A Subtitling and Critical Analysis of an Episode from the TV Show Keeping Up Appearances
Date
2023-11-30
Authors
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Journal ISSN
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Publisher
Saudi Digital Library
Abstract
This dissertation discusses the subtitling of an episode of the British sitcom Keeping Up
Appearances, accompanied by a critical analysis of the translation from English to Arabic.
The show revolves around a character called Hyacinth, a controlling and fastidious woman
who tries in many ways to show that she is one of the higher-class members. Due to her
unbearable personality, her neighbours dislike her, and do their best to avoid her. These
incidents are comically presented to the audience.
The translation brief in this dissertation comprises a hypothetical scenario, as the
commissioner is Saudi Arabia’s Thikrayat (“Memories” in English) TV channel, which
announced that starting in 2024, it will broadcast classic English TV shows for two hours per
day.
The analysis is divided into two chapters. Chapter One addresses humour and the challenges
of translating it. Some translation techniques for rendering humour are presented with
examples from the translation project. Finally, this chapter proves what scholars have
argued that humour can be rendered into another language even if linguistic and cultural
differences exist from the examples of the translation project.
Chapter Two discusses the challenges of translation between cultural differences. It starts by
explaining what culture is, how culture affects translation and the importance of
understanding both the source and target cultures when translating for the target audience.
Also discussed, the degree to which the translator should domesticate the source culture or
present it as it is and the challenges posed by this issue. Several strategies for handling the
challenges in rendering cultural differences are offered, followed by examples from the
project that demonstrate the use of these strategies.
Description
A Subtitling and Critical Analysis of an Episode from the TV Show Keeping Up Appearances
Keywords
Subtitling, AVT, Audio-Visual Translation, Humour, Cultural Differences, Critical Analysis, Strategies to Translate Humour, Strategies to deal with Cultural differences
Citation
Chicago author-date