Linguocultural adaptation in TV series translation

Abstract

The article considers common challenges of translating culture-bound vocabulary in popular American TV series. The article is aimed to determine basic techniques of linguocultural adaptation in Russian translation of “Friends” TV series. Traditional comparative and statistical analysis methods are applied to examine culture-bound elements of the original text of the above-mentioned sitcom, and therefore, to identify adequate techniques of linguocultural adaptation in its Russian translation. Moreover, “Friends” TV series contains a huge number of phraseological units, puns and jokes adequately conveyed in its Russian translation, and therefore, keeping the target audience interested in the sitcom. Scientific novelty of the research is determined by the author’s attempt to compile some essential tips for linguocultural adaptation while translating TV series from English into Russian. Research findings have proved that achieving success in both linguistic and cultural adaption implies the translator’s ability to take into account the particular nature of both the form of the material presented and its perception by the target audience. Thus, the linguocultural adaptation whiletranslating TV series from English into Russian requires a translator to have a bicultural competence that involves background knowledge (linguistic and extralinguistic) about both the source and target cultures.