Challenges and Strategies of Subtitling Humour: A Case Study of the American Sitcom Seinfeld, with Particular Reference to English and Arabic Adel Awadh A Alharthi School of Languages University of Salford, Salford, UK Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, August 2016 ABSTRACT The present study investigates issues in the subtitling of humour in the American sitcom, Seinfeld. The study also identifies the subtitling strategies used by Arab translators to solve the technical, linguistic and cultural problems of translating humour in Seinfeld, and it uncovers the factors that might have affected the subtitlers’ decisions. The study draws on the General Theory of Verbal Humour (GTVH; Attardo & Raskin 1991, Attardo 1994, Attardo 2001, Attardo 2002) and Pedersen’s (2005) model of subtitling cultural references. Applying the GTVH and Pedersen’s (2005) model to the subtitling of humour between English and Arabic will test their reliability (i.e., the analysis of the data using these theories will reveal their strengths and weaknesses). The findings show that different types of humour were used in the selected data (eight types). These types were rendered into Arabic using a variety of strategies which were governed by a number of parameters, including cultural and linguistc differences between the source and target languages and cultures, intersemiotic redundancy, intertextuality, media-specific constraints, viewers’ knowledge of the show, and the simplicity of the humour in the source text. The Arab subtitlers managed, in many instances, to translate humour successfully into Arabic. However, some instances of humour that contained cultural references, wordplay, and catchphrases proved to be more challenging. The study also discusses the subtitling of a wide range of types of humour, some of which have not been explored before in the Arabic context (e.g., retorts, register clash, spoonerisms, and catchphrases). This study should contribute to filling the gap in research into the subtitling of humour in the Arab world, as this field is relatively new and there is a huge shortage of research in the field of subtitling comedies. In addition, a new model of analysing and subtitling humour in sitcoms is proposed, based on the GTVH and Pedersen’s (2005) model and the findings of the current study. This new model consists of the external and internal parameters of the joke. The new proposed model of analysing and subtitling humour presented in this study contributes to the overall knowledge of the treatment of humour in AV productions. II LIST OF CONTENTS Abstract………………………………………………………………………………………….II List of contents ……………………….………………………………………………………..III Abbreviations.….…………………………………………………………………………….VIII Scheme of transliteration ..….………………………………………………………………….IX Declaration …….…………………………………………………………………………...…...X Acknowledgement .….……………………………………………………………………...….XI Dedication …..….……………………………………………………………………………...XV Preface……..………………………………………………………………………………......XVI Chapter One: Introduction 1.1 Statement of the problem…………………………...………………………………..…..2 1.2 Contribution and significance of the study………..……………………………....…..…3 1.3 Aims and objectives of the study ………………...…….……………….……..…...…....4 1.4 Research questions………………………………...………………………………......…4 1.5 Overview of the thesis………………………...……………………….…...................…5 Chapter Two: Humour 2.1 Introduction........................................................................................................................6 2.2 Definitions..........................................................................................................................6 2.3 Theories of humour............................................................................................................8 2.3.1 Incongruity theories...................................................................................................9 2.3.2 Theories of superiority..............................................................................................10 2.3.3 Theories of release....................................................................................................11 2.3.4 Linguistic theories of humour...................................................................................11 2.3.4.1 The Semantic Script Theory of Humour (SSTH).........................................11 2.3.4.2 The General Theory of Verbal Humour (GTVH)……………………........12 2.4 Types of humour...............................................................................................................15 2.4.1 Jokes (canned jokes)................................................................................................16 2.4.2 Wordplay.................................................................................................................18 2.4.3 Irony.........................................................................................................................19 2.4.4 Parody......................................................................................................................20 2.4.5 Satire........................................................................................................................21 III 2.4.6 Sarcasm.....................................................................................................................22 2.4.7 Spoonerisms..............................................................................................................23 2.4.8 Putdowns and self-denigrating humour....................................................................23 2.4.9 Retorts.......................................................................................................................24 2.4.10 Teasing....................................................................................................................25 2.4.11 Banter......................................................................................................................26 2.4.12 Register clash..........................................................................................................26 2.4.13 Catchphrases...........................................................................................................26 2.5 Humour in culture………………………………………………………………………..27 2.6 Conclusion.........................................................................................................................30 Chapter Three: Subtitling of humour 3.1 Introduction........................................................................................................................31 3.2 Humour and translation......................................................................................................31 3.3 Subtitling humour...............................................................................................................36 3.4 Difficulties involved in translating and subtitling humour.................................................39 3.4.1 Subtitling cultural references in humour...................................................................40 3.4.1.1 Strategies for rendering cultural references in humour………………….....41 3.4.2 Language-based humour............................................................................................46 3.5 Major studies on subtitling of humour in the Arab world..................................................50 3.6 Conclusion..........................................................................................................................52 Chapter Four: The corpus and methodology 4.1. Introduction.......................................................................................................................53 4.2 Sitcom................................................................................................................................53 4.2.1 Definition..................................................................................................................53 4.2.2 Types of sitcoms.......................................................................................................54 4.3 Seinfeld..............................................................................................................................56 4.3.1 Characters.................................................................................................................58 4.3.2 Theme and plotlines..................................................................................................60 4.3.3 Culture and Judaism..................................................................................................61 4.3.4 Humour in Seinfeld...................................................................................................62 4.4 Methodology……………………………..........................................................................65 4.4.1 The suitability of the corpus (Seinfeld) for the current study…………….........65 IV 4.4.2 Methodological approach…………………………............................................67 4.5 Conclusion..........................................................................................................................68 Chapter Five: Data Analysis 5.1 Introduction.......................................................................................................................70 5.2 Wordplay...........................................................................................................................70