Assessing Translation of Humor in The English Subtitles of Goodbye Mr. Loser
Main Article Content
Abstract
Humor is primarily influenced by both the source and target language cultures, which poses significant challenges for translators. Given the continuous emergence of comedy movies, humor plays a crucial role in cultural expression. However, research on the assessment of translation quality of humor in movie subtitles in China remains limited. This study aims to categorize the translation techniques using Pedersen’s typology (2005, 2011) and assess the translation quality of the humorous content in the English subtitles of the Chinese comedy movie Goodbye, Mr. Loser (2015). Goodbye, Mr. Loser is one of the most successful comedy movies in China in recent years, selling 1.441 billion yuan at the box office and winning an award at the China New Era International Film Festival, while also gaining a lot of attention overseas. This study analyzes the accuracy of the English subtitles based on Newmark’s (1988) framework. In his model, Newmark (1988) assesses the accuracy by looking at the accurate reflection of the semantic, contextual, register and style of the ST in TT. Additionally, it adopts a questionnaire for non-Chinese speakers following Nababan, Nuraeni and Sumardiono’s (2012) approach to assess the acceptability and readability of the English subtitles. The significance of this study lies in its potential to enhance the quality of Chinese audiovisual products, reduce language barriers, foster effective cross-culture communication, and provide a valuable reference for the humor translation in Chinese comedy movies in the future.
Article Details
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
References
Alfaify, A., & Pinto, S. R. (2021). Cultural references in films: an audience reception study of subtitling into Arabic. The Translator, 28(1), 112–131. https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2021.1898714
Alnusairat, S. A., & Jaganathan, P. A. (2022). Humour in Translation From English Into Arabic: Subtitles of the Comedy Sitcom Friends. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 12(7), 1447–1456. https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1207.27
Ashlikhatina, A., & Mujiyanto, J. (2021). The Accuracy of Sentence Level in English Indonesian Subtitle of ‘The End of the F*** ing World-Season 2. JELLT (Journal of English Language and Literature Teaching), 6(2), 220-236.
Batmanathan, P. D., Amini, M., & Abbaspour, B. N. (2022). Subtitling techniques and translation accuracy in the Malay to English translation of “Ejen Ali: the Movie.” Journal of Modern Languages, 32(2), 37–66. https://doi.org/10.22452/jml.vol32no2.4
Chaume, F. (2018). An overview of audiovisual translation: Four methodological turns in a mature discipline. Journal of Audiovisual Translation, 1(1), 40–63. https://doi.org/10.47476/jat.v1i1.43
Chaume, F. (2020). Audiovisual Translation: dubbing. In Routledge eBooks. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003161660
Cintas, J. D., & Remael, A. (2020). Subtitling. In Routledge eBooks. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315674278
Cintas, D., & Remael, A. (2014). Audiovisual translation: Subtitling. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315759678
Cintas, J. D., & Szarkowska, A. (2020). Introduction: Experimental research in audiovisual translation–Cognition, reception, production. The Journal of Specialised Translation, 33, 3-16.
Collectif. (2001). Xinhua Dictionary with English Translation.
Gao, J (2016). The translation of cultural elements in Wei Cheng from Chinese into English (Unpublished Master dissertation). Retrieved 10 November 2020 from http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/6666/1/Thesis_Final.pdf
Gil, S. F. (2023). Quality assessment of the English subtitles in five international Award-Winning Colombian films. Ikala, Revista De Lenguaje Y Cultura, 28(2), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.ikala.v28n2a06
Gottlieb, H. (1998). Subtitling. Routledge encyclopedia of translation studies, 244-248.
Haider, A. S., & Hussein, R. F. (2022). Modern standard Arabic as a means of euphemism: A case study of the MSA intralingual subtitling of Jinn series. Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, 51(6), 628–643. Online First:1-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/17475759.2022.2106289
Haikuo, Y. (2015). Film translation in China. Babel, 61(4), 493–510. https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.61.4.03hai
Halliday, Μ. Α. Κ., McIntosh, A., & Strevens, P. (1964). The linguistic sciences and language teaching. https://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA27927807
House, J. (2015) Translation Quality Assessment Past and Present. New York: Routledge.
Hurt, C., & Widler, B. (1998). untertitelung/übertitelung. Handbuch Translation. Tubingen: Stauffenburg, 261-263.
Jia, H., & Cheng, X. (2023). Research on the Subtitle Translation of Green Book from the Perspective of Register Theory. Lecture Notes on Language and Literature, 6(13), 7-19.
Jiang, T., Li, H., & Hou, Y. (2019). Cultural differences in humor perception, usage, and implications. Frontiers in Psychology, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00123
Jin, Z. (2017). A Comparative Analysis of Film Subtitle Translation from English to Chinese-A Case Study of 15 Popular Animation Films. University of Salford (United Kingdom).
Jorge Díaz Cintas. (2009). New Trends in Audiovisual Translation. Multilingual Matters.
Koponen, P. E. (2018). Fuckin’ A, Man: Translating Swear Words In The Big Lebowski. (Master’s Thesis, University of Eastern Finland, School of Humanities. University of Eastern Finland). Retrieved 1 March 2021 from https://erepo.uef.fi/handle/123456789/19747
Lacković, L. (2022). Audiovisual Translation: Challenges of Translating Humor from English into Croatian in the American Sitcom” The Office” (Doctoral dissertation, University of Rijeka. Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. Department of English Language and Literature).
Latif, M. A. (2018). Translation techniques in and accuracy of the Indonesian subtitles of the movie Philomena. ELT Forum: Journal of English Language Teaching, 7(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.15294/elt.v7i1.25298
Liu, D. (2012). Subtitling cultural specificity from English to Chinese. American International Journal of Contemporary Research, 2(10), 39-46.
Liu, D. (2014). On the Classification of Subtitling. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 5(5). https://doi.org/10.4304/jltr.5.5.1103-1109
Luke, J. Y. (2022, September). Humor Translation Accuracy in Indonesian Subtitle of Kung-Fu School Movie. In Prosiding Seminar Nasional Universitas Ma Chung (Vol. 2, pp. 99-109).
Multazim, A. (2019). Modulation and translation accuracy of the Legend of Korra 4 subtitle. English Education Journal, 4(1), 51–64. https://doi.org/10.29407/jetar.v4i1.12732
Mulyati, A., & Nugroho, A. (2023). Translation of verbal humor in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie. Diksi, 31(1), 25-36. https://doi.org/10.21831/diksi.v31i1.56407.
Nababan, M., Nuraeni, A., & Sumardiono. (2012). Pengembangan model penilaian kualitas terjemahan. Kajian Linguistik dan Sastra, 24(1), 39-57.
Newmark, P. (1988). A textbook of translation. http://ilts.ir/Content/ilts.ir/Page/142/ContentImage/A%20Textbook%20of%20Translation%20by%20Peter%20Newmark%20(1).pdf
Pedersen, J. (2005, May). How is culture rendered in subtitles. In MuTra 2005–Challenges of multidimensional translation: Conference proceedings (Vol. 18).
Pedersen, J. (2011). Subtitling norms for television: An Exploration Focussing on Extralinguistic Cultural References. John Benjamins Publishing.
Pedersen, J. (2017). The FAR model : assessing quality in interlingual subtitling. The Journal of Specialized Translation, 28, 210–229.
Putri, S. R., & Sari, C. M. I. (2022). Translation accuracy of noun phrase translation in the movie entitled “Raya and The Last Dragon”. Humaniora Scientia, 8(2), 79-87.
Raphaelson-West, D. S. (1989). On the Feasibility and techniques of Translating Humour. Meta: Translators’ Journal, 34(1), 128. https://doi.org/10.7202/003913ar
Saputra, K. J. H., & Rini, J. E. (2021). Assessment of accuracy and naturalness in the subtitle translation of supernatural TV series. Kata Kita: Journal of Language, Literature, and Teaching, 9(2), 144–149. https://doi.org/10.9744/katakita.9.2.144-149
Shen, C., & Wang, G. (2019). A study of subtitle translation in Shawshank Redemption under Register Theory. Us-China Foreign Language. https://doi.org/10.17265/1539-8080/2019.06.006
Sienatra, K. (2021). Slang language in the subtitle of “The Social Network” movie. Kata Kita: Journal of Language, Literature, and Teaching, 9(2), 167–172. https://doi.org/10.9744/katakita.9.2.167-172
Simpson, J. A. (2002). Oxford English Dictionary: Version 3.0 : Upgrade Version.
Souzandehfar, M., & Mehr, N. Z. (2019). Translation of Culture-Bound Items: A case study of the movie ‘Sensitive Floor.’ Social Science Research Network. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3513798
Tee, Y. H., Amini, M., Siau, C. S., & Amirdabbaghian, A. (2022). English to Chinese fansub translation of humour in The Marvellous Mrs. Maisel. Texto Livre: Linguagem E Tecnologia, 15, e37677. https://doi.org/10.35699/1983-3652.2022.37677
Vallès, D. (2014). Applying Juliane House’s Translation Quality Assessment Model (1997) on a humorous text: A case study of “The Simpsons.” New Readings, 14(0), 42. https://doi.org/10.18573/newreadings.98
Vandaele, J. (2002). Introduction. The Translator, 8(2), 149–172. https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2002.10799130
Wijaksono, R. N., Hilman, E. H., & Mustolih, A. (2022). Translation methods and quality of idiomatic expression in My Sister’s Keeper movie. Jurnal Basis, 9(1), 73–84. https://doi.org/10.33884/basisupb.v9i1.5428
Xiao, Q. (2019). An Analysis of the Translation of Cultural Humor in the Novel “Huo Zhe”. International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation, 2(6), 292455.
Yang, L. (2020). Humor translation in American sitcom: A case study on Chinese translation of Modern family (Outstanding Academic Papers by Students (OAPS), City University of Hong Kong).
Zabalbeascoa, P. (2012). Translating Heterolingual Audiovisual Humor: Beyond the Blinkers of Traditional Thinking. In The limits of Literary Translation: Expanding Frontiers in Iberain Languages Translation: Expanding Frontiers in Iberain Languages. Edition Reichenberger.
Zhang, J. (2018). Audiovisual Translation: A Critical Review on Sino-western Perspectives of Film Subtitle Translation. International Journal of Comparative Literature and Translation Studies, 6(1), 58. https://doi.org/10.7575/aiac.ijclts.v.6n.1p.58