Analysis of the translation of wordplay and humour in the dubbed animated TV series BoJack Horseman PDF

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Uniwersytet Wrocławski Wydział Filologiczny Instytut Filologii Angielskiej

Kacper Obrał

Analiza gry słów i humoru w tłumaczeniu dubbingowanego serialu animowanego „BoJack Horseman”

Praca licencjacka napisana pod kierunkiem dr Anety Tatarczuk, UWr

Wrocław 2018

University of Wrocław Faculty of Letter Institute of English Studies

Kacper Obrał

Analysis of the translation of wordplay and humour in the dubbed animated TV series BoJack Horseman

BA thesis written under the supervision of dr Aneta Tatarczuk, UWr

Wrocław 2018

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction............................................................................................................................3 CHAPTER I TRANSLATION..............................................................................................4

1.1 Definition of translation......................................................................................4 1.2 Translation methods, strategies and techniques...............................................4 1.2.1 Formal correspondence and dynamic equivalence..........................4 1.2.2 Communicative and semantic translations.......................................5 1.2.3 Translation techniques........................................................................5 1.3 Audiovisual translation.......................................................................................7 1.3.1 Dubbing................................................................................................7 1.3.2 Subtitling..............................................................................................8 1.3.3 Voice-over............................................................................................10 CHAPTER II HUMOUR.......................................................................................................11 2.1 Definition of humour............................................................................................11 2.2 History of humour................................................................................................11 2.3 Division of humour...............................................................................................12 2.4 Translation of humour........................................................................................14 2.4.1 Issues of translating humour........................................................................................16

2.5 Plot overview.........................................................................................................16 CHAPTER III ANALYSIS....................................................................................................18 Concluding remarks...............................................................................................................30 References...............................................................................................................................31 Summary.................................................................................................................................33 Key words................................................................................................................................34 Streszczenie.............................................................................................................................35 Słowa kluczowe.......................................................................................................................36

Introduction The initial goal of this thesis is to present the possible challenges and solutions for translating humour. This work will cover several issues related to basics of translation theories. There will be a place for investigating the area of audiovisual translation theories and also those referred to translation of humour. The art of humour is an inseparable part of the culture of every civilization, and the translation of humour is an interesting and every so often a complicated process. The term ‘humour’ is crucial for this paper, because of the provided analysis, which will be focused on the examples from the animated American TV series BoJack Horseman (2015-2018). The first chapter will be related to the general practice of translation and its definition, the theories presented by numerous researchers, and the issues of audiovisual translations. These are the basics that will help to understand the connections between the original and translated text. The research will also cover most commonly used techniques and methods of translating both written and audiovisual contents. The second chapter will be about humour. From the origin of the word, through the things people consider amusing and to the types of humour and techniques to translate it. Familiarizing with the theory, learning about the construction of jokes and getting to know the types of jokes will allow to immerse in the topic of humour. The chapter will also present possible issues of translating humour the translator has to deal with. In the end of the chapter there will be occasion to read about the plot and the characters of the analysed TV series “BoJack Horseman”. The third, and the last chapter will provide the analysis of the translation of dubbing in BoJack Horseman translated by Alicja Petruszka. With the help of the knowledge presented in the first and second chapters, an in-depth analysis of the translation techniques and methods will be carried out. Attention will be focused on language operations that had to be made in order to translate the series from English into Polish and to keep the humourous spirit of the work.

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CHAPTER I TRANSLATION 1.1 Definition of translation The term ‘translation’ has no single definition. Different interpreters and researchers formed numerous definitions of this word. According to Pieńkoś, definition of translation could be the result of the translation process, so the text translated from one language to another, it could be an intellectual activity of taking the message from the source language (SL) and putting it in the target language (TL), but the term could also be considered as comparison of two languages (1993: 10). Nida claims, that the translation is “the closest natural equivalent of the source-language message, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style” and with the intention of achieving that, the translator has to make various lexical and grammatical adjustments (2003: 12). Both definitions presented come down to the meaning, message and the response, and those are the key words for the term in every definition. 1.2 Translation methods, strategies and techniques Before one starts to translate the whole text, he or she should decide which strategy, method and technique to use. According to Garcarz, the method is a form of language (spoken, written, etc.) which would be presented to the TL audience. The strategy consist of procedures the translator chooses, but considering the whole text, not the single parts of it. The techniques are actions taken on smaller parts of the text such as words, phrases and sentences in order to achieve proper equivalence (2007: 169). However, for various researchers those terms could mean something different. What is called a strategy for one might not be the same for another. 1.2.1 Formal correspondence and dynamic equivalence Nida (see Venuti 2004: 129), divides the translation strategies into two different types, which are ‘formal correspondence’ and ‘dynamic equivalence’. The first type is source-oriented and it is about being as close as possible to the message and meaning, but also the style. If in the source text (ST) there is a sentence, then in the target text (TT) there should be a sentence. Most of these translations are ‘gloss translations’, so texts translated essentially word-for-

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word and structure-for-structure with additional footnotes with explanations. Such a translation could be, for example, used in poetry and legal texts. Dynamic equivalence, on the other hand, as Nida explains, is an approach to the translation is such a way that “the focus of attention is directed, not so much toward the source message, as toward the receptor response”. The translator is allowed to change everything in the ST in order to achieve approximately the same natural meaning of the translated text and the same response from the receiver of the TT. This is the translation, “where a bilingual and bicultural person can justifiably say, ‘That is just the way we would say it’” (see Venuti 2004: 136). 1.2.2 Communicative and semantic translations Newmark proposed his own division of translation strategies. He coined two terms: ‘communicative translation’ and ‘semantic translation’ (2001: 38). The first one is similar to Nida’s ‘dynamic equivalence’ and the second one is much as like as ‘formal correspondence’. Munday compared those two terms and pointed out the most important differences (2001: 45): Communicative translation

Semantic translation 

focused on the SL message and



‘reader focused’ and TL-oriented

meaning



ST cultural aspects changed in order



culture of the SL remained



loyal to the ST form, may look

to fit the TL 

important as the TL’s, looks clearer

awkward 

for example, used for ‘serious literature’ and ‘political statements’

the form of the SL is not as



for example, used for translating ‘non-literary writings’, ‘publicity’, ‘informative texts’ and ‘popular fiction’

1.2.3 Translation techniques Translator uses a wide range of various language procedures and operations performed on the translated text. Newmark describes most of these techniques (1988: 45-47):

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

word-for word translation, so translating words by ‘their most common meanings’ and ‘out of context’, usually used for the analysis of the languages,



literal translation, where the translator converts grammatical structures from the SL to the TL, but still, words are translated one by one and the meaning is omitted,



adaptation where the SL cultural aspects are transferred to the TL with no need to keep the original form and the meaning of single words,



faithful translation, so being as loyal as one can to the original text’s intentions, adjustments in grammar and form are allowed,



free translation, rather paraphrasing than translating, but this method requires from the translator to keep the main thought of the TT but allows to change everything else,



idiomatic translation, which includes taking the message of the SL and putting it into the form of the TL’s idioms and colloquialisms.

Vinay and Darbelnet (see Fawcett, 1997: 34-47) also listed numerous techniques of translation, which were not mentioned by Nida and Newmark before: 

borrowing, when a word or a phrase is taken from the SL and used in the TL in its form, usually because the TL is missing the equivalent word, for instance ‘the Western press borrowed the term sputnik until we learned to call them satellites’,



calque, which is a literal translation, but made on a whole phrase, usually created by the authors of the newspaper articles and then those calques are adapted by the TL community, but from time to time non-native speakers use calques and make mistakes, e.g., Polish ‘grać na gitarze’ translated to ‘play on guitar’,



transposition and modulation, which are techniques of dealing with grammar, the first one is usually used intuitively and the second one intentionally, but it is associated with risk, and requires wide knowledge of lexis and grammar of the SL and the TL. Fawcett explains this idea in such way “the signifier changes while the signified remains the same, and this is achieved by various forms of metaphor, metonymy and synecdoche”,

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

reduction and omission of “information considered to be unnecessary, of little importance, or unlikely to make sense to the target-language reader”.

1.3 Audiovisual translation Despite the fact that the cinema has been in existence for many years, there were not many written about the audiovisual translation (AVT). Thanks to the development of technology, this field brings together more and more researchers (Diaz Cintas, 2009: 1). International Communications Market Report presented by Ofcom (2017) showed that people in the USA spend four and a half hour per day watching TV. But TV is not the only source of audiovisual content. There is also the Internet, VOD, Pay TV, broadcast and many more. People all over the world watch audiovisual content and that creates a need to translate the content from one language to another. As Tomaszkiewicz claims, AVT cannot by literal. The translator is required to make various decisions, for instance, to add some information or not, to change the meaning in order to maintain the TL culture or to keep the spirit of the ST and expose the text to being incomprehensible. The AVT combines various translation techniques, both classic and modern. (2006: 100). That makes AVT a challenging field with the requirement of creativity and imagination. Literature and poetry use one channel of presenting the idea and the content – a text. The translator who deals with the literature or poetry has to focus on the text and all the matters linked with the text, for instance, the meaning, the form of the text, the style of the text and the culture of the SL and the TL. Audiovisual, on the other hand, combine two different channels, that is sound and image. When it comes to translating audiovisual contents the translator has many more problems to think of. They could be linguistic, psychological or even technical. Synchrony of the sound, image and time but also the message, audience’s response, maintaining the original style and form of the ST and all those matters that translators of literature deal with (Diaz Cintas and Remael, 2014: 22). The most frequently and popular methods of translating audiovisual contents are dubbing, subtitling and voiceover. The rest of this chapter will cover these issues. 1.3.1 Dubbing

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According to Pérez González, dubbing is “one of the two dominant forms of film translation, the other being interlingual subtitling. In the field of audiovisual translation, dubbing denotes the rerecording of the original voice track in the target language using dubbing actors’ voices; the dubbed dialogue aims to recreate the dynamics of the original, particularly in terms of delivery pace and lip movements” (2009: 17). Dubbing is the most favored audiovisual translation method all over the world, however, it is also the most expensive and the most complicated one. The whole procedure requires hiring a translator, voice actors, a dubbing director, audio and video technicians and many more persons. In addition, after spending all the money on that it could turn out that some people consider dubbed characters unauthentic. When the director chooses the actors he or she certainly considers if the actor’s voice fits to the fictional character’s personality. It might be extremely difficult to find comparable voice in dubbed version. Another problem is that numerous people know the voice of the specific actor. Some actors have such characteristic voices that no other voices would fit their appearance and any replacement would be criticized . Obviously, films and TV series are not the only audiovisual productions. Animated movies, video games, advertisements, TV spots, basically everything that consists of image combined with voice can be dubbed. According to Tveit, dubbing involves more losses than profits and the subtitling is definitely a better method, but there are situations, where dubbing is a good option, “this tends to be the case in documentary programmes, which normally lend themselves more easily to revoicing than subtitling. (…) Moreover, films and programmes aimed at small children have to be dubbed for the simple reason that the target audiences have not yet learned to read” (2009: 95-96). 1.3.2 Subtitling The definition of this term could be a “translation practice that consists of presenting a written text, generally on the lower part of the screen, that endeavors to recount the original dialogue of the speakers, as well as the discursive elements that appear in the image (letters, inserts, graffiti, inscriptions, placards, and the like), and the information that is contained on the soundtrack (songs, voices off)” (Díaz Cintas and Remael 2014: 8). According to Garcarz, the translator has to work hard to get the desired effect. The original message that is contained in the SL dialogue must be shortened by 30-40%, as this is the proportions of approximate listening and reading speed. Otherwise, the viewer would not be able to read everything and the translation would be useless. All translation techniques leading to text condensation are necessary in this case (2007: 154).

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Díaz Cintas and Remael introduced following types of subtitles, referring to the linguistic parameters (2014: 14-16): For the deaf and the hard-of-hearing For language learning purposes Intralingual subtitles

For Karaoke effect For dialects of the same language For notices and announcements

Interlingual subtitles

For hearers For the deaf and the hard-of-hearing

Bilingual subtitles

Figure 1. Díaz Cintas’s and Remael’s linguistic division of subtitles (2014: 14).

Intralingual subtitles are those within one language, “primarily aimed at people who are deaf and people with a hearing impairment, in order to ensure greater democratic access to audiovisual programming”, but these kind of subtitles could also work as “a didactic tool for the teaching and learning of foreign languages” and also this method is often used for “songs or movie musicals so that the public can sing along at the same time as the characters on screen”. Interlingual subtitles, on the other hand, are those translated form one language to another, there could be a transfer from text to text or spoken language to text. This kind of subtitles is very widely used in movies, games, series, commercials, etc. In addition it is the most frequently used and the most popularized form of subtitles. “Bilingual subtitles are the third type within this category and are produced in geographical areas where two languages are spoken. In Belgium, in an attempt to satisfy the Walloon and Flemish communities, subtitles in the cinema are in French and Flemish” (Díaz Cintas and Remael, 2014: 18).

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Many researchers consider subtitling the cheapest form of AVT due to the smallest number of people involved in creation, however, the cheapest does not always mean the worst. The viewers appreciate they can become familiar with the culture of the original text, that they can hear the original voices of actors and unchanged sound effects. This enriches the personalities of the characters the audience can see on the screen and the whole action of the movie. 1.3.3

Voice-over

This method is used mostly by countries from Eastern Europe, but also can be seen as a tool of narration for documentary movies. This term defined in Merriam-Webster is “the voice of an unseen narrator speaking (as in a motion picture or television commercial” (merriamwebster.com). The method is very similar to dubbing, but all dialogues are read by a single person – narrator. The narrator cannot act and cannot modulate his voice too much. The voice must be the least noticeable, yet understandable. This method is not used in cinema productions - there usually appear subtitles or dubbing. Althoug...