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TRANSLATING AUDIOVISUAL HUMOUR. A CASE STUDY

Juan José Martínez-Sierra a
a
Castellón, Spain

Online Publication Date: 13 April 2006

To cite this Article Martínez-Sierra, Juan José(2006)'TRANSLATING AUDIOVISUAL HUMOUR. A CASE

STUDY',Perspectives,13:4,289 — 296
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 289

TRANSLATING AUDIOVISUAL HUMOUR. A CASE STUDY

Juan José Martínez-Sierra, Castellón, Spain
jjmsierra@yahoo.com

Abstract
This article presents a descriptive and discursive analysis of how elements in humorous ex-
tracts from an animated American television show (The Simpsons) fared in overcoming linguistic
and intercultural barriers in dubbing (English-Spanish). The analysis is based on several Transla-
tion Studies and Pragmatics methods and on a taxonomy of humorous elements in audiovisual
texts. These were used to (1) quantify and (2) analyse the humorous elements in the source and
target texts, (3) calculate the percentage of humour in the source texts that had been realised in the
target versions, (4) make observations on humour translation in animated serials; and, finally, (5)
create a list of translational tendencies – potential norms – in humour translation in audiovisual
texts.

Key-words: English-Spanish; audiovisual translation; humour; intercultural communi-

cation; norms; relevance.

Objectives
The objectives of the study discussed here were:
• firstly, to set up a method for the analysis of humour in audiovisual trans-
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lation by means of the relevance theory, descriptive studies, and certain

intercultural communication approaches;
• secondly, to describe some mechanisms in the translation of humour in
audiovisual texts; and,
• thirdly, to identify translational tendencies that could serve in future stud-
ies, which might confirm or disprove the existence of translational norms
in humour translation in audiovisual texts.

Corpus
For this study, I selected The Simpsons, an animated American television serial
that is telecasted in many countries. The focus was on the translation – mainly
via dubbing – of excerpts from the series in order to identify tendencies in hu-
mour translation in audiovisual texts. The programme was ideal for this pur-
pose, since most segments in the source version were humorous and should be
so in the translated versions as well. Besides, the humour in a good many of
these comical segments was based on elements of the cultural context.
The choice of this series was determined by several factors: (a) it is popular,
(b) it has been aired for about fi�een years, (c) I personally like it, and (d) all epi-
sodes show two characteristics that I consider relevant to the study: a humorous
nature and cultural specificity. Thus, the only selection criterion applied to the
twenty episodes initially screened was that they were available to me (on VHS
tapes or DVDs).
I chose four episodes from different seasons (namely the 2nd, 5th, 8th, and 11th).
The reason for this selection was that these episodes would reflect – to a degree
– the logical evolution of the series in the course of not simply one year, but over
the fi�een years of running time.
The episodes eventually selected were (including the title of the English

0907-676X/05/04/289-8 $20.00 © 2005 Juan Rosé Martínez-Sierra

Perspectives: Studies in Translatology Vol. 13, No. 4, 2005
 290 2005. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology. Volume 13: 4

source text and the title of the dubbed (Castilian) Spanish version):

• Bart vs. Thanksgiving - Bart en el Día de Acción de Gracias

• Cape Fear- El Cabo del Miedo
• Treehouse of Horror VII - Especial Halloween VII
• Beyond Blunderdome - Más allá de la Cúpula del Fracaso

In the four source versions, I identified a total of 365 examples of humour.

These were analysed as a whole, while 63 of them were singled out for specific
study.

Theoretical frame
This study is primarily encompassed within the communicative-sociocultur-
al approach of Translation Studies. The framework of the study is based on de-
scriptive, manipulation-school, functionalist, and relevance theories, since, ac-
cording to my own concept of ‘translation’, it is not possible to conduct a study
like this by limiting it to a single approach. There is, in addition, some influence
from Cultural Studies (as culture is a key element) and Pragmatics (which was
used in the analysis).
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A taxonomy of humorous elements

My study elaborates the taxonomy of jokes formulated by Patrick Zabalbeas-
coa (1993 and 1996).1 This ad hoc taxonomy came to consist of 8 levels and was
used for analysing the audiovisual jokes in the chosen sample. Below, I provide
(in bold) one illustrative example of each element - all from the episode ‘Tree-
house of Horror VII’:

1. Community-and-Institutions Elements refer to cultural or intertextual fea-

tures that are rooted and tied to a specific culture.
Example: [Situation] Homer has been abducted by aliens. He witnesses how
two aliens adopt the appearance of two well-known American politicians (Rob-
ert Dole and Bill Clinton).
Homer: [screaming in terror] Oh, no! Aliens, bio-duplication, nude conspiracies...
Oh my God! Lyndon LaRouche was right!

These types of elements can include, like here, politicians (Dole, Clinton,
and LaRouche), celebrities, an organisations, a newspapers, books, films,
etc. The reference can be explicit or implicit and acoustic as well as visual.
Elements in this category present or evoke the image of some specific ref-
erent in the culture.

2. Community-Sense-of-Humour Elements, the topics of which appear to be

more popular in certain communities than in others, an idea that does not
imply any cultural specificity, but rather a preference. Hence, they are not
tied to specific cultural elements, but to “the deposit of knowledge, expe-
rience, beliefs, values, … acquired by a group of people in the course of
generations through individual and group striving” (Samovar and Porter
1997: 12-13); in short, to culture in its broadest sense. Again, the reference
can be explicit or implicit, acoustic or visual.
 Martínez-Sierra. Translating Audiovisual Humour. A Case Study. 291
Example: [Situation] Lisa has been transported to a mini-world she has created.
The mini-world’s leader welcomes her.
Leader: Welcome to our world, most gracious Lisa.
Lisa: Your world is incredible. And you speak English!

3. Linguistic Elements are based on linguistic features. They may be explicit or

implicit, spoken or wri�en.
Example (which follows the previous one):
Leader: Welcome to our world, most gracious Lisa.
Lisa: Your world is incredible. And you speak English!
Leader: We have listened to you speak since the dawn of time, oh Creator. And
we have learned to imatoot you exarktly.

4. Visual Elements comprise a differentiation between the humour produced

by what we can see on the screen and those elements that in fact constitute
a visually coded version of a linguistic element.
Example: [Situation] Homer is trying to escape from the aliens. He reaches the
space ship’s cockpit. We can see and hear how he hits the control panel in his
a�empts to start the engine.

5. Graphic Elements: This type includes the humour derived from a wri�en
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message inserted in a screen picture.2

Example: [Situation] Two aliens are about to a�ack the White House. In front of
the president’s residence we see a banner. On the banner we read that this is the
day the president takes office.
“Inauguration Day”

6. Paralinguistic Elements. In my view, both quantitatively and qualitatively

paralinguistic features are significant enough for them to constitute a cat-
egory of their own. This group includes the non-verbal qualities of a voice,
such as the intonation, the rhythm, the tone, the timbre, the resonance, etc.,
which are associated with expressions of emotions such as screams, sighs,
or laughter (Frederic Chaume 2003: 222). I also include narrative silence
(Fernando Poyatos 1995) in this category. These elements are characterised
as being humorous and adding information to the plot. They are explicit
and oral.
Example: An element is found in the first example noted (above).
Homer: [screaming in terror] Oh, no! Aliens, bio-duplication, nude conspira-
cies... Oh my God! Lyndon LaRouche was right!

7. Non-Marked (Humorous) Elements represent miscellaneous instances that

are not easily categorised as one of the other categories but are, neverthe-
less, humorous. They may have either an acoustic or a visual form, and can
be either explicit or implicit.
Example: [Situation] The Simpson family starts searching for Bart’s wicked twin
brother who poses a threat to them. Homer orders everybody to search some
specific place. When he turns to his son Bart, his command is:
Homer: Bart, you stay home and tape the hockey game.

8. Sound Elements. This final category is inspired by the sound jokes defined by
Adrián Fuentes (2001).3 They are sounds that by themselves or in combi-
 292 2005. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology. Volume 13: 4

nation with others may be humorous. They are explicitly and acoustically
found in the soundtrack and the special effects when these contribute to
the humour.4
Example: This is evident in the situation referred to in Visual Elements (above),
where we could see and hear how Homer hits the space ship’s control panel. A
second later, we can also hear the noise of the ship’s engine starting.

The Analysis
The analysis occurred in two stages:
1. A global analysis of all source jokes and their translations, in which the
humorous elements were classified and subdivided according to the ab-
sence (Group 1) or presence (Group 2) of changes or losses – quantitative
or qualitative, total or partial – in their humorous loads a�er their transla-
tion (‘humorous load’ refers to the number of discrete humorous elements
that the joke includes, so it is a quantitative concept). And
2. A pragmatic-intercultural analysis of jokes in Group 2 in order to explain
why their ‘humorous loads’ had experienced some kind of change or loss.
In this context, the principle of relevance became prominent in terms of ex-
isting and contextual assumptions, as well as concerning cognitive effects
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(which are the ones that, ultimately, determine each fragment’s relevance
and pragmatic reward in the form of humour). In order to illustrate how
each Group 2 segment was analysed, I can use an analysis of Card 43:
 Martínez-Sierra. Translating Audiovisual Humour. A Case Study. 293

Card: 43
Season: 2
Episode: Bart vs. Thanksgiving – Bart en el Día de Acción de Gracias
Joke Number: A 23
Context: The Simpson family gathers to have dinner on Thanksgiving Day.
American source version:
A taxi arrives at the Simpsons’ house with Marge’s mother. The driver gets out of the taxi to
open the door for her, but she gets out through another one.
So� background music.
Spanish target version:
The same: There is no dialogue. At first glance, it is a 100% match between the source
and the target versions.
Load difference:
American source version: Spanish target version:
Community-and-institutions + visual + Visual + sound elements
sound elements
Cognitive environment and effects on the American audience:
• Existing assumptions:
1. Families usually gather for dinner to celebrate Thanksgiving.
2. It is not unusual for a taxi driver to open the door for an elderly person.
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3. The music is from We Gather Together to Ask the Lord’s Blessing, a hymn that is
traditional on Thanksgiving Day.

• Contextual assumptions:
1. Marge’s mother turns up at her daughter’s to have dinner with her family.
2. The taxi driver gets out of his car to open a door for her, but she gets out through
another one.
3. There is music.

• Cognitive effects:
1. Contextual assumption 1 reinforces existing assumption 1 (families gather).
2. Part of contextual assumption 2 reinforces existing assumption 2 (the possibility
that a taxi driver gets out to open the door for an elderly person).
3. Contextual implications:
In view of existing assumption 2 and contextual assumption 2, it is surprising that
the woman ignores the taxi driver’s gesture.
In combination with existing assumption 3, contextual assumption 3 produces sat-
isfaction (the background music is the hymn).
The combination of existing assumption 2 and contextual assumptions 2 and 3
makes for a disparity between the action seen and the music that the audience hears.
Comment:
This joke remains successful in the target version because it plays both on visual ele-
ments (grandmother ignores the taxi driver) and sound elements (the music). Since the
visual element does not vary, both existing assumption 2 and contextual assumption 2
are possible in the Spanish version, just like cognitive effects 2 and 3.1. However, in the
American source version, the sound element, being a hymn, also implies a community-
and-institutions element. This element is not realised by the target audience, since the
hymn is unfamiliar to the Spanish viewers. Even so, the sound ensures some measure
of amusement by providing a contrast to what happens on the visual side. To a Span-
ish audience, the music suggests something harmonious, a mood that is broken when
grandmother ignores the taxi driver’s gesture (the cognitive effect 3.3).
 294 2005. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology. Volume 13: 4

Quantitative material
There were 365 items that I identified as jokes. Of these, 264 (72.3%) belong
to Group 1, while 101 (27.7%) fall in Group 2 and, roughly and quantitatively
speaking, were rendered as follows:
Out of these 101 jokes, 81 suffered a partial loss of humorous load in the
Spanish version; 6 lost their humorous load totally; 9 had the same degree of
humorous load but with a different content; and for 5, the load was increased.
Overall, the humorous load of the 365 jokes was diminished in the Spanish
version in 22.2% of the cases. In the same terms, only 1.7% of the renditions con-
tained no humorous element at all, whereas 1.4% had a higher humorous load
than did the original English.
In sum, only 14.4% of all the elements that had a potential for producing
humour in the source texts were not realised in the Spanish target texts. These
instances comprised primarily community-and-institutions, community-sense-
of-humour, and graphic elements.

Conclusions and tendencies

The most obvious conclusion from my analysis is that in the selected audio-
visual sample, most humour is translatable, as is shown by the small percent-
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ages of diminished humorous load in the target versions.

Secondly, the analysis shows the importance of having shared background
knowledge - existing assumptions - between the source- and target-language
audiences. This also highlights the crucial role of translators as mediators: the
be�er they are at identifying intercultural barriers, the be�er the inferential
process, and very likely the more successful their translation.
Thirdly, the study confirms that translation of humour in audiovisual texts
is a line of work of its own, since it demands that translators render sets of hu-
morous elements that interact in ways that do not co-exist in other genres or
discourses.
Fourthly, rather than restricting translators, visual components o�en contrib-
ute to a be�er understanding of target texts. Accordingly, it might be advisable
to vary the approach with which audiovisual translation is usually analysed
and to cast doubt on the notion of the image as a restrictive factor, at least quan-
titatively.
The categorisation of humorous elements in this study has proved useful for
se�ing up a means for gauging and quantifying humorous elements, their ren-
ditions, and their occurrence and nature in source texts and translations. It is
worthwhile noting that even when the form and the content of a target humor-
ous element is different from the one it corresponds to in the source version, it
may still have comical potential – o�en reduced but occasionally improved – in
terms of humorous load.
Overall, the study shows that there is a clear tendency to convey the humour
in the jokes, which is accomplished, mainly, by rendering the same humorous
elements in the target version. In so far as the humorous load is diminished, it
appears that translators strive to make the reduction (‘loss’) minimal. This un-
willingness to accept a total absence of humorous load in target texts shows
that they give high priority to the translation of humour. It also indicates that
most humorous and cultural elements are translatable. A�er all, the percentage
 Martínez-Sierra. Translating Audiovisual Humour. A Case Study. 295

of source texts jokes for which the humorous load was not rendered at all was
1.7% – and the load actually increased for 1.4% of the jokes.
Other identified tendencies included the following: The Simpsons’ humour
is compound humour in terms of humorous load, and the intention to keep that
same type of compound humour in the translated version is evident; even though
dubbing is the dominant translational practice for the series, there should be
li�le hesitation to resort to subtitling in order to maintain the humour; there is also
a tendency toward the use of foreignising solutions; and, finally, the preceding
tendency entails another one, to avoid the use of community-and-institutions and
community-sense-of-humour elements specific to the target cultural system.

Future Perspectives
The results call for reception studies to confirm whether the quantitative re-
duction of humorous load in the target version also implies a qualitative reduc-
tion in the humorous effect on the audience.
The results also justify additional descriptive studies to falsify, revise, or con-
firm the generalising validity of the tendencies I have identified, for use in other
audiovisual corpora and, possibly, to define them as translational norms.
A further descriptive study might explore the tendencies that depend on
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whether humorous elements appear alone or in combination with others.

Finally, I also want to emphasise the idea of developing a comparative, dia-
chronic study that focuses on whether the humour in the series has changed
and the ways in which translators have dealt with it.
Notes
1. I prefer the term ‘element’ to ‘joke’, because a joke may comprise several ‘elements’.
I suggest that we can easily distinguish between simple jokes (with one element) and
compound jokes (with two or more elements).
2. For this category, I use Chaume’s terminology (2004). He refers to wri�en language
that appears on the screen. I understand that we may receive humour from the merging
of visual and wri�en components.
3. Díaz-Cintas (2001) has a fine discussion of the sound category, in which he seems to
include paralinguistic information.
4. Although certain types of elements (‘content elements’) can convey meaning and pro-
duce humor by themselves, others (‘vehicular elements’) o�en function as vehicles of
meaning for the former, although they may also produce humor on their own. In the
content group, we find the non-marked, community-and-institutions, and community-
sense-of-humor categories (all directly connected with the cultural context). The other
elements are located within the vehicular group.

Works cited
Chaume, Frederic. 2003. Doblatge i subtitulació per a la TV. Vic: Eumo.
Chaume, Frederic. 2004. Cine y tradución. Madrid: Cátedra.
Díaz-Cintas, Jorge. 2001. Aspectos semióticos en la subtitulación de situaciones cómicas.
In: Pajares, Eterio & Raquel Merino & José M. Santamaría (eds.). Trasvases Culturales:
Literatura, Cine, Traducción 3. Vitoria: Euskal Herriko Unibertsitatea. 119-130.
Fuentes, Adrián. 2001. La recepción del humor audiovisual traducido: estudio compara-
tivo de fragmentos de las versiones doblada y subtitulada al español de la película
Duck Soup, de los hermanos Marx. [PhD thesis. University of Granada].
Poyatos, Fernando. 1995. Paralanguage and extrasomatic and environmental sounds in
literary translation: Perspectives and problems. TextconText 1. 25-45.
Samovar, Larry A. & Richard E. Porter (eds.). 1997. Intercultural Communication. New
York: Wadsworth & Peter Lang.
Zabalbeascoa, Patrick. 1993. Developing Translation Studies to Be�er Account for Au-
diovisual Texts and Other New Forms of Text Production. [PhD thesis. University of
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