Subtitling How I met your mother: the challenges of translating humour

This paper is a case-study of the episode 15 ("Unpause") of the ninth season of the American sitcom How I met your mother. It discusses translation issues present in that excerpt that regard humour under various forms as well as the series' format. After analysing the Source and Target texts, it focuses on the topic of subtitling sitcoms in France, and presents selected norms and solutions found to overcome the challenges of translating comedy. The appendices at the end of this document provide visual illustrations and texts complementary to this analysis. This selected video shows humour under its many linguistic forms of expression. Thus, this commentary gives particular attention to the adaptation of language-dependent jokes, but also to cultural references and explicit terms - which here aim at creating laughter. The speed of the sitcom's dialogues, the problematic chronology and the polysemiotic quality of this excerpt also represented significant subtitling difficulties.

Autorentext

Elena is French and has lived most of her life in Nantes, France. At age 20, she moved to London where she completed an M.A in Audiovisual Translation at the University of Roehampton. Elena currently works in South-West London where she gives French classes in a primary school and produces a radio show for a non-profit music academy.

Klappentext

This paper is a case-study of the episode 15 ("Unpause") of the ninth season of the American sitcom How I met your mother. It discusses translation issues present in that excerpt that regard humour under various forms as well as the series' format. After analysing the Source and Target texts, it focuses on the topic of subtitling sitcoms in France, and presents selected norms and solutions found to overcome the challenges of translating comedy. The appendices at the end of this document provide visual illustrations and texts complementary to this analysis. This selected video shows humour under its many linguistic forms of expression. Thus, this commentary gives particular attention to the adaptation of language-dependent jokes, but also to cultural references and explicit terms - which here aim at creating laughter. The speed of the sitcom's dialogues, the problematic chronology and the polysemiotic quality of this excerpt also represented significant subtitling difficulties.