Previous studies have given much focus to verbal translation at the expense of audiovisual translation of humor (Bogucki, 2016). Attardo (2002) explicitly looks into the existing relationship between humor, sound, culture, and meaning under translation completely ignoring the impact of audiovisual effects. This brings to question the validity of his analysis in the discipline of translation. The models of the rendering audio-visua of humor presented by Asimakoulas (2004) take Attardo’s theories to the starting point. However, before an in-depth analysis into the aspect of audiovisual translation of humor, it is important to have an understanding of the term “humor”. Vandaele (2010) describes humor as the cause of spontaneous laughter or smile, amusement, or entertainment. We can stand by his definition of the term as the Oxford Dictionary confirms that humor is someone’s quality to be comic or amusing.
The practice of audiovisual translation is long established, tracing back to the origins of cinema. The practice has grown gradually with time, increasing in its complexity from the silent era into the sound era. The sound era saw the arising of multiple versions of the languages, increase in dubbing, and the huge number of multilingual scripts requiring attention. For more than 80 years, audiovisual translation has been instrumental in the satisfaction of the various needs of the film products. The techniques for translation as Terran and Sierra (2017) put it include subtitling and dubbing. The duo, however, do not explicitly look into more complex details of audiovisual translation. Perego (2014) does a more intense study on the various aspects and give a broad focus on the other less spread forms of translation include the narration, voice-over, and commentary. He also captures audio description which is now being embraced in favor of the blind. Perego’s work is more elaborate as compared to the previous research on the discipline.
Financial factors, cultural background, linguistic choices, historical factors have influenced audiovisual translation, determining the choice of technique various countries embrace and the underlying reason why other countries have not embraced the practice (Perego & Taylor, 2012). Chaume (2014) add to the research by Perego and Taylor by exploring the impact of cultural differences in the translation of humor. He records that in some cases there might need to manipulate a given text so that it is in line with the cultures of the translated language. It is clear that the attempt to manipulate a given text that he suggests might be risky as there might be loss of originality.
Human cognition has also posed a significant challenge in audiovisual translation. As posited by Bogucki (2016), jokes are generally based on the human perception the speakers internalize cognitive structures as they provide information on the organization of the world. The cognitive element of humor makes it extremely difficult to translate. Chiaro (2006) supports his argument as he posits that the most challenging aspect of audiovisual translation is the translation of verbally spoken humor to the screen. His sentiments are after an interview conducted among several operators of the dubbing industry in India.
Once the audiovisual translation has been established, there was a need for various scholars to have an in-depth understanding of the inner mechanisms. According to Orero (2009), 1932 was possibly the earliest time for the research on audiovisual translation. His arguments may stand the test of time as audiovisual translation began being considered as a discipline in translation around the 1980s. Previously, there had been resistance from several of the factors (Oreri, 2009). There had been scorning of audiovisual translation as it was not considered worthy of literary works (Chaume, 2004). That explains the possible reason why it was not part of the discipline of translation until later times.
Since the recognition of audiovisual translation, it has had clear roles in the discipline of translation studies. Many scholars have developed an interest in the study of audiovisual translation. The interest in audiovisual translation converged on broad translational, technical, and linguistic aspects initially. Later, there was a strong need for the particular and more specific challenging areas. Adequate literature in humor was one of the most significant challenges. Presently, there is abundant literature in the area of study.
The later research work in the field tried to explore the various aspects of the impacts of cultures and languages in the translation. The studies have dwelt in the examination of the reasons for the different translation choices, and to bring understanding to the reason for the given options of translation. There has been in-depth analysis on the reasons for the success or failure of audiovisual translation, and further, the disapproval or appreciation of the products in foreign lands.
Considering the genres, there has been an analysis of a wide range of products. However, special attention has been given to humor-based genres. The featured instances of humor include nonverbal and verbal humor. Comedy has received a special focus in the audiovisual translation. Comedy is a genre of hybrid film. It incorporates narrative functions that are related to humor. Comedy encompasses the use of laughter provoking and exaggerated language, with plots that are light-hearted with the intent of entertaining and amusing the viewer. Other genres and sub-genres have also received some degree of attention (Perego, 2014). The genres include animations, the US comedies, and the serial animations. The genres exploit verbal humor and portray hilarious situations in amusing their audience. Comedy-dramas and dramas have also rendered instances of humor though they are often plot-driven, intense, and portray life in a realistic manner. Humor can also be presented in dance and musical films, video games, and thrillers. The types of humor involve a high level of interactions and engagement but in many cases profoundly exploit the purposes of comedy. The games and the film genres achieve their humorous by using a considerable number of resources (Martínez-Sierra, 2010). The achievement of comic effects is rarely shared through countless according to Martinez-Sieerra. The accomplishment of the comic effects is dependent on the modes of audiovisual translation in question and the languages. The translator, therefore, has the challenge of ensuring accuracy in his translation.
There is a wide range of both target and source languages that the authors take into account. The former and the most dominant is US English. The Australian variety accompanies it. There are, however, a few instances of the other languages such as France, German, Italian, Spanish, and European Portuguese (Zolczer, 2014). The language of the target in translation majorly is Italian. Other languages of particular focus also include Spanish, French, English, Swedish, Hungarian, and German. Perego (2014) concur with his findings as he goes further to look into the possible effects of the wide variety of sources and targets on the audiovisual translation.
The conclusions by the studies open new avenues for future research. The findings may also be used as sources of hypothesis when undertaking further quantitative or qualitative data into the area of interest. Future authors should take a closer look into the impacts of Computer Aided Translation Technology and Computational Linguistics on the further development of the discipline. There is also a gap in the impact of the multimodal corpora in audiovisual documents to translation. There should be a better focus on the influence of corpora linguists to the study of audiovisual effects.
References
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