The present study aims at analyzing how dark humour as a cinematic genre travels
cross-culturally through a specific mode of audiovisual translation, i.e. dubbing.
In particular, it takes into consideration the processes involved in dubbing humour
from English into Italian as observed in the English- and Italian-language versions
of ten British and American dark comedies from the 1940s to the 2000s. In an
attempt to identify some of the main mechanisms of the dark humour genre, the
humorous content of the films was analyzed in terms of the elements on which
specific scenes are based, mainly the non-verbal and verbal components. In the
cases in which verbal elements were involved, i.e. the examples of verbally
expressed humour, the analysis was concerned with whether they were adapted
into Italian and to what effect.
Quantification of the different kinds of dark humour revealed that in the
sample of dark comedies verbal dark humour had a higher frequency (85.3%) than
non-verbal dark humour (14.7%), which partially disconfirmed the first part of the
research hypothesis. However, the significance of contextual elements in the
conveying of dark humour, both in the form of Nsp VEH (54.31%) and V-V
(V+VE) (21.68%), provided support for the hypothesis that, even when expressed
verbally, dark humour is more closely linked to context-based rather than purely
linguistic humour (4.9%).
The second part of the analysis was concerned with an investigation of the
strategies adopted for the translation of verbal dark humour elements from the SL
(English) into the TL (Italian) through the filter of dubbing. Four translational
strategies were identified as far as the rendering of verbal dark humour is
concerned: i) complete omission; ii) weakening; iii) close rendering; and iv)
increased effect. Complete omission was found to be the most common among
these strategies, with 80.9% of dark humour examples being transposed in a way
that kept the ST’s function substantially intact. Weakening of darkly humorous
lines was applied in 12% of cases, whereas increased effect accounted for 4.6%
and complete omission for 2.5%. The fact that for most examples of Nsp VEH
(84.9%) and V-AC (V+VE) (91.4%) a close rendering effect was observed and
that 12 out of 21 examples of V-AC (PL) (a combined 57%) were either omitted
or weakened seemed to confirm, on the one hand, the complexity of the
translation process required by cases of V-AC (PL) and V-AC (CS). On the other
hand, as suggested in the second part of the research hypothesis, the data might be
interpreted as indicating that lesser effort on the translator/adaptor’s part is
involved in the adaptation of V-AC (Nsp VEH) and V-V (V+VE). The issue of
the possible censorial intervention undergone by examples of verbal dark humour
in the sample still remains unclear.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:unibo.it/oai:amsdottorato.cib.unibo.it:946 |
| Date | 30 June 2008 |
| Creators | Bucaria, Chiara <1978> |
| Contributors | Soffritti, Marcello |
| Publisher | Alma Mater Studiorum - Università di Bologna |
| Source Sets | Università di Bologna |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Doctoral Thesis, PeerReviewed |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/restrictedAccess |
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