Volume: 13  Number: 4  Page: 289–296

TRANSLATING AUDIOVISUAL HUMOUR. A CASE STUDY

Juan José Martínez-Sierra Castellón, Spain

This article presents a descriptive and discursive analysis of how elements in humorous extracts from an animated American television show (The Simpsons) fared in overcoming linguistic and intercultural barriers in dubbing (English-Spanish). The analysis is based on several Translation Studies and Pragmatics methods and on a taxonomy of humorous elements in audiovisual texts. These were used to (1) quantify and (2) analyse the humorous elements in the source and target texts, (3) calculate the percentage of humour in the source texts that had been realised in the target versions, (4) make observations on humour translation in animated serials; and, finally, (5) create a list of translational tendencies – potential norms – in humour translation in audiovisual texts.

Keywords: English-Spanish, audiovisual translation, humour, intercultural communication, norms, relevance

© 2005 Juan Rosé Martínez-Sierra

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