VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION GRADUATION PAPER TRANSLATION OF HUMOR IN THE DUBBED VERSION OF THE SITCOM “HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER” IN VIETNAMESE Supervisor : Nguyễn Thị Diệu Thúy, MA Student : Nguyễn Thị Hòa Course : QH2014.F1.E20 HÀ NỘI – 2018 ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH KHÓA LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP CÁCH DỊCH YẾU TỐ HÀI HƯỚC TRONG BẢN LỒNG TIẾNG PHIM HÀI TÌNH HUỐNG “KHI BỐ GẶP MẸ” Giáo viên hướng dẫn : Th.S Nguyễn Thị Diệu Thúy Sinh viên : Nguyễn Thị Hòa Khóa : QH2014.F1.E20 HÀ NỘI – 2018 ACCEPTANCE PAGE I hereby state that I: Nguyễn Thị Hòa (QH14.F1.E20), being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (English Language) accept the requirements of the College relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library. In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper. Signature Date May 4th, 2018 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I feel grateful beyond measure for the patient guidance that my supervisor, Ms. Nguyễn Thị Diệu Thúy has shown me over the past few months. Without her critical comments and timely support, this paper would not be finished. In addition, I would like to express my sincere thanks to 80 students from class 15E12, 15E13, 15E14 and 15E16 at the University of Languages and International Studies who eagerly participated in the research. Their kindness helped me to overcome some difficult times and restored my faith in the ability to complete this paper on time. Last but not least, my thanks go to my friends and family who stood by me all this time, cheered me on and inspired to never give up. This paper is dedicated to all these wonderful people who in some way gave me the support during the process of conducting this research. i ABSTRACT Translation of humor in general and in audiovisual contexts in particular is challenging to even experienced translators, yet it has not attracted enough attention in the research field. In addition, translation of audiovisual products have unique characteristics requiring the collaboration between the audio and visual channel and undergoing a complicated editing process before being aired. This paper aims at discovering the translation of humor in a well-known sitcom named “How I met your mother” which has been dubbed by Vietnam Television network and the audience’s reception of that translation to enrich the materials in the field of screen humor translation. In order to collect the data on the types of humor available in the sitcom and the strategies used to translate the humor, the researcher used the method of observation of documents. Regarding audience’s reception, 80 students were asked to complete the questionnaire in which they showed their reaction to humorous excerpts from the dubbed version. After that, data was processed using numerical analyzation. The results presented that among eleven types of humor present in the chosen episodes of the sitcoms, irony, wordplay and teasing were the primary source of humor. Meanwhile, literal translation and explicitation were the dominating strategies used by the translators to render almost every type of humor present in the corpus. The reaction of 80 participants from FELTE, ULIS towards excerpts showed that most of them had a preference for literal translation over explicitation although students who watched sitcoms frequently had a more positive opinion towards explicitation than those who rarely did. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................ i ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................ ii LIST OF TABLES .............................................................................................. v LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................... vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .......................................................................... vii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ..................................................................... 1 1.1 Background ..................................................................................................... 1 1.2 Statement of research problem and questions ................................................ 3 1.2.1 Research problem ........................................................................................ 3 1.2.2 Research questions ...................................................................................... 4 1.3. Scope of research ........................................................................................... 5 1. 4. Significance .................................................................................................. 5 1.5. Organization .................................................................................................. 6 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ......................................................... 7 2.1 Humor ............................................................................................................. 7 2.1.1 Definition ..................................................................................................... 7 2.1.2 Humor theories ............................................................................................ 8 2.1.3 Classification of humor ............................................................................. 11 2.2 Translation of humor .................................................................................... 13 2.2.1 Constraints ................................................................................................. 13 2.2.2 Translation strategies ................................................................................. 14 2.3. Audiovisual translation ................................................................................ 19 2.3.1 Definition ................................................................................................... 19 2.3.2 Modes of AVT ........................................................................................... 19 2.3.3 Dubbing and constraints ............................................................................ 20 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY .................................................................. 21 3.1. Sampling ...................................................................................................... 21 3.2. Data collection ............................................................................................. 22 3.2.1 Observation of documents ......................................................................... 22 iii 3.2.2 Questionnaire ............................................................................................. 23 3.3 Data analysis ................................................................................................. 25 CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS .......................................... 27 4.1 Categories of humor present in 10 selected episodes of the series “How I met your mother” ................................................................................................ 27 4.2 Strategies according to Díaz-Cintas and Remael (2007) used to translate these humorous elements into Vietnamese in the dubbed series ....................... 29 4.2.1 The use of translation strategy in general .................................................. 29 4.2.2. The use of translation strategies by categories of humorous elements .... 34 4.3. Audience’s reception of the translation ....................................................... 37 4.3.1 Irony .......................................................................................................... 37 4.3.2 Wordplay ................................................................................................... 38 4.3.3 Teasing ...................................................................................................... 38 4.3.4 Jokes .......................................................................................................... 39 4.3.5 Catchphrases .............................................................................................. 39 4.3.6 The relationship between the frequency of watching sitcoms and reception of the translated products .................................................................... 40 CHAPTER 5. CONCLUSION ........................................................................ 42 5.1. Summary of main findings and implications .............................................. 42 5.2. Limitations ................................................................................................... 43 5.3. Suggestion for further research ................................................................... 44 REFERENCES ................................................................................................. 45 APPENDIX 1: CATEGORIES OF HUMOR AND TRANSLATION STRATEGIES APPLIED ................................................................................ 48 APPENDIX 2: QUESTIONNAIRE ................................................................ 73 iv LIST OF TABLES Table 4.1. Student’s response