised of two chapters will thoroughly study audiovisual translation, especially subtitling, Relevance Theory and humor with special focus on its translation. The practical part, which is the third chapter, will deal with translation techniques that I have selected from recent studies and, which is new in the field of translation study, will asses their application specifically in subtitling humor. To clarify, the chapter will exemplify and discuss the techniques a translator can use when translating humor. Crucial as the techniques are, I will look into their use within particular contexts. Their application will be illustrated by authentic excerpts taken from the recently produced box-office comedies Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, Love Actually and Scary Movie 3. Using Relevance Theory as a reference point, the final intended effect of humor will be the focus of this study. In other words, I will attempt to scrutini

Master's Thesis from the year 2009 in the subject English - Pedagogy, Didactics, Literature Studies, grade: 1, Wroclaw University of Technology (Institute of English Studies), language: English, abstract: With the development and growing popularity of new technologies, audiovisual translation is becoming of paramount importance in recent translation studies. One of the most intricate forms of translation is subtitling because of its semiotic composition and limitations. In addition, different kinds of movies can be found in the media, for example comedies, that also involve particularly intricate aspects. One of them is humor, which requires extra attention. This multifarious phenomenon entails handling language- and culture-specific elements. While watching a subtitled foreign comedy, we do not realize what a complex process the translator has carried out. This paper will study the idea of how humor is best rendered in subtitles and evaluate selected techniques used in translating humorous excerpts of movies. The theoretical part of this paper comprised of two chapters will thoroughly study audiovisual translation, especially subtitling, Relevance Theory and humor with special focus on its translation. The practical part, which is the third chapter, will deal with translation techniques that I have selected from recent studies and, which is new in the field of translation study, will asses their application specifically in subtitling humor. To clarify, the chapter will exemplify and discuss the techniques a translator can use when translating humor. Crucial as the techniques are, I will look into their use within particular contexts. Their application will be illustrated by authentic excerpts taken from the recently produced box-office comedies Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, Love Actually and Scary Movie 3. Using Relevance Theory as a reference point, the final intended effect of humor will be the focus of this study. In other words, I will attempt to scrutinize whether the humorous effect is achieved in each of the target texts. Summing up, this paper aims to discuss the main issues pertaining to subtitling and humor with reference to Relevance Theory. As both subtitling and humor cause some challenges for the translator, both possible problems and possible solutions will be considered. In the case of a subtitled comedy, the audience is supposed to interpret the intended humor supported by a written text and image.

Thesis (M.A.) from the year 2011 in the subject Interpreting / Translating, grade: A, University of Gdansk (Institute of English), course: Translation studies, language: English, abstract: Humour translation is an extremely difficult process which causes translators many problems. Rendering humour into a different language becomes even more complicated when the translator translates film dialogues for the purpose of dubbing or subtitling. The aim of this thesis is to analyse translation strategies and techniques applied in the process of humour translation in dubbing and subtitling. The analysis is based on two animated films: Shrek 2 and Ice Age. In the thesis the original version of film dialogues is compared with its dubbed and subtitled versions in Polish. The material for the study comes from DVD releases. The thesis is divided into two chapters. In the first chapter the concept of humour is explained and humour translation is described. In this chapter I also provide definitions of translation strategy and translation technique, explain the difference between these two concepts and describe possible translation strategies and techniques in humour translation. In the second part of the first chapter the specificity of audiovisual translation is discussed, and subtitling and dubbing are described as two different translation methods. The second chapter offers a comparison between the Polish dubbed and subtitled dialogue versions. In this chapter I describe translation strategies and techniques used by the translators and compare the humorous effect evoked by them with the humorous effect of the original dialogues.

Thesis (M.A.) from the year 2011 in the subject Interpreting / Translating , grade: A, University of Gdansk (Institute of English), course: Translation studies, language: English, abstract: Humour translation is an extremely difficult process which causes translators many problems. Rendering humour into a different language becomes even more complicated when the translator translates film dialogues for the purpose of dubbing or subtitling. The aim of this thesis is to analyse translation strategies and techniques applied in the process of humour translation in dubbing and subtitling. The analysis is based on two animated films: Shrek 2 and Ice Age. In the thesis the original version of film dialogues is compared with its dubbed and subtitled versions in Polish. The material for the study comes from DVD releases. The thesis is divided into two chapters. In the first chapter the concept of humour is explained and humour translation is described. In this chapter I also provide definitions of translation strategy and translation technique, explain the difference between these two concepts and describe possible translation strategies and techniques in humour translation. In the second part of the first chapter the specificity of audiovisual translation is discussed, and subtitling and dubbing are described as two different translation methods. The second chapter offers a comparison between the Polish dubbed and subtitled dialogue versions. In this chapter I describe translation strategies and techniques used by the translators and compare the humorous effect evoked by them with the humorous effect of the original dialogues.

Humour is a complex concept which tends to build on the ambiguity of language. When converting a humoristic program into a different language, the translator thus faces many challenges. One of these is the translation of cultural aspects of the TL (target language). Since every culture contains its unique form of humour, understanding the humour within a culture and all its cultural elements is essential to producing an adequate translation. The study at hand focuses on the translation of the British comedy-sketch show Little Britain analyzing how it has been converted from its SL (source language), which is English, to its TL, which in this study will be Spanish. It proved to be highly constructive for the purposes of this research as the humour is often very culture-specific and thus difficult to translate. For the benefit of the reader, the first part of this dissertation is going to discuss various theories of humour. Moreover, it will discuss how humour is created in the comedy sketch show Little Britain. As subtitles will be used for the analysis of the case study, limitations and constraints will be discussed as the translator cannot merely focus on the linguistic features and possible problems like she/he would do in any other form of translation. Using Attardo's theory (1994), the study aims to explore aspects that create difficulties during the translation process, always in relation to humour that is seen in a comedy sketch show. It explores the translation of humour, examining potential problems that translators need to overcome and expands on this by investigating the difficulties that arise when translating culture-specific issues. In addition, as this is an audiovisual translation, potential problems that become relevant in the case study are highlighted. The study highlights the difficulties a translator faces within the process and, where relevant, possible alternative strategies that the translator could have applied in the translation process.

This book provides a theoretical and practical framework for researchers and practitioners who focus on the construction, interpretation and retextualisation of audiovisual texts. It defines translation as a communicative and interpretative process, with translators seen as cross-cultural mediators who make the denotative-semantic and connotative-pragmatic dimensions of source scripts accessible to target receivers, prompting equivalent perlocutionary effects, while still respecting the original illocutionary force. While existing research on audiovisual translation generally adopts a product-based perspective, examining the lexico-semantic and syntactic features of source and target versions, this book proposes an “Interactive Model”, in order to explore what happens in the translators’ minds, as well as the influence of the interaction between the linguistic and extralinguistic dimensions in the construction and interpretation of audiovisual texts. The application of this Model to the analysis of a corpus of humorous films, TV series and video games foregrounds the integration between the analysis of the source-text features and the knowledge of the target linguacultural backgrounds in the creation of pragmalingustic equivalent scripts. At the same time, this book also provides valuable insights into the audience’s reception of these translations, by submitting close-ended and open-ended questionnaires to subjects representing empirical receivers, thus helping to evaluate the degree of linguistic and functional equivalence of target versions.