A Subtitling and Critical Analysis of an Episode from the TV Show Keeping Up Appearances

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.