Rendering humour through interlingual subtitles : a case study of the English rendering of humour in the subtitles of the films directed by Mario Monicelli

Abstract

This case study is a descriptive analysis of humour translation in audiovisual media, focusing mainly on one mode of audiovisual translation: subtitling. The sample consists of three classics of Italian cinema directed by Mario Monicelli; I soliti ignoti (Big Deal on Madonna Street, 1958), I compagni (The Organizer, 1963), and Amici miei (My Friends, 1975). The analysis is based on the comparison between the humorous scenes in the original audio track (Italian) and their subtitled versions in English. This analysis was carried out through the proposal of a taxonomy of humour which made it possible to identify objectively the humorous instances present in each of the films mentioned. The study focuses on the differences between the humorous load of the original scenes and their translation through the subtitling process. Some examples of how the humorous load changed during the subtitling process were discussed in the analysis section of this study. The aim was to quantify and analyse the humorous elements in the source and target texts, calculate the percentage of humour in the source texts that had been realised in the target version and those that experienced a loss in humour, make observations on humour translation, and examine potential tendencies in audiovisual humour translation.