Audiovisual Translation of Humor: A Cross-linguistic Analysis of Selected Episodes from ‘Brooklyn 99’

Document Type : Academic research papers

Authors

1 Arab Academy for Science, Technology & Maritime Transport

2 Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport College of Language and Communication

Abstract

Sitcoms are one of the most popular sub-genres streamed worldwide. Sitcom humor is unique as it combines attributes of both canned humor and conversational humor. Drawing on Juckel et al.’s Humor Typology and Molina and Albir’s translation techniques, this study examines Netflix’s Arabic audiovisual translation AVT of humor of five episodes from the CNBC sitcom ‘Brooklyn 99’ (2013-2021). The study employs Molina and Albir’s translation techniques to investigate the Arabic AVT of humor in the selected episodes. The humor analysis concludes that the most found humor types are absurdity and peculiar face. The translation analysis concludes that the most employed translation techniques are literal translation, linguistic compression, and reduction. The study concludes that literal translation is the most successful at rendering a more semantically and humorously loyal target text TT. This study hopefully contributes to the literature on both sitcom humor studies and Arabic humor translation studies, providing research input for translation and humor affiliated researchers. The study also aims to provide feedback to subtitlers on their delivery of humor in the ST, and how to better their translations of sitcoms.

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Buhūth
Volume 4, Issue 9
Volume 4 issue 9- Humanities and languages
September 2024
Pages 22-48

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