Subtitling Humor in The Series “The Big Bang Theory”

Abstract

Humor is an element which is frequently used in audiovisual texts. Considering the technical constraints of audiovisual translation types such as subtitling and dubbing along with the linguistic factors and many more variables on screen, the translation process of audiovisual humor could be fairly challenging for the translator. The goal of this present study is to discuss the translation process with a focus on the translation of audiovisual humor. In an attempt to observe the theoretical and methodological approach toward the translation of humor in audiovisual texts in a practical study, the humorous elements in 23 episodes in the 3rd season of the famous American comedy series “The Big Bang Theory” were identified and the translation process of subtitling those into Turkish was examined. When the humorous examples in the series were studied in terms of humor theories, it was clearly seen that its humor is mostly produced through superiority and incongruity theories. In addition, it was observed that humor in the series was largely dependent on linguistic elements. It was deduced that a target-oriented approach had been adopted in the translation of humor elements and on that account, mainly the substitution strategy had been applied in subtitling humor from English into Turkish. Overall, in this study, it was concluded that the humorous examples in the source text had been successfully translated into the target text and an attempt had been made to preserve the humor effect from the source culture in the target culture.