A Translation and Critical Analysis of an Excerpt of Finlay Christie’s Stand-up Comedy Special “OK, Zoomer”

Abstract

This dissertation consists of the subtitling of a stand-up comedy special, and an accompanying critical analysis. The stand-up comedy presents a humorous perspective on the lives of young people. This dissertation focuses on humor translation. The first chapter introduces the chosen source text and discusses details of the translation brief that have been followed in subtitling this clip. The second chapter is divided into three major subsections. First, it introduces the theoretical framework that has provided a detailed view of humor analysis that has anchored this translation. The second subsection focuses on translating culture-based humor. It considers the difficulty in recognizing cultural references made in humorous jokes and explores how humor can be manipulated to fit a certain context. The final subsection focuses on translating language-based humor and examines the different ways in which it has manifested in wordplays and taboos. It looks at how the degree of difference between two languages and cultures can pose issues in translation.