MINISTRY OF EDUCATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA [309630]
[anonimizat]:
AN ANALYSIS OF THE TRANSLATION TECHNIQUES IN RENDERING HUMOUR FROM ENGLISH INTO ROMANIAN
223.1 [anonimizat]: ______________ [anonimizat], Associate Professor
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Research adviser: ____________________ [anonimizat], MA
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Author: _____________________________ [anonimizat]142APL
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CHISINAU- 2017
[anonimizat]: ANALIZA TEHNICILOR DE TRADUCERE A UMORULUI DIN LIMBA ENGLEZĂ ÎN ROMÂNĂ
223.1 LIMBA ENGLEZĂ APLICATĂ ȘI LIMBA GERMANĂ APLICATĂ
Teză de licență
Director Departament: ___________________ [anonimizat]., conf. univ.
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Conducător științific:____________________ [anonimizat]
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Autorul: ______________________________ [anonimizat]142APL
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Chișinău-2017
ANNOTATION
Of the diploma paper on the subject “Humour in Subtitling: an Analysis of the Translation Techniques in Rendering Humour from English and Romanian”, written by the student: [anonimizat], group EG142APL.
[anonimizat], [anonimizat], General Conclusion and Bibliography. This paper contains 50 pages and 14 annexes (5 pages). [anonimizat], electronic references.
Chapter I “Theoretical Overview on Audiovisual Translation” addresses the theoretical overview regarding audiovisual translation and its types. [anonimizat]. Moreover, it comprises the definition of humour and its types. Also, [anonimizat].
Chapter II “Analysis of Translation Techniques in Rendering Humour” introduces the reader the film “Shrek”, [anonimizat] a humorous load out of the film. [anonimizat].
The study would end with a [anonimizat], the peculiarities of humour in translation and variety of pitfalls the translators come across in their work.
[anonimizat] a [anonimizat]. This situation has been improving in recent years owing particularly to the European Association for Studies in Screen Translation. [anonimizat], Fawcett etc. This work has the purpose to contribute to the exploration of this difficult but captivating field of study.
[anonimizat]. On a [anonimizat] translation and film industry separately. So, film makers right from the beginning keep in mind that their potential audience is the whole world. Film companies are aware of the fact that worldwide success of the film depends on the good translation of the film, so they attach great importance to it.
In case of subtitling, it is characterized by a huge amount of peculiarities, especially the lack of space and time. The translation is influenced by confined space available for the subtitle text, the time available for and between subtitle exposures, the timing of subtitle insertion and removal and last but not least, the display and format of the subtitles. Besides, the subtitler has to take into account the average reading speed of the viewers. All these peculiarities are important to catch the eye of the film viewer and maintain the quality of translation and text design.
Humour is the subject that cannot be discussed without a smile upon the face. It has been a part of our society since ancient times. Therefore, it is not surprising that the humour evolved and it has a big impact on the human being. The practical value of the work deals with humour, especially in translation. The process of rendering the humorous load into another language is a work of art, because one shall possess creativity and a good background knowledge of the source and target countries. Moreover, a translator confronts with various problems when starts to render the humour into another language. So, he/she should change some words or phrases, due to the cultural aspects of the nations, in order to transmit the humorous meaning to the target text reader.
Many have been wondering at least one time about this question: Why is this word used in the subtitle instead of the other one? A person being a film enthusiast that knows English and Romanian, could denote that not everytime the subtitles fits the original text that he/she hears. In most cases, these discrepances are more spotted in comedies.
The subject of the research is the analysis of the source language and subtitled target language of a comedy in order to identify humorous sequences and their Romanian translation.
The aim of the work is the examination of translation techniques in rendering humour from English into Romanian.
The paper seeks to achieve the following objectives:
to characterize audiovisual translation and its types;
to define and identify the peculiarities of subtitling;
to provide the definition of humour and its types;
to identify difficulties in translating humour;
to identify the pitfalls of translating humour;
to suggest the strategies and translation techniques in rendering humour from English into Romanian;
to draw conclusions on each analyzed aspect.
In order to achieve the abovementioned objectives the following research methods have been used in the paper:
descriptive – theoretical literary analysis provided a possibility to review numerous issues concerning features of audiovisual texts and their subtitling performance.
metaanalysis enabled us to interpret the results and conclusions made by other authors.
contrastive method provided its usefulness in the identification of the procedures used by the translator and in the evaluation of authenticity rendering when translating the audiovisual material.
The diploma paper has the following structure: an Introduction, Chapter I “Theoretical Overview on Audiovisual Translation and Humour”, Chapter II “Analysis of Translation Techniques in Rendering Humour”, Conclusions, Bibliography, Glossary and Annexes.
The first chapter – Theoretical Overview on Audiovisual Translation – comprises three subchapters that offer a definition of audiovisual translation and a short presentation of its three branches: subtitling, voice-over and dubbling. It introduces the reader the definition of subtitling, its components according to Gottlieb, specific character of subtitling, its methods, advantages and disadvantages of subtitling. It also presents to the readers the difficulties in audiovisual translation and the nuances that a translator faces while compiling the subtitling task. Moreover, it shows the various definitions theories of linguistic humour; comprises the extra-linguistic aspects of humour and explains the main forms of humour categorized by Raphaelson-West, in particular linguistic form was pursued.
The second chapter – Analysis of Translation Techniques in Rendering Humour – provides the reader the practical part of the paper work. Firstly, it introduces the reader the movie “Shrek” and characterizes its main characters. Secondly, it denotes translation strategies for subtitling films by Gotlieb and the description of translation strategies for subtitling films. For the practical part, we used the replicas of the characters from the film “Shrek” that denotes a humorous load. Each humour and translating techniques were analysed apart. The study would end with a broad conclusion showing the significance of the AVT, especially subtitling, the peculiarities of humour in translation and variety of pitfalls the translators come across in their work.
All included chapters have the purpose of guiding the readers on the road of understanding subtitling and the difficulties of rendering humor from English into Romanian.
This paper is based on the opinions of following authors: Jorge Diaz Cintas – specialised in AVT and subtitling, Raphaelson-West – specialist in humour and its classification, Gottlieb – professional in subtitling and translation studies, as well as the works of Fawcett, Susan Bassnett, Nash, Pettit etc. For the practical analysis we used Internet sources in finding the film in English with Romanian subtitles and transcribed each humorous replica in English and its subtitle in Romanian. After that, we processed the analysis of each example by the perspective of translation technique and type of humour.
The books that helped in writing this diploma paper are: Jorge Díaz Cintas Audiovisual Translation: Subtitling, London/New York, 2003; Henrik Gottlieb Subtitling – A new university discipline. Teaching translation and interpreting: Training, talent and experience, Amsterdam, 1992; Debra S. Raphaelson-West On the Feasibility and Strategies of Translating Humor. Special Issue on Humor and Translation, Washington D.C., 1989.
Humour in subtitling is a significant topic that should be researched in our country. It covers the difficulties of rendering the extra-linguistic aspects of humour in the target language. There are huge differences in English and Romanian cultures and the translators shall take into account of those aspects whilst performing the subtitled version into target language. It is a challenging work, if failed; the humorous load would not be preserved.
CHAPTER ONE: THEORETICAL OVERVIEW ON AUDIOVISUAL TRANSLATION AND HUMOUR
This chapter comprises various aspects regarding Audiovisual Translation and the concept of humour and its culture aspects. It explains its types, but subtitling will be discovered in a broader context analysing its structural and linguistic constrains. Also, it is meant to describe the forms of humour as well as the extra-linguistic and linguistic forms which will be covered more broadly.
1.1 Definition and Main Peculiarities of Audiovisual Translation
We live in the society influenced greatly by the media. With the appearance of new technologies there appeared also new forms of international and intercultural communication which led to new forms of translation. Cinematography, as a part of the media, has become one of the most widely-spread and influential forms of art. The translation of cinematographic products is called audiovisual translation though one can find many synonymous names as film translation, TV translation, screen translation and many others.
Screen translating, or audiovisual translation (AVT), is conventionally taxonomised into subtitling, dubbing and voice-over. Synchronized captions are dominant in Nordic countries, the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal, Greece and Israel [9, p. 169], while dubbing is more popular in southern Europe. Fawcett remarks that, in principle, “large countries dub and small countries subtitle”[8; 84]. There is a political and economic basis for this. Dubbing is much more expensive, as actors have to be hired to read each role, and they are not infrequently first-rate stars.
Susan Bassnett may be jumping to conclusions when she claims that dubbing is a form of government-regulated political censorship in that the original is never heard, unlike subtitling, which makes comparison possible and is therefore more democratic [25, p. 53], but political reasons behind the choice of audiovisual translation techniques cannot be entirely ruled out. Although, in Moldova, people tend to choose dubbing rather than subtitling. Dubbing technique may be beneficial for foreign language learners, although subtitling is undoubtedly a better choice in this respect.
Audiovisual translation is generally a translation of verbal component of the video. Its main specific feature is the synchronization of verbal and nonverbal components. While dealing with an audiovisual product, translators do not work only with text but also with other aspects of media. Thus, they work with dialogues/comments, sound effects, image and atmosphere of the video. G. Gotlieb distinguishes four main channels of information which are taken into consideration while translating [11, p. 244]:
verbal audio channel: dialogues, off-screen voices, songs;
nonverbal audio channel: music, sound effects, off-screen sounds;
verbal and visual channel: subtitles, signs, notes, inscriptions that appear on the screen;
nonverbal visual channel: picture on the screen.
The equality of audiovisual translation is not only equivalence between the linguistic elements in two languages but also adequate link between verbal and nonverbal structures separately in the original work and its translation.
Language in audiovisual translation can be transferred in written form (e.g. subtitling) or spoken form (e.g. voice-over or dubbing). These best-known types started out as a way to overcome language barriers when the silent movies became talking ones in 1927 with their main function to allow films and other audiovisual production to travel around the world. As Rundle [22, p. 57] asserts, the impact of all kinds of audiovisual production on viewers is far-reaching as new technologies have enabled producers and translators to adapt already existing forms of audiovisual translation and to develop new forms, required for increasingly specific user-groups, thereby often bridging the gap between traditional audiovisual translation and localization.
Voice-over is a faithful translation of the source message performed approximately in a simultaneous mode that is mostly used in the context of monologue, for example answers to the question in the interview or several replicas of one person. Voice-over presupposes putting a sound track of the target text over the muffled soundtrack of the original text. In this type of audiovisual translation regional dialects, accents or peculiarities of the speaker are not taken into consideration [15, p. 80].
Free commentary is a kind of voice-over that focuses neither on the lip movements of the original text, nor on the faithfulness of the target text and also not on the simultaneous mode of the performance but it is a free and often performed in different modes of translation which is usually complemented by different journalistic elements and text is covered partially or completely [14, p. 300].
Dubbing is a type of interlinguistic audiovisual translation which presupposes complete change of the sound track of the source language into soundtrack of the target language with the aim of broadcasting in countries where the original language is not their mother tongue. Another important point of dubbing is equivalent influence on the target language audience as the original audiovisual product has on its recipient audience. Thus, dubbing is oriented at the target audience that makes the translator adapt the source text which in the end has to meet the standards existing in the target language or country [7, p. 283].
All in all, translation is a complex phenomenon that includes the form of audiovisual translation. AVT is a creation of mass-media, in particular, cinematography and evaluated creating three branches: subtitling, voice-over and dubbing. One of the most popular of this kind of translation is subtitling.
1.2 Subtitling as a Means of Audiovisual Translation
Subtitling is “written text, usually at the bottom of the screen, giving an account of the actors' dialogue and other linguistic information which form part of the visual image (letters, graffiti, and captions) or of the soundtrack (songs)” [5, p. 195]. In other words, the movie contains “a printed target text” which delivers the source meaning to the target viewer [2, p.160]. In addition, this paper focuses on subtitling as “an inter-lingual phenomenon, which means that the spoken discourse in the source language is translated into written text in the target language” [9; p. 247]. Romanian cinemagoers can easily enjoy American or British movies when supplied with Romanian subtitles that are added to the original English version. This section discusses subtitling in more detail and reflects on the advantages and disadvantages of incorporating this method.
Mostly due to the shift of mode from the spoken to the written, the translated text is shortened. This gives a rise to a dispute over the process of subtitling formation. Bogucki [1, p. 30] asks whether subtitling is translation or a type of adaptation of the source discourse. In fact, subtitling is not the same procedure as in the case of a screen adaptation of a book. Subtitling is translation proper, which carries the sense of the multimedia-based discourse from one language to another. It involves analysis and many decisions on the part of the translator. For example, some information must be added and some must be left out. To clarify, in some circumstances the image must be explained in the subtitles. In addition, according to Gottlieb [9, p. 163], subtitles can be open (not optional, “received with the original film or television version”) or closed (optionally added to the original version). Furthermore, Gottlieb [9, p. 162] describes subtitling as having the following components:
written (Subtitles are not received via hearing as in the case of dubbing.);
additive (The translated text provides a supplement to the original.);
immediate (“As opposed to non-synchronous translations, where the receptor –
reading a book, for instance – controls both time and duration for reception” [9, p. 270]. With subtitles, however, the audience cannot go back or slow down the material.);
synchronous (The original and the translated text are received at the same time, contrary to simultaneous interpreting.);
polymedial (This means the coexistence of two or more channels delivering the meaning of the source text.).
The above-mentioned characteristics show how profoundly complex and distinctive this form of translation is. Furthermore, there are positive and negative attributes of arguments of employing subtitling. On the one hand, subtitles cover some part of the screen and make the viewer read the added text. For this reason, the story may be followed with difficulties because the eyesight is not fully focused on the actors. On the other hand, subtitling leaves the original unchanged, unlike dubbing, and lets the viewer have contact with the original live language. Subtitling is strongly preferred in some countries in virtue of the case and low cost of production. In contrast, this type of AVT encourages learners of source language could hear the original speak of actors and read simultaneously whether they do not understand the words or the accent.
Specific character of subtitles is caused by its peculiarities, such as, connection between image, sound and text (transmission of the translated message should coincide with dialogue in the source text; subtitles should not contradict what actors do on the screen); change of spoken language into written one (this peculiarity often makes translator omit lexical units in translation); temporal and spatial restrictions specified by the usage sphere (size of a real screen is limited and subtitle text should be adapted to the width of the screen taking into account possibility to read subtitles).
According to Reiss [21, p. 124], in practice, a line of subtitles should not contain more than thirty-five signs. As only the lowest part of the screen can be used only two-line titles are considered. Thus, the volume of the text per one replica is limited by seventy signs. Such a small number is caused by the fact that subtitles should cover visual information as little as possible and should comprise not more than 20% of image on the screen. From grammatical point of view, each line and every title should make up meaningful unit. While subtitling, it is perfect that title appears at the beginning of the speech and disappears at its end. The maximum number of showing is six seconds. It is quite enough for an average person to read a two-line subtitle which consists of 60 or 70 signs.
In terms of technical peculiarities of performance, D. Sanchez distinguishes four methods of subtitling [23, p. 9]:
preliminary translation – adaptation – spotting;
preliminary translation – spotting – adaptation;
adaptation – spotting – translation;
translation/adaptation – spotting.
Spotting or timing is time marking according to which film is divided into time parts and beginning and end of a phrase are marked. The time units used are hours, minutes, seconds, milliseconds and shots. Time marking except beginning and end of the characters’ replica can include names of film heroes and phrase duration.
The first method assumes in advance at first procedure of translation performance and adaptation and only then spotting, mostly it is used when translators are limited by time and there is no video available. In this case it is possible to do preliminary translation. Then the other person, the subtitler, or subtitle expert converts the text into subtitles working directly with the program, then, he performs so-called adaptation making sure that the meaning of the source replicas are conveyed adequately. Next, he determines the time of appearance and disappearance for every subtitle.
While using the second method at first as in the previous method preliminary translation of film dialogue text is performed but later time marking for every subtitle is provided by the subtitler and then the final step is adaptation.
The third method of subtitling is used to prepare subtitles in different languages. In this case the subtitles are created in the source language and are immediately divided into time periods and later are translated into different languages. Thus, translators can choose a ready shortened text in the source language or individually and independently perform translation and adaptation using sound and video track and making the text shorter.
The last of the above mentioned methods of creating subtitles requires translation with simultaneous adaptation and spotting at the final stage or vice versa.
All in all, subtitling is a challenging work to do, because it has various peculiarities from the technical point of view, such as, synchronization of subtitles with the actions on the screen, the number of characters, the place of the subtitles, the time a row of subtitles shall stay on the screen. Moreover, the translation aspect is first that shall be analysed before processing the subtitling part on the screen and in this case the work of translator and the subtitler is united, in other words, it is performed by one and the same person.
1.3 Structural and Linguistic Constraints in Subtitling
It cannot be denied that AVT presents very specific challenges to whoever attempts it, this does not set it apart from other types of translation. The translator is required to keep certain restrictions and difficulties in mind when working towards the purpose of dubbing, voice-over or subtitling. These influential factors affect the translated text to such an extent that a short overview of the limitations, but also the advantages of each of these types of translation, seems important in order to gain an understanding of how they affect the translation process. “The constraints active in audiovisual translation influence the presence of audiovisual translation norms and translation techniques in the translation phase” [16, p. 178], as Marti Ferriol argues. For example, according to Marti Ferriol’s findings, when formal constraints are active in a text, translation strategies for dubbing tend to be more interpretative-communicative, whereas those for subtitling are more literal.
Of the various other factors to be taken into account in relation to audiovisual translation, the ones which are frequently named first and foremost are of a temporal and spatial kind: the subtitler has at most two lines of limited length in which to fit the translation of spoken dialogue.
As a result of this, the spoken dialogue frequently has to be reduced: “in film, the machine runs at a constant speed and mindlessly unspools its translation at an unchanging rate. The translator must condense his translation in the physical space of the frame and the temporal length of the utterance” [18, p. 162]. The necessity of speech condensation can lead to a change in style, for example making the utterance shorter may make it more formal [19, p. 14].
In addition to this, the projected reading speed of the audience plays an important part: “Allowing for some variation due to a viewer’s age and hearing ability, the average reading speed of a person is around 70-74 characters in six seconds” [6, p. 23]. This constraint further exacerbates the requirements of condensing the spoken dialogue, even with an estimated audience that consists of fully literate adults, and arguably results in a change, possibly even in a loss, of meaning.
The transfer between spoken and written language indeed presents a whole range of issues. One of them is the representation of the phonological component of speech in written form [3, p. 12]. This concerns important elements of language such as tone of voice or accents and additional foreign languages, all of which are difficult to convey in writing. If one or more of these elements are used to create humorous effect for example, this can be lost in transit if subtitling is the method of choice. However, if the viewer is familiar with the source language at least to some extent, he or she may be able to benefit from such elements. Furthermore, subtitles are sometimes considered a distraction from the action on screen, as the viewer has to divide his or her attention between the two. This can also be seen as an aesthetic problem by some viewers, who might feel that “disturbing subtitles crowd out the picture and ruin the composition” [13, p. 34].
Also, subtitling does not interfere with the non-verbal elements of language, such as facial expressions or gestures. Another quality for which subtitles are appreciated by many is their didactic potential. For example, intra-lingual subtitles can function as didactic aids for second-language learners, as has been demonstrated in a number of studies.
Another difficulty is that very often creators of films endow the characters with different kinds of dialects, accents and slang to make them brighter, funnier. They do not represent perfect language standards but due to their language deviations grab attention of the target audience. It should be pointed out that even choice of dialects or accents is not aleatory. They are based on social stereotypes which are known worldwide. For example, characters that are not very intelligent get South American dialect and negative characters usually get foreign speech characteristics. Higher percentage of characters who have foreign accents have negative roles than those who speak Standard American or British English.
Thus, dubbing has a significant drawback, mentioning that some viewers reject this type of AVT because of the original voices of the actors and the loss of authenticity of the acting and of the film-making.
Now the translators face not only the challenge of representing the plot in a proper way but also reproducing the nuances of characters’ speech which contribute to the general atmosphere of an audiovisual product. Characters with their “unique languages” get in the forefront and mostly the pragmatic effect depends on the proper reproduction of those “unique languages”. Gottlieb states that “the subtitler must possess the musical ear of an interpreter, the stylistic sensitivity of a literary translator, the visual acuteness of a film cutter, and the aesthetic sense of a book designer” [10, p. 10]. Thus, the task which translators face is that of choosing the right translation strategy to fulfill their functions in the most successful and proper way.
To sum up, despite the challenges the subtitling fights with, it has its advantages: it is cheap and reasonably quick than other types of AVT, respects the integrity of the original dialogue and promotes the learning of foreign languages. Although it has also disadvantages: subtitling pollutes the image of screen and sometimes it can detract from cinematic illusion, it does not allow the overlapping of dialogue, follows constrained characteristic about space and time. It can be said that such type of audiovisual translation as subtitling is a form of art because the translator needs to be inventive whether he or she wants to produce a desired effect in the audience.
1.4 Some Theoretical Considerations upon the Concept of “Humour”
There are many forms of expression inside of everybody; however the most common form is laughter. The sound of laughter can be heard all around the world every second; it helps people relieve stress and makes them feel better. Comedy movies play such an important role in helping everyone laugh. It gives people an opportunity to look at humor in life, it usually has a pointless, useless moral that we can relate to, and it allows looking at things in a new light.
All comedies always have one essential ingredient to make it a great comedy, humor. The word “humour” itself is of relatively recent origin. According to the Oxford English Dictionary [33] “it arose during the XVII century out of psycho-physiological scientific speculation on the effects of various humors that might affect a person's temperament”. In addition, another dictionary Merriam-Webster explains humour as “the quality which appeals to a sense of the ludicrous or absurdly incongruous: a funny or amusing quality”. [34] Therefore, it is a quality that cause laughter and affect the listener in a positive way.
Much of the earlier humor research is riddled with equivocations between humor and laughter, and the problem continues into recent discussions. John Dewey [4, p. 557] states one reason to make the distinction: “The laugh is by no means to be viewed from the standpoint of humor; its connection with humor is only secondary. It marks the ending […] of a period of suspense, or expectation, all ending which is sharp and secondary.”
There are different theories that try to explain humor, for example the superiority theory, the relief theory and the incongruity theory. The article “Philosophy of humor” [35] of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy explains these theories as following:
Superiority Theory: the cause of laughter is feelings of superiority.
Relief Theory: the cause of laughter is the release of nervous energy.
Incongruity theory: The cause of laughter is the perception of something incongruous—something that violates our mental patterns and expectations.
People could laugh seeing someone makes a fool of himself or herself (superiority theory). This type of humour would basically include satire or sarcasm. People tends feel superior even if in fact they are not so, that is why cartoonists use this theory to satirize and ridicule politicians for example. In the end, laughter is a common result.
The second type, relief theory shows that people could laugh because they are nervous even though this case would not be a humorous effect. It deals with interaction between humorous events and emotions. It is used more in cartoons. They can cause laughter that relieves the tension of a person. The process works like that; the nervous energy is released through laughter.
Incongruity theory is based on the fact that it does not need to provide an explanation of the humorous load. Here, people tend to laugh because something makes no sense. This theory sees the reaction of humour as a response to ambiguity.
The use of language is one of the numerous ways of provoking laughter. However, in the world of verbal humor, language operates as mediator. According to Nash [17, p. 7], “Through form we come to language, the trigger that detonates the humorous mass. About its functions, two things may be noted at this point. One is that there is usually a centre of energy, some word or phrase in which the whole matter of the joke is fused, and from which its power radiates; and the other is that language of humor dances most often on the points for some dual principle, an ambiguity, a figure and ground, an overt appearance and covert reality.”
It is hard to establish the stage of development of humour stage and what caused the human to joke and what were his/her first jokes. It is known that the child in his first months starts already to smile without any purpose. After some time, humour releveals. The child starts to kid their parents by mixing the correct word, and when others laugh at it, he/she tends to repeat it in a funny way in order to cheer up others.
Forthermore, the humour has a very magic power. The joke said in the right time, can help the grief, stress, fails pass away. Also, humour is not in the list of senses that human being cannot function properly, such as: sight, hearing, the capability to think etc. , but at the same time, it is hard to deny that human that has a sense of humour can see a bit more and listen better. It also tends to operate as a healing substance that soothes discomfort and entertain people. It is a unique form of social life and give an opportunity to communicate more efficiently and leave a note of satisfaction after it.
Moreover, it is found in many means of communication and those that contain the most humorous content are in a comedy sketch show, comedy programmes and comedy stand-up acts. The ability to watch a comedy programme with subtitles is possible, whether it is in the same language in which it is originally produced or a translation into another language.
Thus, humour could be hardly detected because of differences between source country and its language and target one. In this case, a translator aims to overcome a challenge when they are faced with cultural aspects of the target language. The peculiarity is that each culture contains its unique form of humour.
Shahe Kazarian while commenting on the use of humor by the Americans said that: “humor through a Western psychological lens is seen as comprising four essential components; namely, social, cognitive (production of humorous stimuli and perception of the humorous), emotional (positive effect and mood) and vocal-behavioral (laughter and smiling); a view generally consistent with those proposed by Arab and Lebanese humour scholars” [24, p. 332].
The British humour can be found a bit dry, sarcastic, with a big use of irony. In comparison, the American humour tends not to hide the feelings and not to laugh at someone, but more at himself/herself. Americans love to use universal humour. It is said that Americans tend to be more optimistic, but British people are more dramatic and are not afraid to show it and these aspects can be seen in their jokes.
Humour does have the difficulty to cross cultural boundaries because what is funny in one country is often not humorous in another. It is all because culture influences the words we speak and our behavior. The differences are big, taking into account the age, nationality, ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation etc. If the translator knows who can be the target audience or society, it is easier for him/her taking a specific translation process.
The activity of the translator also controls the social norms, such as:
religion;
moral values;
ideology.
Regarding moral values, the source country may have different ethics in comparison to the target country and here; the translator should be very careful and translate properly. But if speaking about religion, it is harder to adapt some religious ideologies if the target culture has a totally different one. It is the same if mentioning the ideology of the society. In most cases, by ideology it is often understood the political one. Politics is a significant constraint upon translator, because it limits his/her ideological space. Politics has the power of choosing what can be translated and what not, in order to satisfy some political goals. In these cases, it is very important taking into account all factors in order to send the right message to the audience.
Other extra-linguistic aspects are mimics, gestures of the character while telling a joke, because those aspects are the hints on detecting humour and even create itself a joke. The background knowledge, the intonation, the voice change, the background sound, the relation of characters, whether it is good or vice versa are important too. When a person tells a joke without a specific, weird or sarcastic intonation, not showing the amusement or shock, not having idea what is he speaking about if it is based on a specific theme, the effect of humour could be neglected by the listener.
Moreover, smile has a major influence in humour. Firstly, it is very closed to humour, it brings joy. It is the most universally understood form of non-verbal communication all over the world. However, smile can have different meaning in different cultures. For example, in Japan culture, a smile can mean that the specific person is uncomfortable. Also, they tend to smile on tragic occasions, such as funeral. We can find it totally confusing, it is not allowed and can show disrespect, but to Japanese it is acceptable.
In conclusion, even if humour has been approached from several angles, it has rarely been systematically studied as a specific translation problem. It has various levels of applicability, which often makes it a tangible problem for translators. Humour being an everyday phenomenon, is an increasing part of the context of intercultural communication. A vehicle for mass entertainment, television nowadays offers a wide variety of programmes, both feature films and TV series mostly of English or American origin, where humour is either a primary element or a secondary one. Translators are often faced with the task of having to render seemingly untranslatable humour while not reducing the effect, the “colour” of the culture, which tests their capacity for making creative solutions. And it is important to note that every culture enjoys some form of humour, but it is difficult to render in in other language due to crossing cultural boundaries. What is humorous in one country is usually not in another.
1.5 Types and Forms of Linguistic Humour
In recent years, more attention has been focused on the translability of humour as the complexity can make it unequivocally untranslatable.
It has been also analysed that language structure does really matter in this case. If to take a look at an usual English style of humour, it reveals the humour part at the end of the sentence, howether, in the German language this is impossible, because you need to read the whole sentences in order to get the meaning of the joke, not only the last sentence.
In this demand, there are various classifications of humour. Each type of humour evokes a different effect on its recipient because it influences the recipient in a different way and uses different mechanisms in order to achieve a humorous effect. For instance, irony has a different influence and effect on the recipient than satire. As Vandaele says:
“[…] humour should also be subdivided into more specific types, each with its own tangible (‘perlocutionary’) effect, its own types of laughter (or even other reactions) – rather than being treated as some undefinable, mystic category […]” [26, p. 155].
This can be significant for translators since the way of translating a given humorous text depends on the type of humour involved.
Indeed, Raphaelson-West [20, p. 130] has also divided humour/jokes into three main categories:
linguistic humour/jokes (e.g. puns);
cultural humour/jokes (e.g. the ethnic jokes);
universal humour/jokes.
The universal type of humor could be understood worldwide. The second type, cultural humor is explained as being about a specific culture and this culture would easily understand it.
Linguistic jokes type is word-based humor produced by linguistic devices such as idioms, irony, puns, jokes, parodies, riddles, spoonerisms etc. These can be found in verbal forms and visual forms (cartoons and comic strips).
Linguistic-based jokes manipulate the phonology, morphology, syntax or semantics of the particular language. As a result, linguistic-based jokes may not always be humorous between languages.
There are mentioned some types of linguistic humour below and at each one it is attached an example in order to show their peculiarities:
Idiom is a form of expression peculiar to a language, especially one that has significance other than its literal one. This type of linguistic humour is present in every language. In order to understand that a word or phrase is an idiom, one shall know at least some of them and think beyond its literal meaning. In this case, the translator is obliged to learn idioms from all the languages he/she works with and possess background knowledge. In every culture there are things that are shown via idioms and usually, there is a small chance to be the same in other cultures, because each culture is different.
Example: “He was as mad as a cut snake” (It means that he was angry.)
Irony is a figure of speech or literary device in which the literal meaning is the opposite of that intended. In order not to confuse irony and sarcasm, the purpose of irony has no intention to upset a person that another makes fun of him/her. As about sarcasm, it uses the method of hurting others if they do not understand this type of humour.
There are three types of irony:
verbal irony – where what you mean to say is different from the words you use;
situational irony – compares what is expected to happen with what actually does happen;
dramatic irony – uses a narrative to give the audience more information about the story than the character knows.
Example of a situational irony: Exclaiming, “What a beautiful day for a picnic!” in the middle of a thunderstorm. (The opposite words to weather caused a humoristic load because in a stormy weather someone exclaimed to be a beautiful one.)
Joke is something said or done to excite laughter or amusement; a playful mischievous trick or remark. It usually takes a form both of a story or dialogue and in the end, there is a word or phrase that makes people laugh. Moreover, the ending shall be unpredictable, for this, it can be used some other types such as irony, a nonsense meaning etc. Also, there are jokes from different countries specifying the characteristics of their culture, religion, behavior etc. or they can be universal in order to be understood by everyone. Usually, comedians tell jokes about everyday life as everyone can get his/her jokes and in this way, the interaction between the comedian and auditory is friendly.
Example of a universal joke:
Girl: You would be a good dancer except for two things.
Boy: What are the two things?
Girl: Your feet. (The girl shows by her words that this guy is a bad dancer in a way not to offend him but to provoke laughter.)
Parody is a humorous or satirical imitation of a serious piece of literature or writing; to imitate in such a way as to ridicule. A good example can be the song “Girls Just Want to Have Lunch” by Weird Al Yankovic. (It denotes a parody of the song “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” by Cyndi Lauper.)
Riddle is a question with a quick witty answer. They can be just a sentence that makes you have a sudden realization. Example: “I have a tail, and I have a head, but I have no body. I am NOT a snake. What am I? A coin.” (The answer is a surprising one and it puts you to think a while and when you find out the correct answer, it usually cause laughter.)
Spoonerism is a slip of the tongue whereby initial or other sounds of words are transposed. Example: “My dunny fog is maned Nitsy” (It is a spoonerism for “My funny dog is named Mitsy”.)
Pun is a joke that plays with words, it is also called paronomasia. Here, it is used words that have some meanings or words that sound similar but have different meanings. It involves a linguistic ambiguity. Some words in a pun may use polysemous words, figurative language, homonyms etc.
Here we will discuss about some most used types of puns:
homographic pun – when a word is spelled the same but sounds different. Thosepuns are used in most cases in written form rather than spoken as it tricks the reader to read it wrongly. For example, “You can tune a guitar, but you can’t tuna fish. Unless you play bass.” (Here, the word “bass” pronounced with a long “a” expresses a type electric guitar, while pronouncing this word with a short “a”, it means a type of fish.)
homophonic pun – it uses homonyms( a word sounds the same but have a different meaning). For example: “A bicycle can’t stand on its own because it is two-tired”. (Actually the word “tire” means wheel but de facto the meaning is that bicycle is exhausted.)
homonymic pun – it has aspects of both homophonic and homographic pun. A word shall be spelled and sound the same but also has different meanings. Here is an example of a homonymic pun: “She had a photographic memory but never developed it” is a pun. (The literal meaning of the word “develop” is when you make the picture, but here it was used in order to make a joke, mixing with the “photographic memory” – it denotes that she has a very good memory.)
Satire. Cambridge dictionary defines it as: a way of criticizing people or ideas in a humorous way. As people know to distinguish between good and bad, while reading a satire one shall detec the moral violation. It means that satire shows a situation from another perspective as it should not be in reality. Many people tend to use satire in order to show the vices or foolishness in humans, religion, organizations, most of all – governments.
Here is an example of religious satire represented by Stephen Colbert: “If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it.” (In fact, he mentions that we are selfish and do not help the ones in need because Jesus was so.)
To conclude, those three types of humour, universal, cultural, literal, help to understand that it is a form of intercultural communication and it is hard to translate it because of the cultural differences and many more extra-linguistic aspects.
There is a huge variety of humour and its types represent how broad a meaning of a joke/satire can be. Humour, basically, do not only cause laughter, it can show the status of the society, how people behave in different situations and in order not to show the cruel part of this world, the joke came into life. Of course, there are and silly jokes that, in fact, want to cheer up the people and help them to think of the world more optimistically.
Conclusions
Audiovisual Translation helped the movie industry move on the next higher level and as a result it formed some types of it that has its advantages and drawbacks. One if its type is subtitling that is considered being one the hardest to reproduce the target text in written form. It is because it has some major constraints when the translation is shown up on screen. Also, the subtitler shall have the power to correctly render the source speech and not to miss some important elements, for example: the cultural aspects of a specific country. These elements can be hardly rendered if speaking about the humour in subtitling. It needs a huge knowledge of both languages and both countries’ culture.
It is a significant type of AVT that should not be forgotten. First of all, it has a didactic purpose. Secondly, it keeps the original characters’ voices that lack of it or their change can lead to a loss of authenticity.
Moreover, a single person shall choose one method of subtitling characterized by Sanchez. He/she or with the help of an expert shall convert the replicas into subtitles on a program and to make sure that those source replicas have adequate meaning and are conveyed adequately. Also, the translation process is a challenging one; he/she shall possess background knowledge of both languages and their cultural aspects and only after that to render the replicas from source language into target language. Additionally, the subtitles shall determine when every subtitle shall appear and disappear.
It has drawback and advantages and should be more analysed and used in our country. Even if it is an arduous work, it is worth it, because it will improve knowledge about other languages and will not ruin the peculiarities and charm of the original film.
Regarding humour, understanding it within a culture and all its cultural elements is essential to produce a good translation. Moreover, it shall surprise the person, in other words, he need to be caught unaware at the end of the joke. If it does not do it, it does not cause laughter and the person failed the joke. It is also difficult to render the joke into another language, during this process the humorous load may fade and can let the listener/reader not to understand it fully. This is a hard process that only translators who know both cultures of languages that they translate can handle it.
Moreover, body language shall be taken into account, because in different cultures one smile may mean different situations. It can show joy in one country, on other it can express sadness. And the idea of humour can be hardly translatable and shows a culture specific context. In result, the humour that is tied to culture, such as sarcasm, irony, jokes, can be easily misunderstood or even offensive in some countries.
CHAPTER TWO: ANALYSIS OF TRANSLATION TECHNIQUES IN RENDERING HUMOUR
This chapter includes the presentation of the movie that shall be analyzed according the forms of humour characterized by Raphaelson-West and the translation techniques for subtitling films by Gottlieb. Each segment of text will be followed with the Romanian equivalent and analyzed its humoristic load.
3.1 The Film “Shrek 2” from the Linguistic, Cultural and Translation Perspective
Shrek is a 2001 American fantasy-comedy film directed by Adam Adamson and Vicky Jenson. It is the first feature film in the Shrek franchise. The starring actors’ voices are: Mike Myers, Eddie Murphy, Cameron Diaz and John Lithgow. [27]
The first critics acclaimed this movie being of adult interest with according jokes, but having a simple plot and appropriate humour for children.
Everything starts at Shrek’s house. He takes a mud shower and goes into woods in order to put signs to keep people away from his house. In this matter, Shrek travels to the country of Lord Farquaad to say him that he wants back his privacy. Suddenly, a talkative Donkey, who escaped from guards, accompanies him without Shrek’s will. They arrive at the destination and appear in the center of knight tournament. Without their will, donkey and Shrek beat all knights. Lord had nothing to do, but accept Shrek’s will and sent him to rescue the princess.
The so-called “friends”, traveled to that castle. Shrek finds Fiona, Donkey encounter the dragon when he finds out that it is a girl dragon and she wanted to flirt with Donkey. As they are leaving, Shrek saves Donkey and Fiona and all run away. As a result, Fiona was happy to be rescued, but when she saw that Shrek was an ogre, she become to disgust him. On the journey to Lord Farquaad’s palace, Fiona and Shrek find that they have a lot in common and even fall in love with each other.
The next day, Lord arrived and took Fiona to his castle to marry her, while Shrek returned to his house – swamp. After some time, Shrek realized that he was missing Fiona. Suddenly, Donkey came to him and said the truth about their yesterday’s talk. Both travel back to the castle and Dragon helped them with that. Shrek interrupted the wedding and said her that he loves her, he kisses her and she turns into an ogress. Shrek finds her beautiful the way she is.
In the end they marry and depart on their honeymoon living “ugly ever after”.
The storyline was based on a couple of characters. The main one is Shrek. He is a large, green ogre who loves dirt. He is a very peaceful character when nobody touches him. He does not mean to hurt others but everyone is afraid of his appearance and it is hard for him to talk with people. Shrek is good at protecting himself and fighting, but bad at making friends and using his manners.
Fiona is the princess of Far Far Away kingdom. She is the daughter of King Harold and Queen Lillian. Fiona has a transforming spell over her that turns her into an ogre every night when the sun sets. This spell can only be broken with a true loves’ kiss. Upon meeting Shrek she finds that she has fallen in love with him. All in all, she can be considered not a “traditional” princess.
Donkey is a talking donkey. He run away from the guards and found Shrek on the road to nowhere. He got saved by Shrek and from then he accompanies him everywhere. He is funny, very talkative, and this aspect annoys Shrek. At the end, Donkey is a loyal friend.
Lord Farquaad is an unpleasant character that rules the castle of Duloc. He attempts to clean the city of fairytale creatures. He is that kind of person that will do anything to become a king and almost does this, but Shrek stops him at the right moment.
Dragon is a female dragon that guarded Princess Fiona in her isolated castle. When Shrek and Donkey arrive at the castle it is Shrek who goes to rescue the princess and Donkey who finds himself at the mercy of Dragon. Donkey becomes trapped by Dragon and becomes her prisoner of love. In terror, he successfully, but unintentionally, wins her over. Dragon comes back at the end of the musical to help save the day with Farquaad.
There are also some fairytale creatures acting in the movie: Puss, Gingy, Pinocchio, Big Bad Wolf, Three Little Pigs, White Rabbit, Fairy Godmother, Peter Pan, Wicked Witch, Sugar Plum Fairy, Ugly Duckling, Three Bears, Mad Hatter, Humpty Dumpty, Elf, Dwarves, etc. All together, they bring to the film the fairy-tale spirit and are implied in bringing some humorous accidents interplaying with the main characters.
3.2 Ways and means of Rendering Humour
Humour plays an essential role in comedies being a form of entertainment and encourage viewers to laugh. It is a pleasant element for maintaining the spirit happy. Although, in general, the process of translating humour into any language could cause various difficulties to the person who produces translation. As was mentioned in the previous chapter, there are many types of jokes and the most difficult ones are cultural and lunguistic, because the target country might not understand the “colour” of joke evoked in source language, whether the meaning of joke is not rendered with accuracy and denoting the equivalent of it in target country.
Gottlieb [12, p. 1010] further believes that to assess the quality of a specific subtitling, the rendering of each verbal segment of a film must be analyzed with regard to its stylistic and semantic values. Accordingly he has proposed ten translation strategies for subtitling films, as follows:
Expansion is used when the original text requires an explanation because some cultural nuances are not retrievable in the target language. [see Example 13, p. 38]
Paraphrase is resorted to in cases where the phraseology of the original cannot be reconstructed in the same syntactic way in the target language. [see Example 6, p. 33]
Transfer refers to the strategy of translating the source text completely and accurately. [see Example 2, p. 30]
Imitation maintains the same forms, typically in the case of names of people and places. [see Example 13, p. 38]
Transcription is used in those cases where a term is unusual even in the source text, for example, the use of a third language or nonsense language.
Dislocation is adopted when the original text employs some sort of special effect, e.g., a silly song in a cartoon film where the translation of the effect is more important than the content.
Condensation that is, the shortening of the text in the least obtrusive way possible seems to be the typical strategy used in translation of subtitles. [see Example 8, p. 34]
Decimation is an extreme form of condensation where perhaps for reasons of discourse speed, even potentially important elements are omitted.
Deletion refers to the total elimination of parts of a text. [see Example 20, p. 43]
Resignation describes the strategy adopted when no translation solution can be found and meaning is inevitably lost.
Moreover, humour translation shall be also watched from the pragmatical point of view in addition to semantic value. Whilst translating a specific text, one shall look beyond the literal meaning of it and focus on the implied meaning.
Source version(English):
“Princess Fiona: The sooner we get to Duloc, the better!
Donkey: Oh, you gonna love it there, Princess, it's beautiful!
Princess Fiona: And my groom-to-be Lord Farquaad, what's he like?
Shrek: Well, let me put it this way, Princess: men of his stature are in SHORT supply.
Donkey: No, Shrek! Though there are those who think LITTLE of him!”
Target version (Romanian subtitles):
“Prințesa Fiona: Cu cât mai curând ajungem la DuLoc, cu atât mai bine.
Măgarul: O să-ți placă acolo. E frumos!
Prințesa Fiona: Dar mirele meu, Lord Farquaad? Cum arată?
Shrek: Am să-ți spun așa, prințesă. Băiații de statura lui Farquaad nu sunt mulți.
Măgarul: Nu știu. Există unii care îl consideră mic.”
Without a specific context and knowing that this Lord is short in height, the translation would be violated, because in source language the pun “…who think LITTLE of him” has the meaning of having a low opinion of someone, but in Romanian language it was rendered as “…care îl consideră mic”. The translator kept not the literal meaning, but the fact that Lord Farquaad is short.
If to take into consideration only from a sematic point of view, the humorous load would not be rendered, because semantics relates to the correct speaker’s grammar and meaning, but here the important aspect is also the context. Without knowing the surrounding circumstances, the specific situation, the meaning, one cannot translate an utterance apropriately.
In order to render the humorous load in the subtitling, the translator shall recognise what the speaker, in our case, character is referring to and to render this message form backgound knowlede about the character himself and the topic of message.
In conclusion, semantics and pragmatics shall cooperate in order to give birth to an aproppriate, funny and grammatically correct translation.
3.3 Analysis of Translating Humour in Subtitling
The source material of the present study is the movie “Shrek” and its corresponding Romanian subtitles.
The data collection and analysis of the present study took place in three phases:
In the first stage we identified the humorous elements in the films based on Raphaelson-West' categorization of humor, i.e. universal humor, culture-based humor and linguistic humor mentioned above.
The second step was to prepare the transcriptions of the dialogues of the film as well as their corresponding subtitles in Romanian and to specify the subtitling technique according to Gottlieb.
The next stage was the analysis and comparison of the dialogues in English and their relevant Romanian renderings in order to find out the answers to the research questions.
The following examples show:
the context to the reader, the surroundings, the act and the characters implied in discussion, in order to understand the humorous load;
the extract of the transcription of a humorous English text from the film;
the subtitles rendered into Romanian of the speech from text;
the humorous load of the text;
the subtitling technique that was used while rendering the replicas from English into the Romanian.
The next stage was the analysis and comparison of the dialogues in English and their relevant Romanian renderings in order to find out the answers to the research questions. There is an analysis of the humorous load of the texts or dialogues and each technique of translation was described with examples from text.
Example 1
Context: The beginning of the story about a princess kept in castle with a dragon (showed as a book story). Shrek reads it in the toilet.
English version:
Once upon a time there was a lovely princess.
But she had an enchantment upon her of a fearful sort
which could only be broken by love's first kiss.
She was locked away in a castle
guarded by a terrible fire-breathing dragon.
[…]
She waited in the dragon's keep
in the highest room of the tallest tower
for her true love and true love's first kiss. (laughs)
Like that's ever gonna happen. What a load of – (toilet flush)
Romanian subtitling:
A fost odată ca niciodată o prințesă frumoasă.
Dar avea asupra ei un blestem înfricoșător,
care ar putut fi dezlegat
doar de prima sărutare a dragostei.
Era închisă într-un castel
păzit de un balaur groaznic
care arunca făcări pe gură.
[…]
Și ea așteptase, păzită de balaur,
în camera cea mai de sus, din turnul cel mai înalt,
pe sortitul ei și întâiul sărut.”
Ca și cum asta se întâmplă vreodată.
Ce de…
Humorous load: universal
Subtitling technique: paraphrase, addition and condensation
The paraphrase techniques can be mentioned even at the beginning “Once upon a time” was rendered in Romanian accordingly as in all Romanian stories. It can be also seen in “She waited in the dragon's keep” that in Romanian “Și ea așteptase, păzită de balaur” was paraphrased in order to sound natural. Here, the connector “și” was added in Romanian. This type of technique is rarely used in subtitling as the translator tends to use as less words possible, but this is a little exception. The condensation technique was also present whilst rendering from English “What a load of” into Romanian as “Ce de…”.
The humorous point is that Shrek was reading this story in the toilet and at the end expresses his opinion that he is disgusted by it. If you picture a toilet in that situation, you do not need to continue the saying “What a piece of…”. (Annex 1) As a result, the context and visualization of it matter in understanding the humorous part.
Example 2
Context: A group of people want to capture Shrek to take the gold for his head.
English version:
Man 1: Hold on. Do you know what that thing can do to you?
Man 3: Yeah, it'll grind your bones for its bread.
Shrek: Yes, well, actually, that would be a giant. Now, ogres, oh they're much worse.
They'll make a suit from your freshly peeled skin.
Men: No!
Shrek: They'll shave your liver. Squeeze the jelly from your eyes!
Actually, it's quite good on toast.
Romanian subtitling:
Bărbatul 1: Stați. Știți ce vă poate face arătarea aia?
Bărbatul 2: Vă va măcina oasele să-și plămădească pâine.
Shrek: De fapt, asta ar face un uriaș. Căpcăunii sunt și mai răi.
Și-ar face un costum din pielea voastră prospăt jupuită.
V-ar tăia ficatul feliuțe. V-ar stoarce sucul ochilor!
Este foarte bun cu pâine prăjită.
Humorous load: sarcasm
Subtitling technique: paraphrase, addition and condensation
Paraphrase technique was used in the first line, the word “thing” was rendered in Romanian as “arătare”. So, in target language the translation even sounded better that in original, but not to forget that the word thing can be used for anything in English. In Romanian was added “să-și plămădească” in order to extend the meaning, but in source text this was written simple as “for its bread”. The word “actually” was omitted in the target language. This thing is usually done in translation of subtitles.
It is sarcasm, because Shrek said that not ogres grind bones for their bread but giants. Ogres are more evil and do even more cruel things. The fun part is at the end when Shrek wonders that jelly from eyes is good for toast (in fact not). Also, it scares and hurts the people that Shrek talks with representing the first characteristic of sarcasm.
Example 3
Context: There is a line of fairy tale creatures. The head of the guard sits at a table paying people for bringing the fairy tale creatures to him. There are cages all around. Some of the people in line are Peter Pan, who is carrying Tinkerbell in a cage, Gipetto who's carrying Pinocchio, and a farmer who is carrying the three little pigs.
English version:
Guard: Next! What have you got?
Gipetto: This little wooden puppet.
Pinocchio: I am not a puppet. I am a real boy. (his nose grows)
Guard: Five shillings for the possessed toy. Take it away.
Romanian subtitling:
Garda: Următorul! Ce-i acolo?
Gipetto: Aceasta păpușă mică din lemn.
Pinocchi : Nu sunt o păpușă, ci un băiat adevărat.
Garda: Cinci șilingi pentru băiatul posedat. Luați-l.
Humorous load: linguistic – verbal irony
Subtitling technique: transfer
The transfer technique was used to render the text in the most comprehensible way: completely and accurately.
The funny part was that Pinocchio’s lies can be seen in his wooden nose growth. So, when he lies that he is a real boy, the nose grew. He said one thing, but it was different in reality. Without the picture of how Pinocchio’s nose grows, it would not be so funny.(Annex 2) Moreover, the growth of Pinocchio’s intonation also showed that he was lying and not sure about his words.
Example 4
Context: There is a line of fairy tale creatures. The head of the guard sits at a table paying people for bringing the fairy tale creatures to him. An old woman comes up with a donkey.
English version:
Guard: Next! What have you got?
Old woman: Well, I’ve got a talking donkey.
Guard: Right. Well, that’s good for ten shillings, if you can prove it.
Old woman: Go ahead, little fella. Oh, oh, he’s just… he’s a little nervous.[…] No, no, he talks! He does. (pretends to be donkey) I can talk. I love to talk. I am the talkingest damn thing you ever saw.
Guard: Get her out of my sight.
Romanian subtitling:
Garda: Următorul! Ce-i acolo?
Bătrâna: Am un măgar care vorbește.
Garda: Bine. Face 10 șilingi dacă poți dovedi.
Bătrâna: Haide, micuțule. E doar puțin nervos.[…] Nu, vorbește! Chiar vorbește.
(ea emite măgarul) Pot vorbi. Îmi place să vorbesc. Sunt cel mai vorbăreț lucru pe care l-ați văzut vreodată.
Garda: Luați-o din ochii mei.
Humorous load: universal
Subtitling technique: condensation and transfer
The word “fella” was not rendered into Romanian and the condensation technique was used. Also, “right” was not included in target text, because the sentence follows with “well”. It could be omitted, because there is no need in repetition of the same message. The last sentence “Get her out of my sight” that included the humorous situation was rendered into Romanian “Luați-o din ochii mei” literally. In this case, according to Gotlieb transfer technique was used.
The universal humour was shown under a specific situation. The old woman meant to fool the guardians that Donkey can speak and she pretended to imitate Donkey’s speech. (Annex 3) This humorous load was not felt in the subtitles, while in ST it is the intonation of the old woman that tried to sound the same as Donke’s. Moreover, the action and mimics were also an important aspect for the audience to laugh. For this, she put her hand on Donkey’s chin in order to move it while she could not speak without moving her lips, her mimics were too obvious showing that she is lying. This can only be understood while watching the scene and only in this case the audience will catch the humorous load. Otherwise, only by reading it, humour would be violated.
Example 5
Context: Donkey flies through the air on pixie dust.
English version:
Donkey: I can fly!
People: He can fly!
Guards: He can talk!
Donkey: That's right, fool! Now I'm a flying talking donkey! You might have seen a housefly, maybe even a superfly, but I bet you ain't never seen a donkeyfly! Ha, ha!
Romanian subtitling:
Măgarul: Pot zbura!
Oamenii: Poate zbura!
Garda: Poate vorbi!
Măgarul: Așa este, prostule! Sunt un măgar zburător și vorbitor. Veți fi văzut poate o casă zburând, poate chiar o super muscă, dar pun pariu că n-ați văzut niciodată un măgar zburând.
Humorous load: universal
Subtitling technique: transfer, deletion, paraphrase
Everything was rendered accurately and the technique of translation was transfer despide the the interjection “Ha, ha!” that was not rendered in the Romanian subtitles. This representation of laughter is also present in Romanian and there was no need to translate as the sound was present in this film. Regarding this sentence “You might have seen a housefly, maybe even a superfly, but I bet you ain't never seen a donkeyfly!”, the translator used compound nouns such as “housefly” – n. house + v. to fly (a house that can move in the air); “superfly” – adj. super + n. fly (a fly that flies very fast) that probably helped to create a new compound word “donkeyfly” – n. donkey + v. to fly (a donkey that can fly). In Romanian, for those compound words it was not found an equivalent and the paraphrase technique was applied.
The humour is universal, because almost all know how a donkey looks and what he can. In this case he talks and flies (Annex 4) and then crashes on the ground. In the replicas of all implied characters the intonation played a significant role. The way people told that Donkey could fly and speak was depicted in their amazed intonation of what is happening at the moment. Actually, the fun part is in falling and that cannot be shown in the subtitles. (Annex 5) Visual elements are significant in humour.
Example 6
Context: Donkey following Shrek. Shrek turns and regards Donkey for a moment before roaring very loudly.
English version: Donkey: Oh, wow! That was really scary. If you don't mind me sayin', if that don't work, your breath certainly will get the job done, 'cause you definitely need some Tic Tacs or something, 'cause you breath stinks!
Romanian subtitling: Măgarul: Ce spaimă am tras. Dacă asta nu ține, va reuși respirația ta. Trebuie să iei niște Tic Tac, că-ți pute respirația!
Humorous load: linguistic – joke
Subtitling technique: paraphrase and condensation
Paraphrasing techniques can be observed in “That was really scary”. In Romanian, the translator added the sentence to be from first person “Ce spaimă am tras”. The words “If you don't mind me sayin” were totally deleted while rendering into Romanian. That was because of the need to used less characters on the screen, so, not to exceed the number, there were kept just the main ideas.
The joke is in that Donkey did not actually get scary of Shrek’s roar but said that was and added that his smelly breath would be the plan B if his roar would not scare people. In the moment of Shrek’s roar, Donkey pretended that he was scared. He showed this in his voice, but the mimics were fictitious. That is why; the visualizing stand at the first place and reading the subtitles are on the second.
Example 7
Context: Donkey and Shrek come over a hill and they can see Shrek's cottage.
English version:
Donkey: Look at that. Who’d want to live in place like that?
Shrek: That would be my home.
Donkey: And it is lovely! Just beautiful. You know you are quite decorator. It’s amazing what you’ve done with such a modest budget.
Romanian subtitling:
Măgarul: Ia te uită! Cine ar vrea să locuiască într-un loc ca ăsta?
Shrek: Aia e casa mea.
Măgarul: Ce drăguță este! Chiar frumoasă. Te pricepi la decorațiuni. E uluitor ce ai putut să faci cu un buget modest.
Humorous load: linguistic – verbal irony
Subtitling technique: paraphrase and transfer
Paraphrasing was used while rendering “That would be my home” into “Aia e casa mea” (Romanian translation). Instead of past tense, the Romanian translation changed into present “e”. Here, can be also mentioned the condensation technique, “You know” was deleted as it seemed an extra phrase.
It was detected the verbal irony, because Donkey said that one house looks awful and when Shrek says that it is his home, Donkey changed his mind at instance. In this part, when Donkey lies, he pretends to be amazed of an awful looking house. It is shown in his voice; his intonation grows, as like as admiring a beautiful thing and he starts to smile. As a result, the verbal irony is followed with facial expressions and intonation that offer the humorous load to be emphasized.
Example 8
Context: Donkey and Shrek comes to the huge Lord Farquaad castle.
English version:
Shrek: So, that must be Lord Farquaad’s castle.
Donkey: Um. That’s the place.
Shrek: Do you think maybe he’s compensating for something?
Romanian subtitling: Shrek:
Iar ăla trebuie să fie castelul Lordului Farquaad.
Măgarul: Acolo este.
Shrek: Crezi că încearcă să compenseze ceva?
Humorous load: universal
Subtitling technique: condensation and transfer
The sentence “That’s the place” was slightly condensed into Romanian as “Acolo este” in a such way to render the message but not to lose it. The place can be seen and there was no need to translate it. In the following sentenced, transfer techniques was used and the source text was rendered accurately without any changes.
Here, you can see a universal joke. Without the context and the picture is hard to get this humorous load. By looking at the huge castle and knowing that Lord Farquaad is short and the sentence “Do you think maybe he’s compensating for something?” shows that Lord is ashamed of his height and made a huge castle. (Annex 6)
Example 9
Context: Lord Farquaad notices Shrek at the tournament.
English version:
Farquaad: Oh! What is that? It’s hideouos!
Shrek: (turns to look at Donkey and then back at Farquaad) Ah, that’s not very nice. It’s just a donkey.
Romanian subtitling:
Farquaad: Ce-i asta? E hidos!
Shrek: Nu e prea amabil. E doar un măgar.
Humorous load: universal
Subtitling technique: transfer
Transfer technique of was used and the text was translated almost literally. Although, the interjections were never rendered into Romanian as it sounds universal and every person can hear and understand it.
The humorous part is that Shrek pretended that Lord is not talking about him, but about Donkey. But in fact, Shrek was hideous. (Annex 7) The wonder have been seen in Shrek’s intonation and the raise of his eyebrows. He acted like a professional liar, that is why the humorous load was preserved.
Example 10
Context: Shrek and Donkey came to the castle where Princess Fiona is kept and a fire-breathing dragon protects her. Donkey gets cornered as the Dragon knocks away all but a small part of the bridge he's on.
English version:
Donkey: No, oh, no, no!
(the dragon roars)
Oh, what large teeth you have. (the dragon growls) I mean white, sparkling teeth. I know you probably hear this all the time from your food, but you must bleach, cause that is one dazzling smile you got there. Do I detect a hint of minty freshness? And you know what else? You are.. you are a girl dragon! Oh, sure!
I mean, of course you are a girl dragon. You are just reeking of feminine beauty.
Romanian subtitling:
Măgarul: Ce dinți mari ai. Adică, strălucitori. Probabil că auzi asta mereu, dar cred că-i albești, că prea ai un zânbet uluitor. Oare simt o adiere de mentă proaspătă? Și știi ce? Ești o fată balaur! Sigur! Adică, desigur ești o fată balaur. Duhnești a frumusețe feminină.
Humorous load: linguistic – verbal irony
Subtitling technique: paraphrase and condensation
In the Romanian version, the translator did not want to repeat “teeth” and rendered just in he first sentence and in the second just added an adjective to it. From “…what large teeth you have. I mean white, sparkling teeth.” into “Ce dinți mari ai. Adică, strălucitori.” In this case, it woked perfect and the idea was kept.
What about this unit “…you probably hear this all the time from your food”. The word “food” was omitted in the target language: “Probabil că auzi asta mereu”. In our opinion, it should be the same as in the source language, because it shows a funny part, the life of a dragon, that it eats humans and they are its food.
The humorous load is that Donkey via verbal irony makes the dragon compliments. In fact, it is totally opposite. Why irony? It is because in comparison with sarcasm it does not have the intention of hurting others.
Example 11
Context: Shrek and Donkey are sitting around a campfire. They are staring up into the sky as Shrek points out certain star constellations to Donkey.
English version:
Shrek: Look, there’s Bloodnut, the Flatulent.
You can guess what he’s famous for.
Donkey: I know you’re making this up.
Shrek: No, look. There he is, and there’s the group of hunters running away from his stench.
Romanian subtitling:
Shrek: Privește, acolo e Pârțâitorul Puturos.
Cred că ghicești de ce e faimos.
Măgarul: Inventezi toate astea.
Shrek: Nu. Iată-l, și iată-i pe vânătorii fugind de mirosul lui.
Humorous load: universal
Subtitling technique: paraphrase and transfer
The word “Bloodnut” was not rendered as a red-headed pale person, but just a person who farts into Romanian. Actually, the idea was preserved into target language, but not till the end and paraphrase was used.
Shrek was showing constellation to Donkey and invented all this thing about Bloodnut, the Flatulent and hunters running away from his stench, but he was keeping serious that this story is not made up but a real one and caused laughter. This can be seen on Shrek’s face, he was not showing any unusual mimics, just a straight, determined face that helped him look as a comedian.
Example 12
Context: Shrek, Donkey and Fiona walking in the wood.
English version:
Princess Fiona: The sooner we get to Duloc, the better!
Donkey: Oh, you gonna love it there, Princess, it's beautiful!
Princess Fiona: And my groom-to-be Lord Farquaad, what's he like?
Shrek: Well, let me put it this way, Princess: men of his stature are in SHORT supply.
[chortles]
Donkey: No, Shrek! Though there are those who think LITTLE of him!
[laughs]
Romanian subtitling:
Prințesa Fiona: Cu cât mai curând ajungem la DuLoc, cu atât mai bine.
Măgarul: O să-ți placă acolo. E frumos!
Prințesa Fiona: Dar mirele meu, Lord Farquaad? Cum arată?
Shrek: Am să-ți spun așa, prințesă. Băiații de statura lui Farquaad nu sunt mulți.
Măgarul: Nu știu. Există unii care îl consideră mic.
Humorous load: linguistic – pun
Subtitling technique: transfer and paraphrase
Transfer technique was applied, because this text had not a cultural context and the rendered text was the closes possible with an exception of one pun ”…think LITTLE of him”. This idiom was paraphrased into Romanian as “îi consideră mic”. It is obvious that it was not translated properly, because “to think little of someone” does not mean to consider someone little, but to have a low opinion or think nothing of someone.
A form of linguistic humour was depicted in two units: “in SHORT supply” and “…think LITTLE of him!”. This last sentence turned the conversation having a humorous load and this play of words helped the audience understand that Lord Farquaad is not underestimated but is short in height. The type of pun in both cases is homophonic one, where the words are the same but have different meanings.
Example 13
Context: Shrek has got an arrow in his ass.
English version:
Donkey: Shrek’s hurt. Shrek’s hurt? Oh, no, Shrek’s gonna die.
Shrek: Donkey, I’m okay.
Donkey: You can’t do this to me, Shrek. I’m too young for you to die. Keep your legs elevated. Turn your head and cough.
Romanian subtitling:
Măgarul: Shrek e rănit. Shrek e rănit? Shrek va muri.
Shrek: Măgarule, sunt bine.
Măgarul: Nu! Sunt prea tânăr ca să mori!
ține picioarele ridicate. Tușește!
Știe cineva metoda Heimlich?
Humorous load: universal
Subtitling technique: deletion, expansion, imitation
Here, more units where condenced, for example, in the first sentenced the simple unit “no” was not rendered into Romanian. Also, “Turn your head” was neglected in the target language and was not translated. Moreover, “You can’t do this to me, Shrek.” was totally deleted and replaced with a “Nu!” in target language. The expansion technique was used to explain the Heimlich maneuver by adding “metoda” into Romanian. Imitation technique was also applied in the maneuver with the proper name of “Heimlich”.
Donkey is worried about Shrek’s health but at the same time he is thinking only about himself by saying “I’m too young for you to die.” Also, there is no need in Heimlich maneuver, because Shrek had an arrow in his butt and there is no need in this technique. So, the humorous load is a universal one and everyone shall at least get the idea of the joke.
Example 14
Context: Donkey is looking for the special flower.
English version:
Donkey: Blue flower, red thorns. Blue flower, red thorns. Blue flower, red thorns. This would be so much easier if I wasn’t color-blind!
Romanian subtitling:
Măgarul: Floare albastră, țepi roșii. Ar fi mult mai ușor, dacă n-aș fi daltonist!
Humorous load: universal
Subtitling technique: transfer
As it can be seen, in English source text there is a repetition of the same sentence “Blue flower, red thorns.”, but in the target text, the subtitler presumed not to repeat it but to keep it on the screen while Donkey repeat it in English. The transfer technique was put in use accurately – no remarks.
The humour part was in that Donkey was searching a colorful flower but he could not detect it because he is color-blind and the fun part is that he laughs at his disability.
Example 15
Context: Fiona lies that Donkey is feeling bad just to spend more time with Shrek.
English version:
Shrek: You know, she’s right. You look awful. Do you want to sit down?
Fiona: Uh, you know, I’ll make you some tea.
Donkey: I didn’t want to say nothin’, but I got this twinge in my neck, and when I turn my head like this, look,
(turns his head in a very sharp way until his head is completely sideways) Ow! See?
Shrek: Who’s hungry? I’ll find us some dinner.
Fiona: I’ll get the firewood.
Donkey: Hey, where you goin’? Oh, man, I can’t feel my toes!
(looks down and yelps)
I don’t have any toes! I think I need a hug.
Romanian subtitling:
Shrek: Ea are dreptate, arăți groaznic. Vrei să stai jos?
Fiona: Pregătesc un ceai.
Donkey: Nu am vrut să spun dar am o durere ascuțită în gât și când întorc capul, vedeți?
Shrek: Cui îi este foame? Pregătesc cina.
Fiona: Eu aduc lemne de foc.
Donkey: Unde te duci? Vai, nu-mi simt degetele!
Nu am nici un deget! Cred că am nevoie de o îmbrățișare.
Humorous load: universal
Subtitling technique: deletion and modulation
Deletion technique was used in following sentences:
“You know, she’s right.” was rendered into Romanian as “Ea are dreptate”
“Uh, you know, I’ll make you some tea.” into “Pregătesc un ceai.”
It seems that the translator of this film does not render this “you know” ever. We observed it many times in the source text, but in Romanian target text it was just deleted.
Regarding modulation, it was used here “I’ll find us some dinner”. In Romanian it was said in other words as “Pregătesc cina.” Basically, the idea is understood, but in the source language Shrek is searching the food, not making it.
The funny point here is that Donkey pretends that he feels bad and what causes laughter is that he said that he cannot feel his toes and after that realizes that he has got no toes.
Example 16
Context: Fiona and Shrek woke up in their bedroom. Donkey and Puss came to them to wake up.
English version:
Puss: Okay. You have a very full day filling in for the King and Queen. There are several functions that require your attendance, sir.
Shrek: Great! Let’s get started. (Shrek immediately pulls the covers up over his head and starts to snore.)
Donkey: C’mon, lazy bones, time to get movin’!
(Donkey yanks the sheets off of Fiona and Shrek. He is surprised to see Shrek’s bare legs.)
Aaahhh! You know you really need to get yourself a pair of jammies.
Romanian subtitling:
Motanul: Bun! Aveți o zi plină ca rege și regină!
Câteva îndatoriri necesită atenția ta, Sire.
Shrek: Grozav! Să începem.
Donkey: Hai, puturosule. E timpul să te miști!
E cazul să-ți iei o pijama!
Humorous load: universal
Subtitling technique: transfer, paraphrase, condensation
Paraphrase from English into Romanian was noticed in: “lazy bones” was rendered as “puturosule”. It was used appropriate, because the literal translation would ruin the meaning. The word combination “you know” again was omitted by the translator in order to keep the number of characters on the screen. Regarding the transfer technique, it was used in the rest of the text completely and accurately. Moreover in the source speech, it was used colloquial register, such as “jammies” that is pyjama and “lazy” that was not kept into Romanian translation. In this case, the translator used paraphrase technique.
The humorous load was universal, because people from all the countries tend to use jammies and tend to be lazy. Here, the funny part was visual one, when Shrek showed his disgusting legs and Donkey showed it indirectly. (Annex 8)
Example 17
Context: The ceremony ended. Shrek made a disaster there without wanting it. Then Shrek and Fiona come to their room. Shrek wipes off his makeup with his shirt sleeve and flings his shirt to the floor. He falls onto the bed next to Donkey.
English version:
Donkey: I think that went pretty well.
Shrek: Donkey!
Shrek picks him up and throws him out the door.
Donkey: Aww, come on now Shrek!
Romanian subtitling:
Măgarul: Eu zic că a mers binișor.
Shrek: Măgărușule!
Donkey: Zău, Shrek…
Humorous load: sarcasm
Subtitling technique: paraphrase
The subtitling technique used was paraphrase in following sections:
“Donkey” was rendered into Romanian as “Măgărușule”. In Romanian, the translator used diminutive of the donkey, but in a negative way. This technique is usually applied in Romanian when you want to show annoyance towards someone/something;
“I think” into “Eu zic”. Actually, it could be rendered as “Eu cred” because it seem more appropriately then using “I say” into Romanian. Anyway, the message was preserved.
The type of humour was depicted to be sarcasm, because the ceremony ended awful and Donkey said the opposite that it went well and he tended to speak in a positive way to keep this lie as being a true one.
Example 18
Context: On the docks, Fiona says goodbye to Shrek. Shrek goes on a trip. Fiona nervously takes in a breath.
English version:
Fiona: Shrek, maybe you should just stay and be King.
Shrek: Oh, c’mon…
There’s no way I could ever run a kingdom.
That’s why your cousin Arthur’s the perfect choice.
Fiona: It’s not that. No. It’s, you see…
Shrek: And if he gives me any trouble, I’ve always got persuasion and reason.
(holds up his right fist) Here’s persuasion,
(holds up his left fist) and here’s reason.
Romanian subtitling:
Fiona: Shrek… Poate ar trebui să rămâi și să fii rege.
Shrek: Haide, zău…
N-aș fi în stare să conduc un regat.
De-asta vărul tău e perfect.
Fiona: Nu e asta, ci…
Shrek: Dacă-mi dă prea multă bătaie de cap,
Am stăruință și înțelepciune.
Asta-i stăruința… și asta-i înțelepciunea.
Humorous load: universal
Subtitling technique: paraphrase and transfer
Paraphrase technique was used in following phrases:
“There’s no way” into “N-aș fi în stare”
“he gives me any trouble” into Romanian as “…dă prea multă bătaie de cap”
As a result, the phraseology of the original cannot be reconstructed in the same way in the target language and the translator found an adequate equivalent for target language. In this way, the text in Romanian sounds as it was not translated. It is a good example of rendering a text from one language into another one; because the cultural phrases are used in order the target reader to understand fully what the character speaks about.
The universal humour was depicted as the character speaks about things that all should know. The humorous load is that Shrek speaks that he has persuasion and reason, but in fact, he will solve all the problems with fight. Visual elements have a great importance in understanding the joke, as he shows these both abilities in two fists. (Annex 9)
Example 19
Context: Donkey sees Shrek at the back of the boat staring out at the distant horizon. He walks up next to his friend.
English version:
Donkey: Having a baby is not going to ruin your life.
Shrek: It’s not my life I’m worried about ruining. It’s the kid’s.
I mean… when have you ever heard the phrase
“as sweet as an…ogre”.
Or “as nurturing as…an ogre” or
how ‘bout… “you’re gonna’ love my dad… he’s a real ogre.”
Romanian subtitling:
Măgarul: Să ai un copil nu îți ruinează viața.
Shrek: Nu de viața mea mi-e teamă, ci de a copilului.
Ai auzit vreodată fraza
“drăguț ca un căpcăun”?
Sau “crescut ca un căpcăun” sau…
“O să-ți placă de tata. E un adevărat căpcăun”?
Humorous load: linguistic – verbal irony
Subtitling technique: transfer, condensation
The text was translated accurately, almost completely. The condensation technique was used in order to shorten the subtitles in at least obtrusive way. So, in Romanian the first sentence of Shrek was shortened from two sentences into one. Also, “how ‘bout” was excluded from text to preserve the number of characters allowed.
The opposite words to “as sweet as an…ogre” caused a humoristic load because ogres are meant to be ugly and horrifying. Verbal irony shows that what you mean to say is totally different to reality.
Example 20
Context: Shrek, Puss and Donkey stand at the entrance to the castle. They are searching Arthur. They come to a school and want to enter the door. Suddenly, a man stops them.
Two mascot costumed students walk up to the hall monitor.
English version:
Costumed student: We’re here for the Mascot Contest.
(the monitor waves them in and Shrek gets an idea)
Shrek: We’re here for the Mascot Contest too.
(The Hall Monitor lets his face snap back into place. Shrek struggles not to scream in agony. Hall Monitor is still suspicious.)
Monitor: Looks pretty real to me.
Puss: If it were real could I do this?
(Puss's claws snap out one at a time like jack-knives and then Puss jabs all the claws deep into Shrek's butt.)
Donkey: Or this?
(Donkey kicks Shrek hard in the groin with his hind legs. Shrek winces and sweats.)
Shrek: He’s right! If it were real that would have been agonizingly painful!
Romanian subtitling:
Studentul mascat: Căutăm concursul Noua Mascotă.
Shrek: Și noi tot pentru concurs…
Supraveghetor: Ăsta e costum?
Shrek: Am muncit toată ziua la el!
Supraveghetor: Mie mi se pare real.
Motanul: Dacă era, făceam asta?
Măgarul: Sau asta?
Shrek: Dacă era real, asta ar fi îngrozitor de dureros.
Humorous load: verbal and situational irony
Subtitling technique: addition, condensation, deletion
In English the name of the contest was “Mascot Contest” but the translator added a new word in Romanian “Noua Mascotă”. In English it would sound as “New Mascot”.
Condensation technique was used here: “We’re here for the Mascot Contest too.” into Romanian “Și noi tot pentru concurs…”. This technique suits perfectly here, because in the previous sentence the student mentioned the same and there was no need to repeat word-for-word.
The sentence “He’s right!” was totally deleted out of context in the target language but did not violate the meaning of the sentence.
Verbal irony is shown when Shrek lies that his body is a costume, but the situational irony is when Donkey and Puss hit him to prove that Shrek is just a costume and he tells the opposite of his feelings “If it were real that would have been agonizingly painful!”.
Conclusions
The analysis of the results shows that different subtitling strategies have been adopted by the translators in rendering humorous elements. The results in the present study lead to several conclusions.
The statistic results (Annex 12) show that paraphrase subtitling strategy is the most frequently used in all three humor categories. Some phrases cannot be rendered into target language and paraphrasing them by using the adequate equivalent is a useful technique in subtitling. After paraphrase comes transfer and condensation. Romanian subtitlers tried their best to transfer the dialogues of the original film into target language in the most comprehensible way. Moreover, condensation comes to help if the replicas are longer and the subtitles shall not exceed the specific number of characters on the screen. It is a risky case while using condensation techniques, but in this film, the translator usually omitted redundant words that do not violate the meaning of the translated text, such as interjections “Oh”, “wow” because they can be heard and they are similar into Romanian. There were as well units as “well”, “actually”, “you know” that was not rendered into Romanian in order to keep the right number of characters in subtitles on the screen and not to pollute it. The less frequently used techniques were deletion, addition, expansion and imitation. Subtitling techniques such as dislocation, transcription and resignation we not applied while rendering replicas into Romanian.
According to the statistics from the Annex 12, in the film “Shrek” there were used almost all types of humour.
The mostly used is the universal humour, where the whole thing is to convey the humorous effect and message, and which can be conceived in all cultures and languages, the translation is carried out with the least possible difficulties and in most cases the transfer subtitling strategy has been the first and most frequently used strategy.
In translating cultural humour category, the translator faces two sorts of challenges. The first one is related to rendering cultural notions and concepts and the second one is the linguistic devices used in the original. When the culture-bound elements are neutralized or generalized, cultural sense of the original is missed and the translation does not read as humorous as the original. Although, this kind of humour was not present in the film “Shrek”(part 1).
Regarding linguistic humour category, the translator faced some peculiarities. The difficulty was when the linguistic devices such as irony, puns, jokes arise in making the discourse humorous (Annex 14). Most depicted type of linguistic humour was irony, either verbal or situational. It was observed that the characters from this film used irony where the literal meaning was the opposite of that intended causing a humorous load.
Moreover, the context played an important role in rendering humour into Romanian language, because knowing the circumstances, some information about each character, their behavior can help easily identify the humorous part and apply the appropriate translation techniques and render the humorous message. Another significant characteristics are facial expressions, reactions, mimics of characters that also influence the audience laugh or at least react on a specific reaction.
It is worth mentioning that due to the fact that each humorous element is a specific one, different subtitling strategies have been applied even in subtitling of the same humor category and sometimes more than one strategy is used to translate a single humorous element.
GENERAL CONCLUSIONS
Nowadays, film translation and film industry live together. Films are made to be shown not only at the national level but also at the global level. Thus, they are translated into many languages. The paper was focused on translation humour in subtitling from English into Romanian.
Methods used mostly in audiovisual translation are dubbing and subtitling. The paper has underlined the subtitling type. Subtitling is the translation of what people are saying in a foreign language film or television program, which appears at the bottom of the screen. The study has discovered that this type of audiovisual translation has its own advantages and disadvantages, such as: it is cheap, it promotes the learning of foreign languages, it respects the integrity of the original dialogue; but it pollutes the image of screen, it can detract from the action in the film. Another peculiarities can be that subtitling has a very many constraints regarding time and numbers of letters. Subtitlings cannot render the intonation, mimics of the character and this is why a lot of humorous load can be violated in the process of translation. In this case, the sinchronisation of the image and subtitles is an important aspect to follow.
Another aspect is humour. Humour translation is an extremely difficult process which causes translators many issues. Rendering humour into a different language, in this case into Romanian, becomes even more complicated when the translator renders film replicas for the purpose of subtitling. Moreover, the visual elements play a significant element in understanding the specific humorous replica. In a movie, humour can be hardly understood if there are no visual elements and acting of the character. Also, from the character’s mimics, moves can be seen if he/she/it is joking or not. The reaction to the other characters whilst listening to the joke shall be taken into account, because if the others have a positive feedback to the specific joke, the humorous load can be transmitted with success to the watcher. But it can be and vice versa, when the joker humiliates one character in order to cause laughter from the others.
It was established that culture varies and the humour of the English and Romanian languages will be totally different, with exception of universal humour type. That is why, translator shall possess cultural background of both countries in order to keep the meaning of the humorous load and find the appropriate equivalent into target language.
The analysis of the thesis was based on the first part the comedy “Shrek”. The main particularities of this humour translation, which should be taken into consideration while translating an audiovisual product, is the synchronization of verbal and non-verbal aspects which is the hardest thing to do and this kind of translation requires working not only with text but with image, sound and so on. Translators face many constraints while translating a film, especially a comedy one. One of them is the speech of the characters that is the main part in the film. Characters’ speech characteristics usually demonstrate frequent use of dialects, accents and other language varieties and registers. Thus, translators face the challenge of choosing the right strategy to reproduce or eliminate those peculiarities. When it is used the subtitling technique, speech characteristics are violated.
The techniques chosen in analysis of humour in subtitling have been categorized by Gottlieb. The research has shown that the most frequent techniques were transfer and paraphrase. The translator tried not to diverge too much from the source text and render the text with humorous load. The big part of humorous texts was of universal and linguistic style.
Thus, the need of audiovisual transfer has become the most crucial. The inevitable language transformations take place in the field of audiovisual translation because of two main aspects: different structure of the source and target languages and particularities of selected translation procedures.
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Glossary
Audiovisual Translation – (AVT) is the term used to refer to the transfer from one language to another of the verbal components contained in audiovisual works and products. Feature films, television programs, theatrical plays, musicals, opera, Web pages, and video games are just some examples of the vast array of audiovisual products available and that require translation.
cinematography – the art of photography and camerawork in film-making.
dubbing – is a post-production process used in filmmaking and video production in which additional or supplementary recordings are "mixed" with original production sound to create the finished soundtrack. The process usually takes place on a dub stage.
voice-over – is a production technique where a voice, that is not part of the narrative (non-diegetic), is used in a radio, television production, filmmaking, theatre, or other presentations.
subtitle – caption displayed at the bottom of a cinema or television screen that translate or transcribe the dialogue or narrative.
subtitling – type of audiovisual translation of a written text, usually at the bottom of the screen, giving an account of the actors' dialogue and other linguistic information which form part of the visual image (letters, graffiti, and captions) or of the soundtrack (songs).
utterance – is a smallest unit of speech; a spoken word, statement, or vocal sound.
character – a person represented in a film, play, or story.
humour – the ability to find things funny, the way in which people see that some things are funny, or the quality of being funny.
extra-linguistic – not involving or beyond the bounds of language.
cultural background – constitutes the ethnic, religious, racial, gender, linguistic or other socioeconomic factors and values that shape an individual’s upbringing.
storyline – the plot of a novel, play, film, or other narrative form.
screen – a flat panel or area on an electronic device such as a television, computer, or smartphone, on which images and data are displayed.
analysis – detailed examination of the elements or structure of something.
context – the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood.
Annexes
Annex 1
Annex 2
Annex 3
Annex 4
Annex 5
Annex 6
Annex 7
Annex 8
Annex 9
Annex 10
Annex 11
Annex 12
Types of humour identified in the movie “Shrek”
Annex 13
Types of subttitling techniques used in “Shrek”
Annex 14
Types of linguistic humour
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