CHALLENGES IN THE TRANSLATION OF HUMOR: THE CASE OF WORDPLAYS AND VULGAR EXPRESSIONS IN HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER

CHALLENGES IN THE TRANSLATION OFHUMOR: THE CASE OF WORDPLAYS AND

VULGAR EXPRESSIONS IN HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER

Giuliano DI GIACOMO

Table of contentsTable of contents...................................................................................................................................2Introduction..........................................................................................................................................31. Theoretical Chapter..........................................................................................................................5

1.1 Humor........................................................................................................................................51.1.1 Humor studies and Theories...............................................................................................61.1.2 Incongruity Theories in Linguistics...................................................................................8

1.1.2.1 Victor Raskin's Script-Based Semantic Theory Of Humor (SSTH)...........................81.1.2.2 Isotopy-Disjuction Model (IDM)...............................................................................9

1.1.3 Freud and Release Theories of Humor ..........................................................................101.2 Wordplay..................................................................................................................................11

1.2.1 Categorization..................................................................................................................121.2.2 Translation strategies of wordplay...................................................................................15

1.3 Tabooed Expressions and Translation......................................................................................171.3.1 Classification....................................................................................................................181.3.2 Translation Strategies.......................................................................................................19

1.4 Sitcom......................................................................................................................................201.4.1 Origins and Development................................................................................................22

1.5 Dubbing...................................................................................................................................252. Methodological Chapter.................................................................................................................27

2.1 Case of study: How I Met Your Mother...................................................................................272.2 Data Corpus: methods and criteria in the analysis...................................................................28

2.2.1 Doubtful Cases.................................................................................................................303. Analytical Chapter..........................................................................................................................34

3.1 Quantitative Analysis...............................................................................................................343.1.1 Quantitative Analysis: Wordplay and Translation Strategies...........................................343.1.2 Quantitative Analysis: Vulgar Expressions and Translation Strategies...........................40

3.2 Qualitative Analysis.................................................................................................................453.2.1 Puns and Translation strategies: samples.........................................................................453.2.2. Vulgar Expressions and Translation Strategies: Samples...............................................51

Conclusion..........................................................................................................................................56Bibliography.......................................................................................................................................59Sitography...........................................................................................................................................60

Introduction

Humor represents an important part of human experience, but is a quite complex phenomenon,

indeed, a satisfying definition is hard to reach, since it embraces different areas of human life.

Translating humor texts may be a difficult task for translators since humor, just like poetry, stresses

the linguistic structure of a given language and because it is a strongly cultural-bound element. The

process is even more complex is cases of audiovisual texts, such as films and sitcoms, where words

and sounds have to match images.

The “research question” and the purpose of this work is to individuate if in translating a humorous

audiovisual text, such as a sitcom, gains are more numerous than losses, or if the contrary happens.

The case study selected for the analysis is the American sitcom “How I Met Your Mother”. The

show originally aired on CBS from September 2005 to March 2014 and deals with a successful

architect, Ted Mosby, who in 2030 tells to his daughter and his son all the episodes and the events

which led him to met their mother in 2014. This narrative frame supports the actual sitcom, which

covers the time lapse from 2005 to 2014 and focuses on the social and sentimental lives of the five

main characters: Ted Mosby, Marshall Eriksen, Lily Aldrin, Barney Stinson and Robin Sherbatsky,

while Tracy McConnell, the mother, is shown for the first time during the finale episode of the eight

season, and becomes integral part of the gang in the ninth season.

This thesis focuses on two specific “humorous elements”: wordplay and vulgar expressions; the

former create humor by relating different meaning and words in unexpected ways, and represent a

problem in translation since it is highly unlikely that two different languages share the same

distribution between words and meanings, while the latter touch taboo themes and constitute a

problem in translation mainly because of their cultural-bond nature, as humor itself.

The dissertation has been divided in three chapters: theoretical chapter, methodological chapter and

analytical chapter.

The first chapter offers the theoretical background used in the analysis and, consequently, furnishes

all necessary information to the reader to understand the present work. It has been split in five

paragraphs: in the first section, after a loose definition of the phenomenon, the main theories of

humor are presented; those theories are useful to understand why wordplay and vulgar expressions

are considered humorous. The second and the third sections have similar structures and focus,

respectively, on wordplay and vulgar expressions, in fact, after their classification, the main

translation strategies for the phenomena are described. The fourth paragraph deals with the

distinctive features and development of the audiovisual genre of the case study, sitcom, while the

fifth part faces some of the constraints imposed by dubbing, the main translation method for

audiovisual texts applied in Italy and in the case study.

The second chapter focuses on the methods used in this work: after a brief presentation of the case

study, the sitcom “How I Met Your Mother”, the data corpus and the criteria applied in the analysis

are presented, with special attention paid to the doubtful cases encountered in the data corpus.

The third chapter contains the analysis obtained from the application of the theoretical

background ,as presented in the first chapter, to the methodology described in the second chapter.

This section has been divided in two parts: the first paragraph focuses on the quantitative

presentation of the data obtained in the analysis, while the second section contains samples from the

corpus and qualitative interpretations of the obtained results, quantitatively described in the first

part of the chapter.

1. Theoretical Chapter

Wordplay and tabooed expressions are, in some cases, “humorous acts” and, as any

other form of humor, their translation can be a complex task due to linguistic or cultural

differences between the original text, or “source text”, and the translated product,

generally labeled as “target text”. The process of translation is possibly even more

complicated in case of translation of audiovisual contexts – such as films, sitcoms and

similar – where words have to match with images.

This chapter will provide the theoretical background for this thesis and it has been

divided in five sections: starting from a tentative definition of humor, the major humor

theories have been considered; then specific “humor acts”, such as wordplay and

vulgar/tabooed expressions, have been defined and classified, with particular references

to their respective translation strategies; later situation comedy, a TV genre that is part

of pop-culture and strongly utilizes humor, has been defined according to its features;

finally, some constraints imposed by dubbing, the main audiovisual translation strategy

applied in Italy, have been accounted for.

1.1 Humor

In everyday experience it seems quite obvious and easy to state that "humor" is an

important part of the human existence but, due to its complexity, it may be not that easy

to define what humor is and how it works.

Raskin claims that the ability to enjoy humor is universally shared by all humans, what

changes is the type or the form they appreciate, so he suggests that humor is a "universal

human trait" (1985: 2). The author then distinguishes between "humor competence",

which can be found in every human being, and consists in the human notion of funny or

humor, which is universally perceived, and "humor performance", which deals with an

individual’s sense of humor (Raskin, 1985: 3).

Humor has a strong variable component: it changes across societies, which may

perceive differently the same event, and within a single society, due to the "humor

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competence" of the different members.

Different approaches, such as linguistic, psychological and sociological ones, highlight

different aspects and contents of what is undoubtedly a wide and complex phenomenon

(Attardo, 1994: 2). For example, some scholars suggest that humor is something

someway related to fun, smile and laughter (Vandaele, 2008: 147), while others have

discarded the idea of laughter as a criterion of humor definition (Attardo, 1994: 10-11).

Because of its variability and complexity (among many other features), a precise and

all-aspects-satisfying definition of humor is very difficult, if not impossible, to reach

(Attardo, 1994: 3).

For the aim of this thesis and for the sake of simplicity, the term humor, a very complex

subject (Raskin, 1985: 30), will be used here "in the least strict sense", without

"artificial boundaries" and interchangeably with the idea of funny, as Raskin suggests

(1985: 8).

In the following paragraph (1.1.1), after a brief history survey of Humor Studies, the

three major groups of humor theories will be presented.

1.1.1 Humor studies and Theories

Humor has been widely studied, probably because of its evidence and presence.

Through the centuries, the concept of humor has evolved.

Latin authors connected humor to the orator education; a first and very important

humor taxonomy was gave by Cicero, who distinguished between referential (de re) and

verbal (de dicto) humor. Referential humor is based on the events and facts, while

verbal humor relies on the words. To this day, it is still considered useful (Attardo,

2008: 102).

In 16th Century in Italy was developed a new aspect: Madius (whose real name was

Vincenzo Maggi) underlined the surprise side of humor (neglected in classical studies)

(Attardo, 2008: 102).

After the Renaissance, there was a specialization of humor studies, so philosophical,

psychological, and other specific theory of humor arose (Attardo: 103).

In the modern times, a lot of humor theories are developed and many of them are useful

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in linguistics, especially on that form of humor that relies on verbal structures (or de

dicto humor, as called by Cicero).

Raskin classifies (1985: 31-38; as seen in Attardo, 2008: 103) humor theories in:

incongruity, hostility and release; they gather together many synonyms, as shown in

table 1.

Incongruity Hostility Release

Contrast Aggression SublimationIncongruity/resolution Superiority Liberation

Triumph EconomyDerisionDisparagement

Table 1. Synonyms of Humor Theories

(Attardo, 2008: 103)

Incongruity theories, whose origins may be traced to the works of Kant and

Schopenhauer (Ruch, 1998: 25), "claim that humor arises from the perception of an

incongruity between a set of expectation and what is actually perceived" (Attardo, 2008:

103), or, in Ruch's words, we have a humorous effect when the perceived sense (which

often is non-humorous) is suddenly viewed from a totally different (usually implausible

and funny) point of view, so "the original expectation bursts like a bubble, resulting in a

pleasurable experience accompanied by laughter" (Ruch, 1998: 25). This group of

theories is the most widely used by linguistics (Attardo, 2008: 103).

According to superiority theories, we find humor in what has a feeling of superiority,

derision, or aggression toward a victim or a target (Vandaele, 2008: 148; Attardo, 2008:

103), the "butt of the joke" (Vandaele, 2008: 148; et alt.). Those theories are studied by

the followers of Hobbes (1650-1651, as seen in Raskin, 1985: 36), the first who

underlined that humor is connected to superiority feelings towards a target.

Release theories state "that humor "releases" some form of psychic energy and/or frees

the individual from some constraints" (Attardo, 2008: 103). The relief released by

humor can be studied physiologically, philosophically, psychoanalytically and generally

(Raskin, 1985: 38).

These theories should be considered in a flexible way, indeed, since humor is a complex

phenomenon, its aspects may in some cases overlap.

7

The following paragraphs deal with Raskin's theory of humor, Attardo's model and

Freud's supply in Release Studies.

The first two models explain the working process in jokes and wordplay as well, while

Freud's theories explain the usage of aggressive or shock expressions.

1.1.2 Incongruity Theories in Linguistics

Incongruity theories are the most useful ones for linguistic investigations of humor,

because they are essentialists (Attardo, 2008: 103), this means that their aim is to

describe the essential characteristics of a phenomenon, which make it what it is

(Attardo, 1994: 1).

Victor Raskin and Salvatore Attardo can be easily considered two of the major scholars

of humor theories in linguistics (Krikmann, 2007: 27). They developed respectively the

"Script-Based Semantic Theory of Humor" (1985 - even called 'SSTH') and the

"Isotopy-Disjuction Model" (1994- 'IDM'), and, then, together, the "General Theory of

Verbal Humor" (1991- 'GTVH'); 'SSTH' and 'IDM', describe the way in which jokes, the

simplest humorous texts (Attardo, 2008: 108), are organized and work, while the latter,

"GTVH', deals with longer humorous texts. Here only 'SSTH' and 'IDM' will be

considered since they can be applied to understand the funniness of wordplay and how

they work.

1.1.2.1 Victor Raskin's Script-Based Semantic Theory Of Humor (SSTH)

SSTH is based on the notion of script. Script is "a bunch of terms alternately used to

denote a structured chunk of information" (Raskin, 2008: 7) "surrounding the word or

evoked by it" (Raskin, 1985: 81).

Using his example, when we think of "car" we imagine its components, like wheels,

doors, seats, its features, such as that it uses fuel and it is used for transportation on

roads, that driving license is required to use them and so on. All this information make

8

up the script of car (Raskin, 2008: 7).

The main claim of this theory is the following:

A text can be characterized as a single-joke-carrying text if both of the following conditions are satisfied:

a) The text is compatible, fully or in part, with two different scripts;

b) The two scripts with which the text is compatible are opposite in a special sense. The two scripts with

which the text is compatible are said to overlap fully or in part on this text. (Raskin, 1985: 99).

The author claims that jokes have to be considered cases of non-bona-fide

comunication, indeed the speaker does his/her best to create ambiguity and vagueness in

a statement; while in bona-fide communication, the main goal is to reach a clear verbal

interaction (Raskin, 1985: 100). Bona-fide communication is ruled by Paul Grice's "co-

operative principle", characterized by the following maxims:

- Maxim of Quantity: It is important to furnish the appropriate/necessary amount of

information, nothing more and nothing less;

- Maxim of Quality: Is is important to furnish only information which we know are real

or about which we have the proper knowledge;

- Maxim of Relation: It is important to furnish relevant and pertinent information;

- Maxim of Manner: It is important to be clear and avoid ambiguity.

(1970: 45-46)

To better understand this theory and its postulates, the following example may be

useful:

Example n. 1: “Is the doctor at home?” the patient asked in his bronchial whisper. “No,” the doctor’s

young and pretty wife whispered in reply. “Come right in.” (Raskin, 1985: 100)

In this joke, the two opposite scripts are: doctor vs lover, which are linked by the

"whispering". The wife's response breaks Grice's Maxim of Quantity (as suggested by

Krikmann, 2007: 27) and invites the hearer to look for a second script.

1.1.2.2 Isotopy-Disjuction Model (IDM)

Attardo's (1994) structuralist IDM is based on Greimas' notion of isotopy (1966). In

very simplistic terms, isotopies are "semantic interpretations of the text" (Attardo, 1994:

9

63). Based on this, IDM claims that humor is a disjunction, a switch from one isotopy

(the first semantic sense) to another (Attardo, 2008: 107). Even if it is nothing new per

se, the model is important because of the introduction of two key concepts: the

connector and the disjunctor (Attardo, 2008: 107). The connector is a (generally lexical)

unit that allows the two senses (or isotopies) to cohexist, while the unit which imposes a

switch to the second meaning is called disjunctor; they may be two distinct elements in

the text or be manifested as one entity (Attardo, 2008: 106).

In example n. 1, according this model, the two isotopies overlap with the two scripts

(lover vs doctor), the connector is the "whispering", while the disjunctor is the wife's

response, which is considered a break from Grice's Maxim of Quantity.

1.1.3 Freud and Release Theories of Humor

As pointed in 1.1.1, release theories claim that with humor humans release some form

of psychic energy and briefly free themself from social constraints and impositions, so

they focus mainly on the psychological aspect of the phenomenon.

Both Raskin and Attardo underline the important role played by Sigmund Freud in

humor studies (Raskin, 1985: 38 – Attardo, 1994: 53), since he focused on linguistic

mechanisms in humor (Attardo, 2008: 104) and classified jokes based on their purpose

(1905). He distinguished between "innocent" jokes, characterized and appreciated by

their cleverness and playfulness, such as puns and wordplay (M. Dalton & L. Linder,

2012: 28), and "tendentious" jokes, which have aggressive aspects (Attardo, 2008: 4).

The latter type can be further divided in "hostile" jokes, if they have the purpose of

"aggressiveness, satire or defense", and "obscene", with the purpose of "exposure" and

shock value (Freud, 1905: 97; as seen in M. Dalton & L. Linder, 2012: 28). According

to Freud, through "tendentious" jokes people feel pleasure from breaking the

conventions and constraints that society dictates on us, it is a form of childish pleasure

without any inhibitions (Freud, 1905: 101; as seen in M. Dalton & L. Linder, 2012: 28).

The existence of tendentious jokes, both hostile and obscene, may justify and even

explain a frequent attitude in modern TV shows, which contain very often vulgar

language, sex references, and so on.

10

SSTH and IDM stress the incongruous aspect of humor, and the are used to clear how

jokes, and, consequently, wordplay works, while Freud's theories explain the taboos

usage in humor.

1.2 Wordplay

Wordplay is a quite complex phenomenon related to ambiguity. In recent years it has

been studied by many scholars.

A comprehensive definition is given by Dirk Delabastita (1993):

wordplay is the general name indicating the various textual phenomena (i.e. on the level of performance

or parole) in which certain features inherent in the structure of the language used (level of competence or

langue) are exploited in such a way as to establish a comunicatively significant, (near)-simultaneous

confrontation of at least two linguistic structures with more or less dissimilar meanings (signifieds), and

more or less dissimilar forms (signifiers) (57)

In this work, the term "wordplay" will be used as synonym of "pun", as suggested by

Delabastita (1993: 56).

Wordplay are generally used to achieve a humorous effect; if humor relies on

“superiority”and “incongruity” (see 1.1.2), it is easy to understand why wordplay is

considered humorous. Wordplay can be perceived as linguistic and pragmatic

incongruity, since it breaks hearer/reader's linguistic expectations and is based on

ambiguity; furthermore wordplay activates superiority mechanisms: it requires the

hearer/reader to utilize background mechanisms in order to find out a satisfying

solution, and those who understand the pun feel superior to those who do not (Vandaele,

2011: 180).

In some cases, puns can be also used to draw hearer/reader's attention “towards the

rhetorical and poetic quality of the language being used” (Delabastita, 1993: 149).

11

1.2.1 Categorization

To categorize wordplay Delabastita (1993) distinguishes three levels:

(i) a confrontation of similar forms (79)

(ii) a confrontation of dissimilar meanings (86)

(iii) an exploitation of linguistic features (102)

(i) A confrontation of similar forms

At this formal level, puns are defined by two axis (Delabastita, 1993: 78).

On the first axis wordplay can be distinguished in "vertical" and "horizontal"

(Delabastita, 1993: 78). With those terms Delabastita means a confrontation of two

meaning (or script, using Raskin's terminology) in one word in absentia (vertical puns),

or a confrontation of two meanings (or scripts) through a syntactic relationship, in

praesentia, (horizontal puns).

Horizontal puns are near-simultaneous confrontation of the two meanings, while

vertical puns are cases of simultaneous confrontation.

The second axis deals with the degrees of formal similarities between the two

components of the pun (Delabastita, 1993: 79). This axis distinguishes between the

following cases:

- "homophony", two words (or groups of words) have different spelling but same

pronunciation, for example: “nude art - new dart”;

- "homography", two words (or groups of words) have same spelling but different

pronunciation, for example: “close (verb) – close (adjective)”;

- "homonymy", two words (or groups of words) are identical both in spelling and

pronunciation, for example: “cheesy”, s1=tasting of cheese; s2= of poor/bad

quality;

- "paronymy", two words (or groups of words) are almost identical both in

spelling and pronunciation, for example: “selfish – shellfish”

(Delabastita, 1993: 79-81).

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(ii) A confrontation of dissimilar meanings

This level deals with the semantic dimension of the confrontation evoked by the pun

(Delabastita, 1994: 86). The components of a pun can be related in various ways; those

relations are classified in three categories.

The first category is called "conceptual meaning", also known as denotative, logical or

cognitive meaning, and it is "related to the referential function of language"

(Delabastita, 1993: 98). This category individuates three possible relationships between

meanings:

"s1 and s2 are linked through solidarity", i.e. a loose form of synonymy,

hyponymy or hyperonymy (Delabastita, 1993: 99);

"s1 and s2 are linked through opposition", i.e. a loose form of antonymy

(Delabastita, 1993: 99);

"s1 and s2 show no semantic correspondence whatsoever"; i.e. they belong to

unrelated semantic fields (Delabastita, 1993: 100).

The second category is known as "connotative meaning" and considers "the personal

attitude of the speaker to the referent of his/her utterance" (Delabastita, 1993: 100).

The third category is called "stylistic meaning" and deals with what language can

communicate about the social circumstances of its usage (Delabastita, 1993: 101). In

this category elements can reveal the social origins and distances between hearers and

speakers (such as register, style, dialect and sociolect) (Delabastita, 1993: 101).

(iii) An exploitation of linguistic features

At this level, Delabastita focuses on the linguistic structures used in puns (1993: 102),

and individuates four categories.

The first category is the “phonological structure”; in this case, puns create association

between semantically and etymologically unrelated words on the mere basis of similar

13

sounds and phonemes (Delabastita, 1993: 102). Furthermore, phonological changes in

the years “may even neutralize the phonological distinctions that formerly kept words

apart, and thus actually cause their signifiers to coalesce” (Delabastita, 1993: 103); this

phenomenon is called homonymy. In this case, the usage of this term is opposed to

polysemy and different from homonymy as used (i) since two distinct words have the

same form (Delabastita, 1993: 103).

The second category is the “lexical development”; this category is divided in polysemy

and idioms (Delabastita, 1993: 105-108); polysemy, is the situation of a lexical item

having “several distinct lexical meanings” (Delabastita, 1993: 105). Idioms are words

combinations, where the meaning is not made up by the individual components, but it is

etymologically related to them (Delabastita, 1993: 108). The distance between the

compositional (literal) and non-compositional (idiomatic) interpretations of idioms

furnish opportunities for wordplay, through the reawakening of the literal meaning of

the idiom (Delabastita, 1993: 109).

The third category is the “morphological development”; here puns confront words that

share etymological origins and are linked through morphological mechanisms such as

inflection (affixes are attached to words to give to the hearer/reader information such as

person(s), time, etc. for verbs - I walk, he walks, I walked - or number -singular or

plural - for nouns) derivation (new words are composed by adding affixes: rain>rainy)

and compounding (two or more words are joint together: darkroom or sitcom – in the

latter case clipping is present too: situation>sit and comedy>com) (Delabastita, 1993:

109).

The fourth and last category is the “syntactic structure”; in this category wordplay

exploit structural features of grammar which can be perceived in different ways

(Delabastita, 1993: 113). Phenomena such as grammatical homonymy and syntactic

ambiguity belong to this category, and create ambiguities between Surface Structures

and Deep Structures (Delabastita, 1993: 113-114). The following example may help:

“the shooting of the haunters was terrible” (Delabastita, 1993: 13).

In order to make those levels suitable to the case of study, Delabastita's classification

will be adjusted.

Wordplay is here considered from a linguistic point of view, as an example of “verbal

14

joke”, hence the second level, “a confrontation of dissimilar meanings” will not be

considered, since it deals with the meanings confronted in the pun.

Furthermore, the first and third levels, “a confrontation of similar form” and “an

exploitation of lexical structures” will be joint as follows:

- phonological puns based on: a) paronymy (in this category homography and

homophony will be considered too) and b) homonymy (i.e. a word having

multiple meanings as well as different words having the same form);

- lexical puns based on: c) polysemic words and d) idioms;

- morphological puns based on: e) inflection, f) derivation and g) compounding;

- syntactical puns based on: h) grammatical homonimy.

1.2.2 Translation strategies of wordplay

Translating wordplay from a Source Text (S.T.) to a Target Text (T.T.) can be a difficult

and an atypical task for translators. Its difficulties rely mainly on the fact that different

languages have different distributions between signifiers and signifieds (Vandaele,

2011: 181).

While many scholars insist on the “untranslatability” of puns, Delabastita suggests the

following strategies to transfer and translate wordplay from a S.T. to a T.T. (1993, 191 –

218):

1) PUN > PUN:

The pun in the S.T. is translated as a pun in the T.T. (Delabastita, 1993: 192);

2) PUN > NON-PUN:

The pun in the S.T is translated in the T.T. in a non-punning form (Delabastita, 1993:

202); this technique can be sub-divided in:

non-selective non-pun: “both s1 and s2 are rendered – hence the term non-

selective – but in a non-punning conjunction” (Delabastita, 1993: 202);

selective non-pun: “one of the two linguistic meanings of the S.T. pun has been

15

selected and translated more or less equivalently, while the other has been

deleted – hence the term selective” (Delabastita, 1993: 204);

diffusive paraphrase: “the third main type (…) groups all the remaining cases,

i.e. those in which a particular T.T. fragment that contains no wordplay can

clearly be identified as a translational solution to a particular punning S.T.

fragment” (Delabastita, 1993: 206);

3) PUN > PUNOID:

The pun in the S.T. is translated in T.T. “by using some other, wordplay-related

rhetorical device”, such as repetition, imagery, assonance, alliteration and rhyme

(Delabastita, 1993: 207).

4) PUN > ZERO:

The pun in the S.T. is omitted in the T.T.; the omission can be signaled or not

(Delabastita, 1993: 209).

5) PUN S.T. = PUN T.T.:

This technique can be divided in two possibilities:

direct copy: the pun in S.T. (and possibly the immediate portion of text) is

copied in the T.T., without being actually translated (Delabastita, 1993: 210);

transference: the S.T. pun is adapted to the T.T. linguistic system; in this case

new linguistic material is introduced to the T.T. repertory (Delabastita, 1993:

212);

6) ADDITION: NON-PUN > PUN:

A portion of the S.T. with no pun is translated in the T.T. as wordplay; this technique

can be seen as a form of compensation: translators add brand new puns to make up the

lost ones (Delabastita, 1993: 215).

7)ADDITION: ZERO > PUN:

Generally (but not always) a form of compensation, the T.T. contains a pun which does

16

not have a counterpart in the S.T., the pun is created from zero (Delabastita, 1993: 217);

8) EDITORIAL TECNIQUES:

The T.T. contains subsidiary text, such as footnotes, introduction, arrangement and

similar, that explains puns and the (eventual) loss from the S.T.

The case of study is a sitcom, and its audiovisual nature makes impossible the presence

of such editorial notes, hence this category will not be considered in this work.

1.3 Tabooed Expressions and Translation

Keith Allan and Kate Burridge define tabooed expressions on the basis or their contents,

indeed those expressions “include sexual and scatological obscenities, ethnic-racial

slurs, insults, name-calling, profanity, blasphemy, slang, jargon and vulgarities of all

kinds” (2006: 250, as seen in Pardo, 2013: 123).

To be considered “taboo”, a particular action or object has to offend, harm other people

or deal with obscenity; in some cases taboos can even be forbidden by laws (Pardo,

2013: 123).

Even if the notion of taboo itself is universally present in each social group, it is a

strongly culture-bond element (Zabalbeascoa, 2005: 194), since the values it breaks

“vary according the religious beliefs, and the political and moral regulations of each

country” (Pardo, 2013: 124). This means that different social groups, with different

political, religious and moral values, have different, and consider differently, taboos.

Swear-wording, the usage of vulgar language, can be seen - in some types of

audiovisual texts, such as sitcoms, film, animation comedies, etc. - as a tool for humor,

or as an “humorous act”; indeed humor can be considered as a form of breaking the

conventions and constraints that social group imposes on individuals, as the “release

theories of humor” suggest (see 1.1.1). According to Freud, with humor humans release

psychic energy since they briefly free themselves from the social conventions (see

1.1.3).

Furthermore, tabooed expressions can be seen as form of “superiority” (see 1.1.1), when

the laughter arises from a sense of superiority towards an object or individual, usually

17

referred as the “butt” of the joke (Attardo, 1994: 49). The humorist may use those

tabooed expressions in order to “produce sympathy or empathy toward the victim, or on

the contrary, use humor as a weapon to make the victim look somehow unworthy of

sympathy” (Zabalbeascoa, 2005: 197); those processes can be called, respectively,

“humanizing” and “dehumanizing” (Zabalbeascoa, 2005: 197).

Taboos, furthermore, are linked to the concept of “censorship”, defined by the

Cambridge International Dictionary of English as “the practice of examining books,

films, etc. and removing anything considered to be offensive, morally harmful, or

politically dangerous” (as seen in Scandura, 2004: 125). Censorship can be present in

multimedia translations (such as dubbing and subtitling) through the deletion or the

replacement of erotic, vulgar or inconvenient elements (Scandura, 2004: 125).

The following paragraphs deal with the classification of tabooed expressions according

their contents, as proposed by Lars-Gunnar and Trudgill (1.3.1), and with the main

translation strategies, as Bucaria proposes (1.3.2).

1.3.1 Classification

As Allan and Burridge suggest (2006: 250, as seen in Pardo, 2013: 123), tabooed

expressions may deal with several and various contents, as long as they are considered

obscene or offensive, and hence prohibited in the social group(s).

Lars-Gunnar and Trudgill (1990, as seen in Pardo: 2013, 123 - 124) distinguish the

following types of arguments used in tabooed expressions:

1) sexual organs and sexual relations;

2) religion;

3) human waste or excrement;

4) death or disease;

5) the physically or mentally disabled;

6) prostitution;

7) narcotics or crime.

18

Different ethnic or social groups may have different subjects and topics considered as

avoidable, hence taboos are very cultural-bond elements; but, at the same time, there are

some concepts homogeneously perceived as “forbidden” (or, at least, inadequate), the

so-called “intercultural taboos”, with sex being actually the main one, since society still

strongly feels the traditional awkwardness towards it, considered a topic to be avoided

in public ((Pardo, 2013: 123-124).

1.3.2 Translation Strategies

Cultural-bond nature of taboos and tabooed expressions make the translation a hard

task, given that it needs to deal with potentially disturbing elements,; indeed social and

cultural factors “could help or damage the translation” (Pardo, 2013: 127).

Translation of taboos and swearwords depends on three factors (Pardo, 2013: 126):

a) period of time (and its respective moral values);

b) political circumstances;

c) translator's ideologies.

In all those cases, the translator has to deal with a) censorship, imposed by external

sources – such as governments, distribution companies, networks, etc. (Scandura, 2004:

125) – and values of a certain period, and b) self-censorship, in which s/he, or the

adapter, deliberately modifies the text in order to “protect the audience” (Scandura,

2004: 125 – Pardo, 2013: 126).

Translating a text containing such expressions can present the following situations

(Toledano, 2002: 222-223 as seen in Pardo, 2013: 124):

a) the word or the sentence in the S.T. to be translated in the T.T. is considered offensive

in both cultural systems;

b) the world or the sentence is not perceived as offensive in the S.T. but it is considered

as such in the T.T.;

c) the world or the sentence is considered as taboo in the S.T. but not in the in the T.T.

While in the latter case the shock value of tabooed expressions disappears in translation,

in the first two cases, translators (or external sources) have to decide how to render, and

in some cases adapt, the sentence(s) in the T.T..

19

Bucaria (2008: 226) identifies four main strategies in translating dark humor, namely:

1) Complete Omission, the dark humor element in the S.T. is completely removed

and often substituted with a neutral element in the T.T.;

2) Weakening, the dark humor element in the S.T. is rendered with a diluted,

harmless equivalent in the T.T.;

3) Close Rendering, the T.T. successfully menages to convey the dark humor

element by keeping the S.T. element(s) intact;

4) Increased Effect, the pragmatic intensity of the dark humor element in the S.T. is

intensified in the T.T.

Those strategies allow all the possible degrees of adaptation, from intensified effect to

total deletion, for these reason all of them will be considered in the analysis in order to

detect the main tendencies in the case of study and its translation.

1.4 Sitcom

Sitcom, or "situation comedy", is a television genre which can be defined as:

A setting and a group of characters providing the opportunity for comic narrative, usually solved in 25-

30 minutes (although the 'situation' remains open to future disruption), and broad cast in a series of five

or more episodes.

(Stafford, 2004: 1)

This definition highlights the "limited" aspect of the genre in terms of characters, time,

story and space.

A sitcom generally features a small and fixed group of characters with different

age/social background/cultural values/education/personal traits, who are found in a

common narrative situation, such as: "family" (in the sense of people living together in

the same house), "workplace", "social institution", "leisure facilities", etc. The group

must offer a range of possible narrative conflicts (Stafford, 2004: 4). Usually, sitcoms

and comedy in general rely on stereo-typed characters having traits related to age,

20

gender, ethnicity and social class; in so-called "social comment sitcoms", such as “2

Broke Girls” and “The Office”, stereotypes are overcome in order to explore "real"

social situations and interactions (Stafford, 2004: 7); even when not stereotyped,

sitcoms characters show a certain lack in depth and in personal details, if these are not

linked to the main(s) plot(s) (Savorelli, 2010: 27).

Situation comedies, as defined by Stafford (2004), are timely "closed": each episode has

a fixed and quite short duration, from 25 to 30 minutes, and present a problem/situation

(the main plot) that is generally resolved within the episode itself but, as he admits, this

is not always the case, indeed sometimes the main story/problem is delayed throughout

the whole season or the entire series. As Marc (1997) argues, the basic structure of a

sitcom is that a committed error has, as a consequence, the disruption of the status quo,

or the initial (peaceful) situation, and when the lesson is learned, finally there is a return

to the status quo (Marc, 1997: 190 – as seen in Dalton, Linder, 2012: 69). In modern

sitcoms, the status quo is generally disrupted in the first episode of the show, also called

“pilot”, and never re-stabilized; from this new situation narrative plots arise, this is the

case of sitcoms such as “2 Broke Girls”, “Scrubs”, and “How I Met Your Mother”.

Sitcoms, as well as popular films and other television series, present as a general pattern

multiple plot lines (Thompson, 2003: ix); this means that in the short amount of time of

a single episode more than one plot is presented, at least two; in the so called

"multistory sitcom" (Thompson, 2003: 56), such as “How I Met Your Mother” and

“Scrubs”, the various plots have different weights in the episode, indeed one of them

(the main one) takes more time and is developed more in-depth than the other(s). The

main storyline is called "plot A", while the subsidiary plots are labeled as "plot B", "plot

C" and so on, according on the level of their developments in the episode (Thompson,

2003: 31-56).

As Savorelli (2010) states, space is a core component in this TV genre. Even if three or

four cameras are used to create a dynamic effect of openness, sitcoms take place within

enclosed and repetitive sets (Savorelli, 2010: 23): characters are shot in limited

locations (Stafford, 2004: 3) and in different, but common, situations (here in the sense

of a combination of circumstances) which help the audience to relate with the characters

and the story(ies) presented in the sitcom. Whatever the location - a living room, a

working environment, a pub or a bar - one wall is never shown, it is the proverbial

21

"fourth wall" which separates the scene(s) from the audience (Savorelli, 2010: 23).

The main feature which marks the difference between comedy shows and other

televisual narrative genrea, is that traditional sitcoms use a laugh track. The laugh track

is a little more than a background noise, indeed it highlights and makes explicit the

comic moments; it has the functions of sanctioning their effectiveness (metacomic

function) and helping the audience to recognize the show's comic style (pragmatic

function) (Savorelli, 2010: 22-23).

Another typical tendency is the mechanism used in traditional sitcoms in order to

mantain their euphoric value: the active avoidance (or elimination) of dysphoria

(Savorelli, 2010: 28) , which can be simply defined as a state of feeling unwell or

unhappy . This does not mean that dysphoria is never represented, but when it is

inevitable, its effects are erased by the accumulation of contextual euphoric elements,

by the use of the rhetorical devices of the genre or by insisting on the stereotypical traits

and the predictability of characters which provide unexpected twists and call away the

attention from dysphoria. Death is the most evident case of how sitcoms avoid

dysphoria; indeed sitcoms deal with death in three main ways:

a) pretending it does not exist at all (the main attitude);

b) considering it as something that regards "anyone but us";

c) not representing it directly but recounting it (Savorelli, 2010: 28-29).

Sitcom can be thought as a genre defined by its comic impetus in which making

audiences laugh is a paramount prerogative; hence, all textual elements rely on the

comic aspect and often sitcoms do not totally match with (expected) reality (Mills,

2009: 25); indeed what is appealing about sitcom is probably that it is both more

realistic and more ridiculous than the viewer imagines his/her own life to be (Henry,

1994: 86).

Sitcom has became, thanks to its peculiarities, a central genre in American television

(Savorelli, 2010: 31) and an important part of the popular culture.

1.4.1 Origins and Development

22

Despite being a television (and still) appealing genre, modern sitcom was born from

radio situation comedies. The radio programs usually included one or two hosts, who

provided the basic structure which showcased a variety of acts by both new and

established performers (Auther : 1275).

The first radio sitcoms premiered during the 1929-1930 with "Amon' n' Andy", and then

with programs such as "Our Miss Brooks", "Beluah", "Leave it to Joan", "My Favorite

Husband", "The Goldenbergs" and "My Friend Irma" and in the 1930s and 1940s this

became one of the most important format in radio entertainment (Auther : 1276-1277);

the first radio situation comedies were based on pieces of already existing tricks and

gags by the actors and the scripts were mainly recaps of their performances in

vandeville (from where most actors were chosen), but gradually sitcoms evolved in

characters, plot and story line (Auther : 1277).

In 1949 the television started borrowing this new format from the radio, beginning with

"The Goldbergs" and "The Life Of Riley" (Auther : 1277). In the mid-1950s radio

situation comedies had migrated almost completely to television (Auther : 1278).

Sitcoms resulted considerably changed in the passage to this new medium: for example,

as advantages, the audience could see how characters fit in the surrounding

environment, hence gestures and mannerism assumed a fundamental importance,

impossible in the radio format; but there were some issues too, for instance, actors had

to memorize the entire complex scripts, and cameras had to be placed so that they did

not prevent the live audience to watch the show (Auther : 1977).

Even if it has changed a lot from its radio origins and TV debut, sitcom has maintained

in the years its basic structure and the feature of being strongly influenced by (and

related to) the contemporary events and the social values of a particular time period and

culture (Smith, 2007: 31).

The 1950s sitcoms, such as "I Love Lucy", "Leave It To Beaver" and "Ozzie and

Harriet", reflected and amplified the "good feelings" of the time, indeed they mainly

dealt with happy suburban families working in order to reach their goals (Smith, 2007:

31). In those years, "I Love Lucy" pioneered the 3-camera and post production

techniques, even if it was mainly shot live (Smith, 2007: 31).

In the 1970s women increased their role in the working and social landscape, and the

traditional domestic mother figure in sitcoms was outdated, so sitcoms started to deal

23

with new relationships between male and female characters (Smith, 2007: 34). As

women increased their power, fathers in sitcoms were often depicted as more foolish

that the ones in the elder shows in the 1950s, and this pattern is still generally followed;

the father is the ridiculed center of humor (Smith, 2007: 33-34). The 1970s sitcoms

were also strongly influenced by the pressures for social liberation of the period (Smith,

2007: 35), so, many of them stressed their themes, in sitcoms such as "All In Family",

whose plot is based on topics such as sexism, racism, and religion (Smith, 2007: 36).

In the 1980s sitcoms two main tendencies were followed: on the one hand, sitcoms like

"The Cosby Show" tried to return to the family institution of the 50s,; on the other hand,

shows like "Merried With Children" depicted a dysfunctional family (Smith, 2007: 37).

The late 80s were characterized by the rise of the animated sitcom with "The Simpsons"

(Smith, 2007: 37), which, although being a cartoon, provided a mainly adult humor.

During the 1990s new themes were added to the genre, which improved the notion of

what is acceptable in TV (Smith, 2007: 37); in those years, also, one of the most popular

sitcoms, “Friends” aired.

In the 2000s talent shows such as "American Idol" and reality shows, whose production

is relatively cheaper, reduced the dominance of sitcoms (Smith, 2007: 39) in television.

Most recent situation comedies are characterized by a new idea of family values, people

sharing an environment act as a family and support each other, such as “2 Broke Girls”,

as well as by the tendency to represent the actual society's obsession for work,

technology and pop-culture (Smith, 2007: 39), such as "The Office". Also, these shows

mainly use the single-camera technique and the fake documentary format (Smith, 2007:

39). The latter technique can be seen in shows such as "Modern Family".

Born in the late 80s, animation comedy such as "American Dad" and "Family Guy" that

use explicit sex, racism, violence, satire and parody (Smith, 2007: 39-40) are still very

popular on TV.

The sitcom “How I Met Your Mother” (from here referred as 'HIMYM'), in its Italian

version called “E alla fine arriva mamma”, was chosen as the case of study of this

work. Aired on CBS from 2005 to 2014, the show presents the narrative “multi-plot”

structure proposed by Thompson, since it deals mainly with Ted Mosby's quest for real

love (the main plot), but has several subsidiary plots, concerning characters' stories and

24

relationships throughout the years. HIMYM can be defined as a “social sitcom” due to

its representation of modern middle and upper classes' values and lifestyle. The show

also presents the concept of “family” of 2000s, indeed the five main characters – Ted

Mosby, Marshall Eriksen, Lily Aldrin, Barney Stinson and Robin Sherbatsky – act as a

family, supporting each others in their “darkest moments”.

1.5 Dubbing

An audiovisual text is a communication act made up by sounds and images

(Zabalbeascoa, 2008: 21). Films, sitcoms and as well as other TV genres, which imply

moving images, still fit in this category (Zabalbeascoa, 2008: 22), but in those specific

cases it is necessary that certain words appears at certain points because they match with

the pictures, so "synchronicity" is an important aspect of those audiovisual texts

(Zabalbeascoa, 2008: 23).

The main audiovisual, or media, translation strategies are: voice-over, subtitling and

over-titling, and dubbing (Gouadec, 2007: 47). This paragraph will focus only on

dubbing and its constraints, because it is the main modality applied in Italy, which is

one of the so-called "Dubbing countries" (frequently referred as FIGS3), besides

Germany, France and Spain (Herbst, 1997: 291), and it is also the translation method

used for the case of study.

Dubbing can be defined as the process of "substituting a soundtrack in a foreign

language for the original film or video soundtrack, so that the dialogue in the foreign

(translated) version is synchronized with the lip movements in the original film or

video" (Gouadec, 2007: 375).

This form of audiovisual translation is a very complex procedure made up by several

steps (Gouadec, 2007: 50-53) and also it is subject to different types of constraints

(Herbst, 1997: 291). Those constraints are cultural, technical and linguistic (Gouadec,

2007: 53).

Some constraints, mainly the cultural ones, rely on the fact that the original dialogues

often contain references that the target country may not understand (Gouadec, 2007:

25

53), so it is necessary to make explicit what is said implicitly, or, otherwise, to leave

them implicit (Gouadec, 2007: 53).

A first issue, which is clearly technical, is the need of finding suitable voices for the

dubbed text (Herbst, 1997: 291), but in fact this is not a major problem, since researches

have shown that original actors and dubbing actors do not need to have similar voices

(Herbst, 1997: 291).

Much more important problems are given by (i) the fact dubbing is one of the few, if not

the only one, form of translation in which the translated text and the original text need

to have the same length, and (ii) the fact that the dubbed text has to match with the

eventual visual elements (Herbst, 1997: 292), those visual elements remain intact while

dialogues are translated and adapted; for this reasons it is necessary to considerate and

try to respect as much as possible elements such as:

lip sync, "the correlation of the lip movements of the original actor with the

sounds perceived in the dubbed version" (Herbst, 1997: 292); as pointed out by

Herbst it can be distinguished between quantitative lip sync (the correlation of

beginning and end of lip movements with sound) and qualitative lip sync (the

correlation of lip movements and mouth shapes with the effective, perceived

sound) (1997: 292);

nuclear sync, "the correlation of gestures of particular movements of the head

(such as the raising of eyebrows) with nuclei, i.e. syllables carrying accentual

prominence in the dubbed version" (Herbst, 1997: 292).

For all these constraints, especially synchronization, dubbing is a particular kind of

translation, sometimes labeled as 'constrained translation' (Mayoral, as seen in

Zabalbeascoa, 2008: 23). These constraints impose limits on the translation and on its

contents.

The following chapter will deal with the chosen case of study, “How I Met Your

Mother”, and the theories presented in this part – wordplay and tabooed expressions

classification, and their respective translation strategies - will be utilized in the analysis

of the selected sitcom.

26

2. Methodological Chapter

This chapter deals with the case of study, the criteria and the methods applied in

analyzing the selected data; it has been divided in two paragraphs: the first section (2.1)

presents the sitcom How I Met Your Mother, selected as the case of study for the

analysis, while the second section (2.2) deals with the criteria used for the data corpus

analyzed according the theoretical background presented in the first chapter, with

special attention paid to the doubtful cases encountered.

2.1 Case of study: How I Met Your Mother

How I Met Your Mother (often shortened as HIMYM) is an American sitcom that aired

on CBS from September 2005 to March 2014.

Created by Carter Bays and Craig Thomas, the show presents a particular narrative

structure, which made the producers define the show “a love story in reverse1”: in 2030

an accomplished architect, Ted Mosby, tells to his son and daughter all the events that

led him to met their mother; his tale furnishes the setting for the actual sitcom which

covers the time lapse from 2005 to 2014 and focuses on the social and sentimental lives

of the main character, Ted, and his best friends: his roommate from college, Marshall

Eriksen, the kindergarten and Marshall's girlfriend Lily Aldrin, the unapologetic

playboy Barney Stinson and a reporter from Canada, Robin Scherbatsky, who Ted falls

in love with in the pilot, even if future Ted clearly states at the end of the first episode

that she is not their mother.

Set in New York City, the sitcom revolves around several themes, such as the “real

love” quest from the main character, the difficult “love/friendship” relationship between

Ted and Robin, night and social life in N.Y., settling down and work success.

HIMYM can be defined as a “social” sitcom (see 1.4), since it portrays upper and

middle classes' values and lifestyle; the show is also characterized by the “new family”

concept developed in 2000s sitcoms (see 1.4), indeed the main characters, even if are

not relatives, act as a family supporting each others in their darkest and most difficult

27

moments. The presence of such moments may arguably represent, as well as the unique

narrative structure, the show main departure from traditional sitcoms. As Savorelli

suggests (see 1.4), indeed, sitcoms generally tend to avoid bad feelings or dysphoric

elements, but the main characters in HIMYM have to deal with several emotionally

intense and sad moments, with the main ones being Marshall's father death, Robin's

infertility, Ted being left at the altar, Marshall and Lily's temporary break-up, and the

mother's, whose actual name is Tracy, death. Even if in some cases dysphoria is not

canceled, generally the show erases the dramatic effects of these moments in traditional

ways, such as by the insistence on the stereotypical and predictable traits of the

characters, which call away the attention from dysphoria, as Savorelli claims (see 1.4),

as well as with a new strategy: the dysphoric nature of such moments is erased by the

future Ted's awareness and knowledge about the facts. Future Ted/ the narrator is aware

that every experience and each moment were necessary to be in the right place at the

right moment, and he also knows how other characters ended up so he usually

anticipates some elements from their future to eliminate the dysphoric component of the

moment he is telling.

In Italy the show aired on Mediaset's channels, formerly with the translated title E alla

fine arriva mamma!, then with its original name, How I Met Your Mother2.

HIMYM has been selected as case of study due to the big success it has enjoyed

throughout the years: it has never averaged below 8.25 million viewers in a season,

while each episode of the ninth season has been watched by an average of 9.8 million

viewers, scoring best TV ratings for the show3.

Furthermore, HIMYM has scored a total of 19 award out of 68 nominations4, and in

2014 it was the 9th most talked about TV show in U.S.A. on Facebook and the oldest

one among the first 105, probably because of its controversial finale which divided fans

and critics6.

2.2 Data Corpus: methods and criteria in the analysis

Out of the 208 episodes of the nine seasons of the show, the first and last two episodes

28

of each season have been analyzed, for a total of 36 episodes.

The episodes analyzed in the present work are listed in table 2.

Season and Episode Original Title Italian Title

1x01 Pilot Una lunga storia1x02 Purple giraffe La giraffa viola1x21 Milk Latte scaduto1x22 Come on La danza della pioggia2x01 Where were we? Dove eravamo?2x02 The scorpion and the toad Il rospo e lo scorpione2x21 Something borrowed Il matrimonio perfetto2x22 Something blue Fine di una storia3x01 Wait for it Il tatuaggio3x02 We're not from here La lettera3x19 Everything must go Tutto in vendita3x20 Miracles Miracoli4x01 I know you? Ti conosco?4x02 Best burger in New York Il miglior hamburger di New York 4x23 As fast as she can Stanco di aspettare4x24 The leap Il salto5x01 Definitions Il discorso5x02 Double date Doppio appuntamento5x23 The wedding bride Piantati all'altare5x24 Dopplegangers Il quinto sosia6x01 Big days Giorni importanti6x02 Cleaning house Ripulendo casa6x23 Landmarks Pietre miliari6x24 Challenge accepted Sfida accettata7x01 The best man Il testimone7x02 The naked truth La nuda verità7x23 The magician code (1) Il codice dei maghi (1)7x24 The magician code (2) Il codice dei maghi (2)8x01 Farhampton C'é ancora tempo8x02 The pre-nup Accordo pre-matrimoniale8x23 Something old Qualcosa di vecchio8x24 Something new Qualcosa di nuovo9x01 The locket Il medaglione9x02 Coming back Il ritorno9x23 Last forever (1) Amici per sempre (1)9x24 Last forever (2) Amici per sempre (2)Table 2. List of the episodes of the data corpus

Each episode has been analyzed with the support of online transcripts7, in order to avoid

any misinterpretation and notice every wordplay or tabooed expressions encountered.

29

Wordplay and wordplay-based joke, detected according Raskin's SSTH and Attardo's

IDM (see 1.1.2.1 and 1.1.2.2), were later classified according to Delabastita's

classification (as seen in 1.2.1) in four levels, as shown in in table 3.:

Phonological level Lexical level Morphological level Syntactical level

Paronymic Puns Polisemyc Puns Inflection-based Puns Grammatical

homonymic punsHomonymic Puns Idiom-based Puns Derivation-based Puns

Compounding-based PunsTable 3. Delabastita's wordplay classification as used in the analysis.

Tabooed expressions encountered in the corpus were classified, according to Lars-

Gunnar and Trudgill's model (see 1.3.1), in:

a) sexual organs or relations;

b) religion;

c) human waste or excrement;

d) death or disease;

e) physically or mentally disabled;

f) prostitution;

g) narcotics or crime.

After classifying wordplay and vulgar expressions, the same episodes of the Italian

dubbed version of the show were analyzed, to detect how the translation strategies for

wordplay and vulgar expressions (see, respectively, 1.2.2 and 1.3.2) were applied.

The following section explains the methods applied in doubtful cases encountered in the

analysis of the data corpus.

2.2.1 Doubtful Cases

While analyzing the data corpus some doubtful cases have been encountered.

30

Very often wordplay dealt with vulgar, mainly sexual, contents, as shown in the

following extracts:

Extract 1.

Episode 2x02. Barney is trying to have a sexual intercourse with twins at the same time and he sent to

them some “implicit” signals, indeed, as Marshall leaves the pub, he says:

Barney: “We are just a threesome tonight”.

S1: a group of three people having sex together;

S2: a group of three people joint together for whatever reason.

Extract 2.

Episode 4x23. The group thinks that Ted wants to get Stella, who left him to the altar, back. Barney says:

Barney: “You'll get her back. And her front”.

In this case Barney exploits the literal meaning of an idiomatic construct “to get someone back” to

express a second, and sexual, meaning.

S1: get her back – having Stella returning to Ted; “her” is a pronoun;

S2: get her back – having Stella's back; “her” is an adjective.

Extract 3.

Episode 5x23. Ted explains to his friends that he is dating a very nice girl, but everyone has a “but”,

something annoying that ruins relationship:

Ted: “She is smart, beautiful blah-blah-blah, we're very happy together."

Lily:"...But?"

Ted: "But exactly. That's the problem."

Barney: "Her butt?"

Marshall: "What is it, too much?"

Lily: "Too little?"

Robin: "Or is it an issue of access?"

Ted: "No, the 'but' is, there's always gonna be a 'but' ".

In this case carachters use paronymy between the words "but" and "butt".

These extracts, as well as others found in the data corpus, contain vulgar expressions but

exploit linguistic features, such as homonymy (in extract 1.), idiom (in extract 2.) and

paronymy (in extract 3.), hence they have been considered both as wordplay and vulgar

expressions.

In the corpus a large number of jokes on Canadians is present, since one of them, Robin,

31

is from Canada; those types of jokes have not been considered as vulgar expressions

since the do not contain the typical “shock value” of such expressions (see 1.3) but are

quite bona-fide jokes. Other episodes from the show make strong and obscene

references to national or ethnic groups, that contain “shock value”, hence they have

been counted as vulgar expressions and have been classified as “physically or mentally

disabled”, because they share the superiority feeling of this group of tabooed

expressions.

The following extract is arguably one of the most interesting example of this type of

vulgar expressions, since it makes reference to an Italian politician:

Extract 4.

Episode 8x23. Marshall and Lily are moving to Rome for a year, and they are deciding if it is necessary

to bring with them an old bean bag chair, and then they say:

Marshall: “Italy doesn't need something that is wrinkled, red and leaky, and smells like booze and

narcotics. They've already got the former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.”

Lily: “I don't know who that is.”

Note: the reference to “narcotics” in the extract has been counted as a vulgar expressions itself, too.

The data corpus, also, presents cases in which characters use vulgar expressions at the

same time, or repeat a given wordplay through the entire episode; in order not to distort

the quantitative analysis in the following Chapter, those cases have been considered just

once, since it is highly unlikely that different translation strategies have been used for

the same expression or wordplay in the same episode.

Extract 5.

Episode 1x02. Ted, Marshall and Lily are in the living room; Marshall has to study for an upcoming exam

so he says to them:

Marshall: “Repeat after me: I will not have sex with Marshall.”

Lily & Ted: “I will not have sex with Marshall”

Note: here the locution “I will not have sex with Marshall” has been considered once and not three times.

The following chapter contains the analysis of wordplay and vulgar expressions

encountered in the data corpus of the case of study, conducted according to the

theoretical background presented in the first chapter and to the methods and criteria

32

explained in this part.

33

3. Analytical Chapter

This chapter deals with the results obtained from the analysis of the case study; it has

been divided in two paragraphs: the first paragraph presents the quantitative findings, in

terms of number and frequency of occurrence of puns in the data and their related

translation strategies, while the second section deals with the qualitative analysis of the

case study, indeed, it focuses on samples from the data corpus and on the main

tendencies emerged.

3.1 Quantitative Analysis

This paragraphs offers a quantitative analysis of wordplay, vulgar expressions and their

respective translation strategies; furthermore, it deals with quantitative results in terms

of loss and gain between the S.T. and the T.T..

It has been split in two sections: while the first part (3.1.1) deals with puns and the

strategies applied in their translation, the second section (3.1.2) argues about vulgar

expressions and translational solutions of such elements in the case study.

3.1.1 Quantitative Analysis: Wordplay and Translation Strategies

In the 36 episodes used as data corpus, 90 cases of wordplay have been found. All of

them have been classified according to Delabastita's model (see 1.2.1).

The following pie chart shows the percentages of puns in the corpus.

34

As shown in Chart 1., most of the puns found in the corpus belong to the phonological

level; at this level, paronymy-based puns and homonymy-based puns are distinguished.

28 cases of paronymy-based puns, so this category makes up 31,11% of the total

number of wordplay in the corpus, and represents the main category in the data corpus;

while 20 cases of homonymy-based puns have been found in the corpus, and they form

22,22% of the total.

12 cases of morphological puns, i.e. wordplay exploiting processes such as derivation,

inflection, composition and classification, have been encountered, hence they constitute

13,33% of the total number of wordplay in the data corpus.

Furthermore, 11 cases of polysemic word-based puns have been detected; they make up

12,22% of the total.

At the syntactical level, 11 cases of grammatical homonymy-based puns have been

counted; this type of puns forms 12,22% of the total.

Idiom-based puns form the least frequent category of wordplay in the corpus: 8 cases,

identified in the corpus, make up 8,9% of the total.

The results of the analysis and the classification are summarized in the table 3.

Types of Puns Occurrences Percentage (%)

Paronymy-based Puns 28 31,11

35

Chart 1. Percentages of puns in the Data Corpus

Paronymy-based Puns: 31,11%

Homonymy-based Puns: 22,22%

Polisemic word-based Puns: 12,22%

Idiom-based Puns: 8,9%

Morphological Puns: 13,33%

Grammatical homonymy-based Puns: 12,22%

Homonymy-based Puns 20 22,22

Morphological Puns 12 13,33

Polysemic word-based Puns 11 12,22

Grammatical homonymy-based Puns 11 12,22

Idiom-based Puns 8 8,9

Total 90 100Table 3. Puns in the Data Corpus: quantitative information.

The strategies, applied in translating those puns in the Italian version of the show, have

been classified according to Delabastita's model (as shown in 1.2.2).

Pie Chart 2. shows percentages of the translation strategies found in the Italian section

of the data corpus.

As shown in Pie Chart 2., the main strategy used in the translation of wordplay is “Pun

> Pun”: its has been applied in 37 cases; this means that in 40,22% of the cases, a S.T.

pun has been successfully translated in the T.T., even if type of pun may have changed

in the passage.

The second main strategy is “Pun > Punoid”, which makes up 20,66% of the total

strategies: in 19 cases, wordplay in S.T. have been translated in a rhetorical or particular

form in the T.T.; the T.T. element can not be properly considered wordplay, but the

humorous effect is successfully translated.

The third strategy is “Pun > Non-Pun (diffusive paraphrase)” and forms 18,48% of the

36

Chart 2. Percentages of translation strategies in the Data Corpus.

Pun > Pun: 40,22%

Pun > Punoid: 20,66%

Pun > Non-Pun (diffusive paraphrase): 18,48%

Pun > Non-Pun (selective): 15,21%

S.T. Pun = T.T. Pun: 3,26%

Non-Pun > Pun: 2,17%

total strategies applied: in 17 cases, a pun in the S.T. has been translated as a non-pun in

the T.T.

The fourth category used in translating puns is “Pun > Non-Pun (selective)”: in 14

cases, translators have conveyed equivalently in the T.T. one of two meanings of a given

pun in the S.T., while the other meaning has been deleted. This strategy of translation

makes up 15,21% of the total translation strategies.

The fifth category, according to percentages, is “Pun = Pun (transference)” and makes

up 3,26%: in 3 cases, puns in the S.T. have been adapted to the T.T linguistic system.

The least frequent strategy applied in the data corpus is “Non-Pun > Pun”: only in 2

cases a fragment of S.T., which does not contain pun, has been translated as pun in the

T.T.. This strategy forms 2,17% of the total.

Other strategies, such as Pun > Non-Pun (non selective), Pun > Zero, Pun = Pun

(direct copy) and Zero > Pun, have not been found in the case study.

Table 4. summarizes the information from the quantitative analysis of translation

strategies.

Translation Strategy Occurrences Percentage (%)

Pun > Pun 37 40,22

Pun > Punoid 19 20,66

Pun > Non-Pun (diffusive paraphrase) 17 18,48

Pun > Non-Pun (selective) 14 15,21

Pun = Pun (transference) 3 3,26

Non-Pun > Pun 2 2,17

Total 92 100Table 4. Translation strategies of wordplay in the Data corpus: quantitative information.

Chart 2 and Table 4 show that the main translation strategy for puns in the case study is

“Pun > Pun”, indeed, in 40,22% of the cases, puns in the S.T. have been successfully

translated as puns in the T.T.; translation strategies such as “S.T. Pun = T.T. Pun” and

“Pun > Punoid”, which create a wordplay-related effect in the T.T., make up, together,

23,92% of the total translation strategies applied.

The strategies “Pun > Non-Pun (selective)” and “Pun > Non-Pun (diffusive

paraphrase)”, which clearly produce losses in the T.T., form together 33,69% of the

37

total cases. On the other hand, only in two cases, puns have been gained in the T.T.,

through the strategy “Non-Pun > Pun”, which represent 2,17% of the total.

The effectiveness of puns in S.T. adapted to the T.T. linguistic structures, and puns in

S.T. translated as punoids, can barely be calculated, but, while in 40,22% of the cases

puns in the S.T. have been successfully conveyed in the T.T., generally loss in terms of

wordplay in the T.T. is more frequent than gains, indeed, in 31 cases (33,69% of the

total) wordplay have been omitted in translation, while only in two cases, which

represent 2,17% of the total, a pun has been created in the T.T. as compensation.

The following table (4.1) contains the frequency of each translation strategies in the

various types of puns, in order to detect in which category losses are more frequent than

gains, and which is characterized by the contrary phenomenon.

Types of Puns

>

Strategies

Paronymy-

based Puns

Homonymy-

based Puns

Morphologic

al Puns

Polysemic

word-based

Puns

Grammatica

l

homonymy-

based Puns

Idiom-based

Puns

Pun > Pun 27,60% 30% 50% 45,45% 81,80% 37,50%

Pun >

Punoid

20,69% 10% 33,34% 27,27% 9,10% 37,50%

Pun > Non-

Pun

44,83% 55% 8,33% 18,18% 9,10% 25%

Pun S.T. =

Pun T.T.

(transferenc

e)

3,44% 5% 0% 9,10% 0% 0%

Non Pun >

Pun

3,44% 0% 8,33% 0% 0% 0%

Total 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100%

Table 4.1: incidence of each translation strategy in each class of puns

Table 4.1 displays the percentages of incidence of each translation strategies in each

category of wordplay; the highest scores in each class have been underlined.

Paronymy-based puns, the main category of wordplay in the data corpus, have been

38

mainly removed in the T.T., indeed the most applied strategy in translating such puns is

“Pun >Non-Pun”, while only in 1 case a non-existent pun in the S.T. has been added in

the T.T.; this may arguably depend on the differences in sounds similarities among

words in the S.T. and T.T.; furthermore, the audiovisual nature of the case study and the

context of wordplay, may have limited suitable solutions.

A similar reasoning can be applied to homonymy-based puns, belonging to the

“phonological level” too; even this class of puns has been mainly removed in the T.T.

through the same process: “Pun > Non-Pun”; the frequency of such process in this class

of wordplay, together with paronymic puns, is the highest in the data corpus. This result

may suggest that probably phonological puns, either homonymic or paronymic,

represent the most removed class of puns in audiovisual context.

Morphological puns in the case study have been generally translated as puns in the T.T.,

indeed the main translation tendency for this category is “Pun > Pun”; this is,

furthermore, the one of the two categories where the translation strategy “Non-Pun >

Pun” has been applied. These tendencies seem to suggest that puns exploiting

morphological processes in the S.T. generally: a) are not lost in the T.T., even if the the

exploited morphological process can be different, and b) are likely to be added in the

T.T.; this may depend on the fact that S.T. and T.T. exploit the same morphological

process and that the puns in the T.T. match abundantly with the audiovisual context.

Polysemic-word based puns have generally been conveyed in the T.T., indeed the

method mainly applied for this type of puns is “Pun > Pun”; probably this result

suggests that S.T. and T.T. share distributions between signifiers and signifieds, i.e.

polysemic words in S.T. have identical, or at least similar, meanings in the T.T..

Grammatical homonymy-based puns represent the category with the highest frequency

of the translation strategy “Pun > Pun” in the data corpus; this arguably means that puns

based on grammatical ambiguities, or sentences which can be perceived in different

ways, can be successfully conveyed from the S.T. to the T.T..

Idiom-based puns, the least frequent category of puns detected in the data corpus, have

been equally translated as puns and punoid; translation strategies such as “Pun > Pun”

and “Pun > Punoid” appear with the same frequency in this class of wordplay. This

tendency may point out that conveying such puns does not represent a hard task, which

can be reached exploiting a proper pun in the T.T. or some related element, i.e. punoid.

39

The following sub-paragraph contains a similar analysis of vulgar expressions and their

respective translation strategies.

3.1.2 Quantitative Analysis: Vulgar Expressions and Translation Strategies

In the data corpus 464 cases of vulgar expressions have been encountered and classified

according to Lars-Gunnar and Trudgill's model (see 1.3.1).

Pie Chart 3. shows the percentages of each category of vulgar and taboo expressions in

the data corpus.

As Chart 3 reveals, the main category of vulgar expressions is “sexual organs and

relations”, which makes up 54,31% of the total: indeed, 252 cases of such expressions

have been found in the corpus.

Expressions dealing with “physically or mentally disabled” represent the 13,14% of the

tabooed expressions and second main category: indeed, 61 cases have been found.

The third category is “death or disease”, which covers 11,85% of the total expressions,

with 55 cases dealing with the matter encountered.

The fourth category is “human waste or excrement”: 34 cases have been detected in the

40

Chart 3. Percentages of vulgar expressions in the Data Corpus.

Sexual organs or related: 54,31%

Physically or mentally disabled: 13,14%

Death or disease: 11,85%

Human waste or excrement: 7,33%

Narcotics or crime: 7,11%

Prostitution: 3,66%

Religion: 2,66%

data corpus, which make up 7,33% of the total vulgar expressions.

The fifth category is “Narcotics or crime” expressions, which constitute 7,11% of the

total. 33 cases of such expressions have been found.

The sixth category deals with “prostitution”: 17 expressions encountered represent

3,66% of the total.

Vulgar expressions containing “religion” elements or references make up the least

frequent category: indeed, in the data corpus only 12 cases have been encountered,

which form 2,60% of the total.

The results and the classification of vulgar expressions are displayed in Table 5.

Categories of Vulgar Expressions Occurrences Percentage (%)

Sexual organs or related 252 54,31

Physically or mentally disabled 61 13,14

Death or disease 55 11,85

Human waste or excrement 34 7,33

Narcotics or crime 33 7,11

Prostitution 17 3,66

Religion 12 2,6

Total 464 100Table 4. Vulgar expressions in the data corpus: sensitive information.

The translation strategies for such expressions in the Italian version of the show have

been classified according to Bucaria's model (see 1.3.2).

Pie Chart 4. displays the percentages of the translation strategies detected in the corpus.

41

As shown in Pie Chart 4., the main translation strategies for vulgar expressions is

“Close rendering”; indeed, in 342 cases out of the total the vulgar expressions in S.T.

have been successfully translated as tabooed expressions in T.T.; matching a percentage

of 73,7% of the cases.

The second translation strategy is “Weakening”, which makes up 15,51% of the total: in

72 cases the “shock element” has been watered down.

The third translation strategy covers 6,04% of the total and is “Increased effect”: in 28

cases vulgar expressions have been reinforced.

The least applied strategy in the data corpus is “Complete omission”, which forms

4,75% of the total: indeed, only in 22 cases the vulgar component has been deleted.

Table 6. shows the quantity and percentage of each translation strategy.

Translation Strategy Occurrences Percentage (%)

Close rendering 342 73,7

Weakening 72 15,51

Increased Effect 28 6,04

Complete omission 22 4,75

Total 464 100Table 6. Translation strategies in the data corpus: sensitive information.

42

Close rendering: 73,7%

Weakening: 15,51%

Increased Effect: 6,04%

Complete Omission: 4,75%

Chart 4. Percentages of translation strategies in the Data Corpus.

Chart 4 and Table 6 show that the translation strategy for vulgar expression mainly

applied in the data corpus is “Close Rendering”, which covers 73,7% of the cases.

“Total Omission” and “Weakening”, translation strategies which cause losses or diluted

versions of the tabooed expressions, together, make up 20,26% of the cases; “Increased

Effect”, the translation strategy producing gains and compensation, represents 6,24% of

the total. Even if the main tendency is preserving the vulgar expressions in translation

(73,7%), in the data corpus the loss is bigger than the gain, indeed, in 94 cases, i.e.

20,26% of the total cases, tabooed expressions have been omitted or diluted, while only

in 28 cases, i.e. 6,04% of the total, such expressions have been increased.

Translation strategies such as “Weakening” and “Total Omission” produce losses in the

T.T. in terms of vulgar expressions, while the method “Increased Effect” determines

what can be arguably considered gain in the T.T.; from this point of view, losses and

gains in each type of vulgar expressions can be calculated.

Table 6.1 displays percentages of losses and gains in each class of vulgar expressions.

Sexual organs or related

Occurrence: 252

Losses: 38 -> 15,08%

Gains: 16 -> 6,35%

Difference between Losses and Gains: 8,73%

Physically or mentally disabled

Occurrence: 61

Losses: 24 -> 39,34%

Gains: 1 -> 1,63%

Difference: 37,71%

Death or disease

Occurrence: 55

Losses: 6 -> 10,90%

Gains: 3 -> 5,45%

Difference: 5,45%

Human Waste

Occurrence: 34

Losses: 5 -> 14,7%

Gains: 1 -> 2,94%

Difference: 11,76%

Narcotics or crime

Occurrence: 33

Losses: 2 -> 6,06%

Gains: 5 -> 15,15%

Difference: -9,09%

43

Prostitution

Occurrence: 17

Losses: 10 -> 58,82%

Gains: 2 -> 11,76%

Difference: 47,06%

Religion

Occurrence: 12

Losses: 6 -> 50%

Gains: 0 -> 0%

Difference: 50%

Table 6.1: percentages of losses and gains in each class of vulgar expressions.

As shown in table 6.1, in almost every single category of puns, losses are more frequent

and more consistent than gains. Only expressions dealing with “Narcotics or crime”

have been more frequently reinforced than diluted or omitted; this may point out that in

the T.T. cultural context matters such as “drugs” and “crime” are not considered as

forbidden as in the S.T. culture.

Tabooed expressions making reference to “sexual organs or related”, the main class in

the S.T., “physically or mentally disabled”, “death or disease”, “human waste or

excrement” and “prostitution” have generally been diluted or omitted in the T.T. more

frequently than being increased. These tendencies seem to suggest that T.T. is more

likely to remove, or, at least, weaken, expressions dealing with these taboos.

Even if expressions dealing with “prostitution” form the more banned category in the

data corpus (58,82%),vulgar expressions dealing with “religion”, which represent the

least frequent class in the S.T., in the T.T. make up the category which has been more

diluted or deleted than reinforced in the data corpus, indeed, the translation strategy

“Increased Effect” has never been applied for vulgar expressions dealing with this type

of matter. This result suggests that “religion” is considered both in the S.T. and T.T. a

subject to be avoided, even if S.T. shows a bigger tendency to face this matter.

Tabooed expressions dealing with “sexual organs and relation”, the main group in the

case study, have one of the lowest differences between losses and gains, indeed,

removed or “polished” translations have not been very frequently applied in the T.T..

Those results seem to point out two possibilities: both the S.T. and T.T. do not consider

“sex” as taboo anymore, hence they exploit it has a common subject, or both cultural

systems strongly exploit the “shock value” of this vulgar expression to make the

audience laugh through frequent sexual references; the latter is arguably the most likely

44

option, since “sex” is commonly considered an “international taboo” (see 1.3.1).

The following paragraph (3.2) provides a qualitative analysis of the case study, indeed it

focuses on some samples off the data corpus and tries to interpret and underline the

main tendencies emerged in the show.

3.2 Qualitative Analysis

This paragraph deals with samples off the data corpus analyzed in order to detect

tendencies that may be useful to furnish a satisfying response to the “research question”

which this work is based on.

Two parts make up this section: the first sub-paragraph (3.2.1) focuses on qualitative

analysis of samples off puns and their respective translation strategies encountered in

the data corpus, while the second one (3.2.2) provides a similar analysis of vulgar

expressions and the strategies used in their translation.

3.2.1 Puns and Translation strategies: samples

This paragraph focuses on samples from the data corpus: one case off each translation

strategy is analyzed here.

A) Pun > Pun: the pun in the S.T. is successfully translated as pun in the T.T.

Sample 1.

Episode 2x21. At Lily and Marshall's wedding, Ted is asking to an old man, who clearly wears a toupee,

if he knows where he can get one, since Marshall has accidentally shaven his hair:

Ted: “Really? You can't think of any place in the general area where there might be a toupee of the kind

I'm describing to you?"

Old man: "No, not off the top of my... (head). No.

45

This an idiom-based pun, indeed, the literal meaning of an idiomatic expression ('off the

top of my head', which means 'quickly response without any research or calculation') is

exploited to create humor effects, since then the old man realizes what he actually wears

on top of his head.

s1= quickly response; s2: what is actually on (his) head.

This pun in S.T. as been successfully translated in the T.T., indeed:

Ted: “Dice sul serio? E' sicuro che qua intorno non ci sia proprio nessuno con un parrucchino del tipo che

le ho appena descritto?”

Old Man: “No, meglio levarselo dalla test... No.”

The pun in the S.T. has successfully been translated as wordplay in the T.T., where it

still creates humor by reawakening the literal meaning of an idiomatic expression, hence

in the T.T. this is still an idiom-based pun.

In this case the original wordplay has been perfectly conveyed in the T.T., indeed, words

match with images and, even if S1 has changed (in the T.T. the original S1 has been

substituted by 'it is something impossible, or very hard to reach'), it does not break the

semantic logic of the extract.

B) Pun > Punoid: the pun in the S.T. is translated with some wordplay-related elements,

which can not be properly considered as wordplay.

Sample 2.

Episode 5x23. At the pub, Ted is telling to his friends about a nice girl he is dating, and expresses his

theory of “the but”, indeed, he thinks that in every relationship there is a “but” which always ruins

things:

Ted: “... we're very happy together.”

Lily:”But...?”

Ted: “Exactly. That's the problem”.

Barney: “Her butt?”

Marshall: “What is it, too much?”

Lily: “Too little?”

Robin: “Or is it an issue of access?”

Ted: “No, the "but" is, there's always gonna be a "but''.”

46

In this extract, wordplay uses the similar phonological executions of the “but” and

“butt” to create ambiguity and humor, hence it is a paronymy-based pun.

S1= conjunction; s2= the part of the body that people sit on.

This pun has been translated in the T.T. with a wordplay-related structure, indeed:

Ted: “...stiamo molto bene insieme”

Lily: “Che culo!”

Ted: “Si esatto. E' proprio quello il problema”

Barney: “Cosa? Il suo sedere?”

Marshall: “Forse è troppo grasso?”

Lily: “Troppo basso?”

Robin: “O invece è un problema di accesso?”

Ted: “Ma no! Il problema è che, nonostante abbia avuto la fortuna di incontrare una persona con cui sto

bene, poi andrà tutto a rotoli come sempre!”

In this case, the wordplay have been translated in the T.T. with ambiguity and vagueness

through the rhetorical element “che culo!”. The usage of such expression could be

considered as pun in the T.T., since it conveys two meanings “very good luck” (s1) and

“the part of the body that people sit on” (s2), but in the idiom “che culo”, as Lily uses it

in the T.T., that particular word has totally lost s2, so in the T.T. the expression is used

as pun but is not very humorous since the connector (i.e. the element used to join the

two meanings in a joke or a wordplay, see 1.1.2.2) has been removed in the ordinary

usage; the translational solution has been considered as punoid because, even if the

connector is not present, so that the pun is lost, s2 is still perceived by the T.T. audience.

Furthermore, this particular case produces a loss in the linguistic field, indeed the pun is

partially conveyed, and in the semantic coherence of the show, indeed Ted would never

say that getting alongside with a girl (what Lily is referencing to) is a problem, hence

the whole dialogue after Lily's exclamation in the T.T. does not make sense.

C) Pun > Non-Pun (diffusive paraphrase): the pun in the S.T. is translated in the T.T. as

non-pun, even if the part of the text is not removed.

47

Sample 3

Episode 7x02. Barney is going to meet Nora, a girl who left him because he lied to her; in order to get

her sympathy back, he is wearing a cast to make her believe he fell off the stage during a representation,

since she loves musicals:

Barney: “What do you think?”

Ted: “Lose the cast.”

Barney: “A one-man show - I like it!”

This pun is homonymy-based, since he exploits different words having the same

spelling and pronunciation to create humor and ambiguity.

S1= all the people who act in a play or movie; S2= a rigid covering used to hold in

place broken bones.

In the T.T. both of the meanings of the pun in the S.T. have been removed, even if the

portion of T.T. is present, indeed:

Barney: “Che ne dite?”

Ted: “Non è credibile”

Barney: “Un one-man show – E' la soluzione!”

Ted's response “Non è credibile” (= no one is going to believe this is real) is clearly

referred to Barney's medical support, rather than the reason why he is wearing it. Even

if Barney's reply breaks Grice's Maxim of Relation (see 1.1.2.1), it is not humorous

since in the T.T. the connector element has been lost.

This translation solution semantically does not make sense, and sounds even “odder”

due to the laugh track present at this very moment.

D) Pun > Non-Pun (selective): one of the two meanings of the pun in the S.T has been

removed in the T.T., while the other has been successfully translated.

Sample 4.

Episode 5x02. At restaurant with a girl, Ted says to her:

Ted: “Do you wanna share the oysters?”

#1: “I would love to share the oysters.”

48

Ted: “Good. 'Cause if you didn't that would be mighty shellfish”

This is a case of paronymy-based puns, indeed, the word “shellfish” is used instead of

“selfish” because they have similar phonological realization, and these sound

similarities are exploited to create association among their meanings.

S1= creature with shell living in the sea; S2= who cares only about himself.

In the T.T. the pun has been translated conveying only one of the two former meanings,

indeed:

Ted: “Ci dividiamo dei frutti di mare?”

#1: “Prendo volentieri dei frutti di mare.”

Ted: “Bene. Perché altrimenti ero già pronto a darti della cozza.”

In the T.T. S1 has been successfully translated, while S2 has been substituted with

“cozza” (=nasty, unpleasant), which still belongs to the field of S1, but determines a loss

in terms of semantic and logic interaction, indeed, while in the S.T. Ted would have

called her selfish for not sharing food, in the T.T. he would have labeled her as “nasty”

for the same reason. The connector – the phonological similarities between “shellfish”

and “selfish”- in the S.T. allows the semantic logic of the switch, but in the T.T. such

element has been removed and the passage does not have the same effectiveness.

Furthermore, in the T.T. Ted's reply sounds quite odd and impolite in an non-humorous

way since it breaks Grice's Maxim of Relation but s2 does not have any relation with s1,

hence it makes no sense.

E) S.T. Pun = T.T. Pun (transference): a pun in the S.T. has been adapted to the

linguistic structures of the T.T.

Sample 5.

Episode 5x01. Ted faces his first day as University professor of architecture; as one of his student amazes

him with his responses, he says:

Ted: “Looks like someone's building towards an A."

This wordplay is homonymy-based, indeed, the identities in spelling and pronunciation among two words

49

are exploited to gather together their meanings.

The context allows a second meaning.

s1= to construct or erect a building; s2= to develop toward something.

The S.T. pun has been adapted to the linguistic structures of T.T., even if in the T.

language "costruire" (“to build”) does not have s2, too.

Ted: “A quanto pare c'è chi sta costruendo per avere 30.”

While in the T.T. the verb “costruire” (to build) is used to express a concrete

construction, or a concrete progression toward something, in this case it has been used

to give the idea of development; this translational solution is still humorous because the

T.T. audience perceives the semantic logic of this dialogue, guaranteed by the connector

and the disjunctor, but it sounds odd and unnatural because of the violation of T.T.'s

usages for this verb.

F) Non-Pun > Pun: a fragment of the S.T. which does not contain any pun has been

translated as wordplay in the T.T.

Sample 6.

Episode 1x22. Marshall and Lily usually have pauses during their fights, when they pretend nothing has

happened at all and enjoy activities such as going at restaurant, drink beer, have sex, etc. During one of

these moments, Marshall starts crying, so Lily, before starting crying herself, says to him:

Lily: “Marshall, no!There's no crying in the Pause-land! Pause-land is a magic place , with (...)”

This extract in the S.T. is humorous due to eccentric system the characters exploit in

their fights and because of the sudden change in Lily's mood, but no pun can be spotted

in it. In the T.T. this fragment has been translated as follows:

Lily: “Marshall, ti prego, no! Siamo in pausa! Non si deve piangere sull'Isola di Pausa! L'Isola di Pausa

è un posto magico, con montagne di (...)”

In this case, a paronymy-based pun has been introduced in the T.T., indeed the original

element “Pause-land” has been translated as “Isola di Pausa”, exploiting the sound

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similarities in the T.T. between “(Isola di) Pausa” and “(Isola di) Pasqua” (= Easter

Island). This translational solution is more humorous in the T.T. because Lily creates

similarities between magical and exotic places such as “Isola di Pasqua” and “Isola di

Pausa”; this utterance clearly respects the attitude in sitcoms of portraying common

situations both more likely and more ridiculously than the actual reality (see 1.4).

From these samples and their respective translation strategies show frequent tendencies

emerge: puns in the S.T. have been conveyed in the T.T. as puns, where possible, or as

other related elements, but, generally, the obtained results are not as effective as in the

S.T., indeed, elements such as connector and disjunctor have been usually removed or

deleted, hence the semantic logic and coherence of the dialogues have not been

conveyed in the T.T; such “illogical” jokes arguably undermine the humorous

effectiveness of the translated product; hence losses in terms of humor are qualitatively

significant, as shown by the analyzed samples.

The following paragraph deals with a similar analysis of vulgar expressions and the

translation strategies applied.

3.2.2. Vulgar Expressions and Translation Strategies: Samples

This section focuses on samples from the data corpus: one sample off each translation

strategy of vulgar expressions have been selected and analyzed.

A) Close Rendering: the vulgar expression in the S.T. has been successfully translated

as vulgar expression in the T.T.

Sample 1.

Episode 3x20. Marshall and Robin argue about the veracity of some episodes of their lives considered as

miracles by the former, while the latter is atheist:

Marshall: "Miracle!"

Robin: "A pencil went up Barney's nose, and you call it a miracle."

Marshall: "Well, do you have a better explanation for it?"

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Robin: "A drunk jackass with a box of pencils?

Marshall: "A drunk jackass called 'God' and a box of pencils called 'destiny'."

This dialogue deals with “religion”; it can be considered as a vulgar expression since

God has been associated to the words “drunk” and “jackass”, and has been translated as:

Marshall: “Un miracolo!”

Robin: “Una matita si infila nel naso di Barney, e tu lo definiresti un miracolo?”

Marshall: “Beh, per caso hai una spiegazione migliore?”

Robin: “Un idiota ubriaco con una scatola di matite.”

Marshall: “Un idiota ubriaco che si chiama 'Dio' e poi una scatola di matite che si chiama 'destino'.”

The “shock value” of this expression has successfully been conveyed in the T.T., where

this vulgar element towards the taboo has maintained unchanged tone and neglect

towards the matter.

B) Weakening: a vulgar expression in the S.T. has been diluted in the T.T.

Sample 2.

Episode 9x23. Ted, Marshall and Lily are recalling how Barney married Robin:

Ted: “That son of a bitch did it!”

This vulgar expression deal with “prostitution”, but the vulgar element “bitch” has been

weakened in the T.T. through an expression that conveys the sense of the S.T. but in a

less vulgar manner:

Ted: “Quel figlio di buona donna ce l'ha fatta!”

In the T.T. the translational solution “figlio di buona donna” euphemistically conveys

the same idea of “son of a bitch” in the S.T., even if with a diluted tone.

In this case, censoring the vulgar expression produces losses not only in terms of humor,

since the T.T. does not break the social constraints as effectively as in the S.T., but even

concerning the stylistic veracity, indeed is highly unlikely that a group of middle-aged

friends uses such neutralized expressions in their private conversations.

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The following sample, already presented briefly in 2.2.1, deserves a particular attention

since it makes strong references to a well-known Italian politician, who owns the

network broadcasting How I Met Your Mother in Italy, Silvio Berlusconi.

Sample 3.

Episode 8x23. Marshall and Lily are moving to Rome for a year, and they are deciding if it is necessary

to bring with them an old bean bag chair, and then they say:

Marshall: “Italy doesn't need something that is wrinkled, red and leaky, and smells like booze and

narcotics. They've already got the former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.”

Lily (laughing): “I don't know who that is.”

This utterance has been considered as dealing with “physically and mentally disabled”,

since it shares the same feeling of superiority of those vulgar expressions.

In the S.T., Marshall uses a series of pejoratives building towards a target, who is

revealed only a the end; this stratagem, with Lily's reply, is efficaciously used in order

to dehumanize the “butt of the joke”. Moreover, this extract creates strong humor since

it sharply attacks a precise political figure.

In the T.T. this dialogue has been translated as following:

Marshall: “L'Italia non ha certo bisogno di una cosa raggrinzita, rossa e logora, macchiata di alcol e

droghe varie. Ha già abbastanza problemi con chi governa il Paese.”

Lily (laughing): “Non so nemmeno chi sia.”

In the T.T. the clear reference to Berlusconi has been substituted with a more vague

target: “Whoever run the Country”. This solution is not only less humorous and

effective, because it results “mild” and even “inexpressive”, but it also determines a

significant loss in terms of stylistic coherence and likeliness: just like in the S.T.

Mashall's speech is characterized by a bunch of precise pejorative adjectives forming a

detailed insult toward a target revealed at the end, but in the T.T. th “butt of the joke”

remains unclear. Lily's response in the S.T. has been used to diminish the target, while

in the T.T. is used to reinforce the vagueness of the target.

This given case of censorship produces moreover a deficiency concerning the likeliness

of the language Marshall uses, since, as stated for other samples, it is highly implausible

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that middle-aged people actually use a similar hyper politically-correct and neutralized

language in their private conversations.

Defining whether this is a case of censorship imposed by external sources or a case of

self-censorship is quite difficult, but, since the politician named in the dialogue owns

the network, the former option can not be totally discarded.

C) Increased Effect: a vulgar, or slightly vulgar, expression in the S.T. has been

reinforced in the T.T.; this tendency can be seen as a form of compensation.

Sample 4.

Episode 1x20. In hours Ted has a date with a girl, but he has been abandoned by Lily in the middle of

nowhere, so he leaves her a voice mail:

Ted: “Remember to pick up some milk. Oh, and, when I get home, I'm going to kill you. And, also, I

texted you the same thing."

In the S.T. the fragment contains a tabooed expression dealing with “narcotics or

crime”, while in the T.T.:

Ted: “Volevo (…) ricordarti il latte. Oh, e sappi che, se riuscirò ad arrivare a casa, ti taglio la gola!

Questo l'ho scritto anche nell'SMS.”

In this case, Ted's anger towards Lily has been successfully expressed in the T.T., where

specifying the killing method contains arguably a stronger “shock value” than the

general verb “to kill” used in the S.T..

The dialogue in the T.T. contains a language nearer to the variety actually used in

everyday conversations; furthermore, the contrast between the two activities, the

criminal action of “killing” and the usual activity of “buying milk”, is stressed in the

T.T., and, consequently, more humorous.

D) Total Omission: the tabooed element in the S.T. has been removed in T.T.

Sample 5.

Episode 3x19. Lily is summarizing her work day to Ted:

Ted: “Hey, how was your day?"

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Lily: "Today, I yelled at a little girl for painting a rainbow."

Ted: "A rainbow? Sounds like that bitch had it coming."

This dialogue contains a vulgar expression dealing with “physically or mentally

disabled”. In the T.T.:

Ted: “Ehi, come è andata oggi? ”

Lily: “Oggi ho sgridato una bambina perche ha disegnato un arcobaleno.”

Ted: “Un arcobaleno? Se l'é proprio andata a cercare.”

This tabooed expression in the S.T. has totally been removed in the T.T., indeed no

equivalent textual element is present in the translated version.

The “shock value” in the S.T. relies on the usage of such expression from an adult man

towards a little girl, and is strictly connected to the funniness of the dialogue.

The pejorative in the T.T. has totally been removed; from such an elimination, the T.T.

results less humorous, because it does not break the social conventions, and even less

realistic, since this polite and politically-correct language is arguably far from the

variety actually used in everyday and private conversations.

From the samples analyzed in this section, the following tendencies emerge: while the

S.T. shows a more frequent attitude to talk about subject considered “taboos” and,

consequently, produce humor breaking the social impositions, in the T.T. this inclination

is not as present, indeed many cases of censorship can be spotted in the Italian version.

Furthermore, censoring vulgar expressions in the T.T. produces losses mainly in terms

of expressiveness and verisimilitude, the language results, indeed, neutralized and far

from the actual usage in everyday conversations.

The language characters use in the T.T. is too polite and neutral to depict the actual

variety uses by people; this may arguably determine a loss in humor, indeed, the

audience may not perceive as very funny and humorous a language appearing

unrealistic and far from the actual one; hence, concerning vulgar expressions losses

appear qualitatively significant.

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Conclusion

This dissertation is aimed to individuate if in translating a humorous audiovisual text,

such as a sitcom, gains are more numerous than losses, or if the contrary happens.

To answer this “research question” the TV show “How I Met Your Mother” has been

chosen as case study due to the big success it has enjoyed in recent years.

This study focuses on two “humorous” elements: puns, that can be perceived as

humorous according to Superiority and Incongruity Theories of Humor, and vulgar

expressions, which humorous usage is justified by Release and Superiority Theories of

Humor.

The theoretical background, presented in the first chapter, has been applied to the

methods and criteria expressed in the second chapter, and the results obtained from such

analysis have been presented and interpreted in the third chapter.

The analytical chapter shows the main tendencies in translating puns and vulgar

expressions in the data corpus: out of 91 wordplay detected in the S.T., 37 have been

translated as puns in the T.T. according the strategy “Pun > Pun”; while 31 puns in the

S.T. have been translated with the methods “Pun > Non-Pun (selective)” or “Pun > Non-

Pun (diffusive paraphrase)”, causing losses in the T.T.; 19 wordplay in the S.T. have

been translated with wordplay-related structures, according to the strategy “Pun >

Punoid”. In 3 cases, puns were adapted to the linguistic structures of T. language,

exploiting “Pun S.T. = Pun T.T.”. Only 1 case of compensation has been detected in the

show.

The main tendency emerged in the case study it to render a pun in the T.T. as a pun in

the T.T.; but, while the effectiveness of adapted puns and punoids in the T.T. can barely

be calculated, in the data corpus, losses are more frequent than gains: indeed in 31 cases

wordplay in the S.T. have not been translated as puns, while only in 1 case a portion of

S.T. with no pun, has been translated as pun in the T.T.

The last chapter also focuses on vulgar expressions and their translation strategies in the

case study. In the data corpus 464 vulgar expressions have been encountered: the main

category of such expressions deals with “sexual elements”, indeed, it makes up 54,31%

of the total, while the least frequent category of tabooed expression in the data corpus

deals with “religion”, which covers 2,60% of the total. The most applied translation

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strategy of vulgar expression is “Close Rendering”, indeed, in 73,7% of the cases vulgar

expressions in the S.T. have preserved their “shock value” in the T.T.; but, while, in

20,26% of the cases, vulgar expressions have been watered down or removed in the

T.T., through “Weakening” or “Omission”, only in 6,04% of the total cases vulgar

expressions in the S.T. have been reinforced in the T.T. through “Increased Effect”.

Even in vulgar expression losses are more frequent than gains.

As emerged in analyzing wordplay and vulgar expressions, the main tendency consists

on preserving such phenomena in the T.T., but in both cases losses are more frequent

than gains.

The analytical chapter also deals with samples from the corpus, indeed for the

considered phenomena, one case off each translation strategy has been analyzed and

discussed in the “Qualitative Analysis” sections (3.2.1 and 3.2.2).

From these samples and the translation strategies applied in their translation in the T.T.,

some interesting “qualitative” results emerge: even if puns from the S.T. to the T.T. have

been generally translated as puns or some other wordplay-related elements, puns and

punoids in the T.T. are not as effective as in the S.T., indeed in the translational solutions

tend to ignore elements such as the “connector” and the “disjunctor”, linguistic elements

which assure switches from S1 to S2 and are necessary for wordplay to be humorous;

consequently wordplay and jokes in the T.T. appear often illogical or ignore the

semantic coherence of the show. Such losses are arguably significant and undermine the

quality of the translated product.

Analyzing how vulgar expressions in the S.T. have been conveyed in the T.T. leads to

similar results: the S.T. shows a more frequent attitude to use vulgar expressions and,

consequently, to break taboos, then the T.T.; furthermore, diluting or omitting vulgar

expressions in the T.T. causes losses not only in terms of humor, but even in linguistic

expressiveness and verisimilitude, indeed, as emerged in analyzing samples from the

case study, in the T.T. characters use a language being too polite and politically-correct,

hence it appears “unrealistic” and, consequently, less funny than the one used in the

S.T..

In translating humorous text from a S.T. to a T.T., losses are not only more frequent than

gains, but they are qualitatively very significant: if phenomena such as wordplay or

vulgar expressions are not properly conveyed, or heavily omitted, the translated product

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will be arguably less humorous and less effective than the original text.

In case of audiovisual products, such as sitcoms, words have to match and fit with

gestures and images, hence its translational process is even more complex, and the T.T.,

arguably, even less humorous.

Probably, these results respond partially to the “research question”; a more satisfying

mensuration of losses and gains could be reach considering the “audience perception” of

the show; indeed, the humorous intensity of such phenomenons could be evaluate by

confronting S.T. audience surveys and T.T. audience surveys. The results could draw

attention to the losses and the gains in translating such texts, and could provide some

guidelines for a more satisfying translated product.

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Sitography

1. As shown on the DVD box of the first season2. http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_I_Met_Your_Mother3.http://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/TV/2014/0401/How-I-Met-Your-Mother-How-did-the-long- running-sitcom-end-video

4. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460649/awar5. http://yearinreview.fb.com/top-10-lists-tv-shows/6.http://www.thewrap.com/how-i-met-your-mother-finale-co-creator-craig-

thomas-defends- controversy/7.http://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/episode_scripts.php?tv-show=how-i-met-your-mother

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