Investigating The Audience Reception Of Subtitling .

Investigating Subtitling Strategiesfor the Translation of Wordplay inWallace and Gromit –An Audience Reception StudybySvea SchaufflerA Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhDModern Languages Teaching CentreSchool of Modern Languages and LinguisticsJuly 2012

AbstractThis thesis constitutes an experimental, receptor-oriented study whichinvestigates the reception of two different strategies for subtitling Englishwordplay into German. Two translations of the animated short film Wallaceand Gromit in A Matter of Loaf and Death are screened for test audiences,whose reaction is then recorded in a questionnaire. The existing translation,which was broadcast on German television and published on DVD, followsan approach based on formal equivalence and therefore rarely diverges fromthe original dialogue at word level, but equally sacrifices parts of theextensive humorous content inherent the text. This is contrasted by aspecifically produced alternative translation which prioritises equivalence ofeffect, the transfer of linguistic humour at the cost of formal similarity. Theresearch project also explores the influence of source languagecomprehension on the reception of both versions, as it is assumed that aformally different subtitle text could be interpreted as "incorrect" bymembers of the audience with knowledge of English. In light of the fact thatEnglish as a second language is spoken by a growing number of people inthe German language community, the effect of this development on theviewers' requirements for audiovisual translation strategies and modes oflinguistic transfer are considered relevant for the field. Furthermore, thereception of subtitling by a German audience is investigated in this context.1

ContentsAbstract . 1Contents . 2Acknowledgements . 4Figures and Tables . 5Chapter 1: Introduction. 6Chapter 2: Audiovisual Translation . 142.1 A polysemiotic form of translation . 162.2 Advantages and challenges . 232.2 The situation in Europe regarding AVT . 272.3 AVT and AVT research in the digital age . 32Chapter 3: Humour and Translation . 373.1 Existing research in the area . 413.2. Approaches to the translation of humorous texts . 453.2.1 Meaning and equivalence . 453.2.2 The role of skopos . 483.2.3 Domesticating and foreignising approaches. 503.3 Wordplay . 523.3.1 Concepts and definitions . 523.3.2 Typology . 573.3.3 Strategies for wordplay translation . 62Chapter 4: The Corpus . 664.1 The art of animation . 664.1.1 Animated films in AVT research . 724.1.2 Clay animation. 734.1.3 Aardman Animations and the Wallace and Gromit films . 764.2 The film used in the reception study: A Matter of Loaf and Death . 784.2.1 Intertextuality . 792

4.2.2 Culture-specific references . 834.2.3 Wordplay relying only on the verbal sign system . 864.2.4 Wordplay relying on the visual and verbal sign systems . 904.2.5 Wordplay relying only on the visual sign system . 944.3 The existing translation of A Matter of Loaf and Death . 98Chapter 5: Methodology . 1135.1 The alternative wordplay translations used in the reception study . 1135.2 Assessment of English knowledge amongst German groups . 1275.3 The questionnaires . 1365.4 Quantifying responses . 1475.5 Data collection . 1495.5.1 Participants . 1495.5.2 The screening process . 150Chapter 6: Data analysis . 1526.1 Hypotheses . 1526.1.1 Independent Variables . 1526.1.2 Dependent Variables . 1536.2 Results . 1576.2.1Comparison of groups for extraneous variables . 1576.2.2 Comparison of groups for Humour Reception . 1596.2.3 Within-group analysis for Humour Reception and extraneous variables 1626.2.4 Comparison of groups for Subtitle Reception . 1666.3 Preliminary conclusions and further hypotheses . 1706.3.1 Comparing for more than one variable between groups . 1726.3 Qualitative comments . 175Chapter 7: Discussion and conclusion. 183References. 188Appendices . 198A.Translation Overview . 198B.Information Sheets. 200C.Questionnaires . 202D.Tables . 2093

AcknowledgementsI am indebted to a large number of people who contributed to thisundertaking in various ways. Some of them shall be mentioned here.I would like to express a heartfelt Thank You to my supervisors LenaHamaidia and Dr. Julia Dobson for their continuous encouragement andsupport throughout this project, both academically and personally, and foralways looking out for me. A special Thanks also to Lena for her part inmaking it all possible, and for convincing me that “everything will turn outfor the best”. Also thanks to Dr. Paul O’Neill for his much appreciated helpwith statistics, and for relishing a challenge.A sonorous Dankeschön to all participants in Germany and the UK, and toNadja and Wolfgang Schauffler for their help with recruiting audiences,organising screenings and providing Apfelsaftschorle in the hot Germansummer of 2010.Thanks also to Gudrun Schauffler for being an endless source of wisdom,sympathy and enthusiasm.I would like to thank my trusted proofreaders Sarah Kemp and Brian Irwin, aswell as Catherine Moir and Andrew Wormald for their help with Englishwordplay.And finally, gratitude and a smile go out to Sam Weller.Meiner Familie mit Liebe und Dankbarkeit gewidmet.4

Figures and TablesFigure 1: Map of language-transfer practices for television works broadcastin Europe . 29Figure 2: Map of language-transfer practices for cinema works screened inEurope . 30Figure 3 English scores Group Alt . 158Figure 4 English Scores Group Ex . 159Figure 5 Humour Reception in Group Alt . 160Figure 6 Humour Reception in Group Ex . 161Figure 7 Humour Reception in Group CG. 161Figure 8 Humour Reception and English Group Ex . 165Figure 9 Humour Reception and English Group Alt . 165Table 1 Treatment * Gender Crosstabulation . 157Table 2 Subtitle * Group Crosstabulation . 166Table 3 Age and Subtitle Reception - Descriptives . 209Table 4 Level of English and Subtitle Reception - Descriptives . 2105

Chapter 1: IntroductionIn a Monty Python sketch from 1969 entitled “The funniest joke in the world” 1, whichis set in the Second World War, a joke writer invents a joke so funny that anyone whohears or reads it dies laughing. The military translate it into German in order to use itas a weapon: every translator only renders one word, so as not to succumb to thedevastating power of the joke (one of them accidentally reads two words and has tospend a few weeks in hospital). The translated German version is then used in battle,killing numerous enemies. The Germans attempt a counter-joke – their best one isselected and used in action, but the translated English version is so bad that it has noeffect on the British troops.This seemingly absurd skit in true Monty Python style touches upon an ongoing,realistic issue which might have been familiar to the well-known British comedy troupethemselves: If something is funny in one language and associated cultural context, canit be transferred into another language and still have the same effect as in its originalform? And if so, is the word-for-word approach employed by the British army in thesketch the appropriate way of tackling this task? Could the German counter-joke havehad the desired impact on the British troops had a different translation approach beenemployed? Was it perhaps due to the particular type of humour and the specific jokethat rendered the British joke transferable, while the German one was inherentlyuntranslatable and therefore could never have succeeded in English? Or perhaps thereis such a divergence between tastes in humour and the cultural conventions as to whatis funny of both language communities that even the most skilful translator wouldhave been unable to accomplish a successful cultural transfer?All joking aside, these questions have remained at the centre of research into humourtranslation for an extensive period, even leading to a discussion between scholars as towhether or not linguistic humour is indeed ever translatable at all. Instead of an1This sketch originally appeared in the first episode of the TV programme Monty Python's Flying Circus(BBC 1969-74)6

approach to humour as a translation “problem” in need of a “solution” (e.g. Davis1997, Vandaele 2011), which is arguably part of a more general problem-based view oftranslation studies, an alternative approach is to focus research on strategies ratherthan on the categorisation of norms and solutions. It remains evident that linguistichumour presents a challenge for the translator in many cases. Delia Chiaro refers to itas “acrobatic language” which is “aimed at an in-group”2 – the linguistic complexityand the cultural specificity to which this description refers being only twocharacteristics which can potentially complicate the language transfer of humour. Onearea where this is particularly acute is the translation of wordplay. The discipline inwhich this challenge is often encountered – audiovisual translation (AVT) – is also thefield where it is rendered more challenging by additional restrictive factors. As Chiaroobserves (2006: 6), comedies which contain very few puns and rely on a different typeof humorous effect, or those that contain very little language such as Mr Bean aremore likely to overcome cross-cultural and cross-linguistic barriers to become boxoffice successes than those which are dense in wordplay. The film which was used inthis study, Wallace and Gromit in A Matter of Loaf and Death, is a prime example ofthe latter case, as wordplay occurs on average once per minute in this film, which isone reason why it was chosen for this project. As wordplay is an integral part ofcomedy and likely to remain so, the question arises as to how – not if – it is possible toachieve a successful transfer of wordplay into a target language, either for subtitling orfor dubbing purposes.The dilemma which faces a translator dealing with the challenge of subtitled wordplayis founded on the simultaneous presence of two texts, which means that this mode oflanguage transfer allows the viewer to compare the source text and the target text andtherefore to arrive at an evaluation of the relative appropriateness of a giventranslation of any one utterance. Evidently, this is only possible if the viewer possessessufficient knowledge of the source language to enable such judgements. In thisresearch project, English is the relevant source language, whilst German is the2in a paper presented at the Media for All conference in London in June 2011 which is awaitingpublication7