The AVT of Humour

3.7 The AVT of Humour

Scholars in TS who are interested in AVT tend to focus either on the subtitling or dubbing of humour. This usually depends on personal or professional reasons and interests. For example, I am Italian and my interest in the dubbing of audiovisual material is greatly influenced by this factor. Gottlieb, a Danish scholar, researches mainly the subtitling of humour from English into Danish.

Gottlieb’s (1997: 207-232) study offers interesting remarks on audiovisual sources, and especially TV entertainment programmes, which are relevant for future data analysis as well as dubbing in general terms. His descriptive approach to the Danish subtitled version of one episode of an English satirical programme, Carrott’s

Commercial Breakdown , takes into consideration a wide range of problems related to the content of the ST (the different types of wordplay), the specificity of the medium (which combines verbal and non- verbal texts) and the translator’s human constraints (time pressure, the translator’s experience and creativity). Moreover, he has pointed out the peculiar context within which the audiovisual material is embedded: Carrott’s Commercial Breakdown is a live show which requires a precise synchronisation of the visual and subtitled text in order to ensure the targ et audience’s intended reaction. In discussing the translation strategies the translator used to convey the potential humour in the original text (e.g. compensation, equivalent puns in the TT, puns rendered as non-puns, and so on), Gottlieb demonstrates that they retain the original intended effect only in a limited number of occasions. For this reason, he proposes an alternative subtitled version of the programme which preserves a greater number of the original wordplays. It could be argued here that Gottlieb does not clarify whether his version has been produced under the same conditions as the investigated translation (e.g. time constraints).

Similarly, Bucaria (2007) has analysed the Italian subtitling of the Late Show with David Letterman (1982- 1993, David Letterman) and found that the translators’ decision making process is very much dependent on contextual and pragmatic factors related to the subtitling mode (time pressure, the ST and the original audience’s reaction are heard by the target audience). As a consequence of this, potentially humorous instances such as puns, puns based on the visual and verbal texts, and allusions have been translated by means of a source-oriented approach even if the target audience are unlikely to grasp the humour they try to convey (cf. also Lebtahi 2004).

In his study of dubbed and subtitled humour, Pisek (1997) finds some examples where the original wordplay is retained because of a close correspondence between the source and target language. For example, in the German subtitled version of Fawlty Towers , the play of words between ‘hammer’ and ‘hamster’ of the original was retained (‘Go and get me a hammer’ - ‘My hamster?’- ‘How can I knock a nail in with your hamster?’) (ibid.48). In his analysis of the German dubbed version of Woody Allen’s film Annie Hall (1977) Pisek shows how dubbing can exploit features of the audiovisual text such as camera angles to preserve some of the original humour. For example, he explains that the German translators and dubbing team decided against the faithful rendering of the original dialogue so as to preserve the linguistic device (wordplay) in a scene of the movie (ibid.43-44). Interestingly, I have found that Gaiba (1994:106) analyses exactly the same wordplay in the Italian dubbed version to find that the translators opted for a similar approach. They exploited the fact that the characters are shot from a distance to recreate the wordplay, while ignoring its semantic equivalence.

Regarding wordplay based on the visual and verbal text, it seems worth mentioning an example cited by Chiaro (1992: 85, 2000: 36, 2006: 200). She explains that in a scene taken from the film The Big Chill (1983, Laurence Kasdan, Il grande freddo ) the main character Harold Cooper (Kevin Kline) is asked to father a child because he has “good genes”. Although the context of the utterance is clear, Harold looks at his thighs because he is wearing denim trousers. By doing so, he plays on the homophony of the words ‘jeans’ and ‘genes’. As Chiaro points out, the Italian translator resorted to a literal rendering of the dialogue which retained t he word ‘genes’ (in Italian, ‘geni’), but destroyed the original wordplay. Interestingly, Gaiba (1996: 110-111) also discusses this example. She offers a solution based on a functional approach which changes the semantic meaning of the original but which successfully retains the verbal-non- verbal pun. She suggests using the Italian idiom ‘sei in gamba’ (meaning ‘you are clever’) that plays on the meaning and on the word ‘gamba’ (meaning ‘leg’) and the visual element when the character looks at his thighs.

As can be seen, the AVT of humour involves a great number of linguistic, cultural and technical constraints but it is nonetheless achieved. In the following subsection I discuss some priorities that should be taken into account in the AVT of humour and in dubbing in particular. Moreover, I summarise some strategies that can be used to overcome the problems that arise during this process.

3.7.1 Priorities and Strategies in the AVT of Humour The heated debate on the (im)possibility of translating humour has stimulated progress of research in TS. In particular, Zabalbeascoa (1996) aims to demonstrate that translating humour is possible and proposes a model that takes into account the contextual constraints and priorities of both the medium and the translator.

The contextual constraints are mainly related to the nature of the ST (different types of humour), the specificity of the medium (which combines verbal and non- verbal element s) and the translator’s human constraints (time pressures, the translator’s experience and creativity). The concept of ‘priority’ is demonstrated to be both original and pivotal in the translation of comedies and humorous texts in general. However, in the specific case of the dubbing of humour (e.g. in television programmes such as The Challenge, Yes, Minister and Fawlty Towers that are his case studies), Zabalbeascoa (ibid.245) identifies the following main set of priorities:

 guaranteeing good popular ratings;  eliciting laughter;  ensuring there is adequate linguistic and textual structure to the medium.

Having established these priorities, translators should be ‘free’ to create a TT which retains the original purpose of the ST. Zabalbeascoa also offers a classification of jokes according to the type of

translation strategy available for dubbing. Zabalbeascoa has based his classification of examples taken from TV programmes such as The Challenge and Yes, Minister and their Catalan dubbed version. Some examples are reproduced below along with Zabalbeascoa’s back translation for the sake of clarity:

1. “International or bi-national jokes” do not rely on any language- or culture- specific feature (e.g. wordplays or proper names). Their translatability may depend on the texts’ content, which may or may not be considered funny in the target culture . The translator’s knowledge of the target culture’s expectancy norms will thus be essential in establishing an adequate transfer. Zabalbeascoa’s example is a translation of an English ST into Catalan:

ST: A Minister with two ideas. I can’t remember when we last had one of those. TT: Un Ministre amb dues idees. No recordo qui va ser l’últim que vam tenir. (Gloss: A Minister with two ideas. I can’t remember the last one we had).

In this example, the humour translation does not depend on specific features of the source language (SL). It simply hinges upon the indirect reference to politicians’ lack of cognitive skills, which the translator considered to be humorous in the target culture as well (ibid.251).

2. “National-culture-and-institutions jokes” contain specific source national, cultural or institutional references. Adapting these in translation retains the intended effect(s) of the original. However, adaptation can take various forms such as explanation, expansion etc. In an example taken from Yes, Minister, the speaker refers to the English tabloid The Daily Mirror implying that this newspaper has political views opposite to his ones. As Zabalbeascoa points out, this reference is likely to be lost if the target audience do not have the required background knowledge. He suggests making the text’s meaning more explicit so as to retain its humour:

ST: It wasn’t me who put it that way, it was The Daily Mirror. TT: No sóc pas jo qui ho diu això, és el Daily Mirror.

(Gloss: I am not the one who says that, it is The Daily Mirror). Suggested alternative TT: L’expressió no és meva sinó del líder de

l’oposició. (Gloss: I did not coin that phrase, it was the Leader of the Opposition).

However, it could be argued that this process minimises the intended humorous effect based on the receiver’s ability to grasp the implied meaning. A possible alternative could be using a referent that comes from the source culture but that is also likely to be recognised by the target audience (ibid.252). For example, the

translator might have mentioned an equivalent newspaper to The Daily Mirror. In Chapter 6 in this thesis, I will examine in detail the translation of potentially humorous culture-specific allusions.

3. “National-sense-of-humour jokes” refer to stereotypes developed within a given community on certain subjects (e.g. underdogs). They may not convey the same humorous effect(s) in another culture. The translator may then resort to changing the source stereotype for one which is familiar to the target culture. For example, Zabalbeascoa reports that, in the Catalan version of Fawlty Towers, Manuel, a funny character from Barcelona who can barely speak English, becomes Mexican. Further evidence of this strategy can also be found in the data investigated in this thesis. In the Italian dubbed version of the first series of Friends , Rachel’s Italian boyfriend Paolo is changed into Pablo from Spain, and all his lines are translated accordingly. This happens mainly because Paolo is portrayed as flirtatious and prone to betrayal (ibid.252-253).

4. “Language-dependent jokes” exploit source-language specific features. In this case, Zabalbeascoa provides an unsuccessful example of a translation into Catalan, again from Yes, Minister. In his view, the TT does not retain the idea of playing with two idiomatic expressions as displayed in the ST. Thus, it becomes humourless. The Minister comments on the reason why people go into politics:

ST: ... the other half are in it for what they can get out of it.

TT: ... i els altres només procuren omplir-se les butxaques. (Gloss: ... and the others are just trying to line their pockets).

For Zabalbeascoa, the Catalan version cannot retain the wordplay between ‘in’ and ‘out’ in the original idiomatic expression; it can only convey its implied meaning (ibid.253). Puns and other types of wordplays will be discussed in detail in Chapter 5 in this thesis.

5. “Visual jokes” may be only visual or combine visual and verbal elements. Zabalbeascoa proposes the example of a picture of a button used to suggest silence because it refers to the expression ‘button (up) your lips’. This is an interesting example of a visual and verbal metaphor. As Zabalbeascoa explains, in such cases, translators are more likely to adopt some form of compensation in order to match verbal and non-verbal texts coherently (ibid.253-254). As for puns and wordplay, I will discuss some examples of visual jokes in Chapter 5. In addition, the use of metaphorical expressions will be discussed in Chapter 7.

6. “Complex jokes” can incorporate two or more of the aforementioned types of joke (e.g. language and cultural references such as allusive wordplays). The strategy used to deal with such jokes may depend, once again, on the set of priorities that the translator has to satisfy and the function of the text:

ST: They call him ‘Pilgrim’, because every time he takes her out he makes a little progress. TT: Li diuen ‘Tirantlo’ perquè quan es lliga una noia sempre dóna en el Blanch.

(Gloss: They call him ‘Tirantlo’ because whenever he chats up a girl he always makes his mark).

In this example, Zabalbeascoa attempts to compensate for the loss in his own translation of an English joke, which refers to John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (a Christian allegory). He suggests referring to the Tirant lo Blanch (a story about a medieval knight), because it is more familiar to the Catalan audience and it can retain

the original joke about an amorous conquest (ibid.254-255). Clearly, being able to appreciate the potential humour in the text balances the mismatch between the original visual element (e.g. English context) and the target-culture allusion.

As can be noticed, Zabalbeascoa’s strategies are intended to adjust the TT to the target culture’s expectations regarding humour for the sake of the programme’s success. For his analysis, Zabalbeascoa tends to consider audiovisual texts as containing highly humorous parts to be analysed separately and categorised according to the translation strategy applied to each of them.