Translation Strategies and Techniques in Audiovisual Translation of Humour: Analysis of Shrek 2 and Ice Age

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