Translating Humour in Audiovisual Texts: A Technical Comparative Study of the Arabic Dubbing and Subtitling of Selected Multicultural Disney Animated Movies

Abstract

Audiovisual translation (AVT) is a fast-growing research area in translation studies. It generally involves an SL/TL linguistic transfer of an audiovisual text, intended for cinema, television, or video. It makes it possible for the audience to enjoy audiovisual products that comes from different cultures in their own languages. Audiovisual translators encounter many problems in the process of translation, including, but not limited to, changing registers and cultural-specific references. The AVT process is even more complex when it comes to translating humour; as handling the infinite humour-making resources that different languages use is quite challenging. This is a comparative study of the Arabic dubbing and subtitling of some Disney animated movies. It attempts to explore problematic areas of analysis that humour translation might present, how humour was translated in dubbing and subtitling and whether it had lost its power to amuse in the target culture. The thesis particularly looks at the restrictions and guidelines for dubbing and subtitling, and investigates how they differ in the data and which of them is more faithful to the source language and culture. This is achieved by adopting a product-based cross-cultural approach to humourous discourse for the analysis, accounting for both: the need for the text to be enjoyable for the target audience as well as the respect of the original author's intent. The study traces back the main premises of humour represented in the Incongruity theory adopted by Immanuel Kant (1790) and refined later by Arthur Schopenhauer (1819). It relies on The General Theory of Verbal Humour, developed by Salvatore Attardo and Victor Raskin (1991) as an extension and revision of Victor Raskin’s Script-based Semantic Theory of Humour (1985) and Patrick Zabalbeascoa (1996) humour typology Believing that in crossing geographical boarders "humour has to come to terms with linguistic and cultural elements whic