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UM E-Theses Collection (澳門大學電子學位論文庫)

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Title

On translation of Cantonese humour to English : a case study of the subtitles in the animated film Mcdull, Prince de la Bun

English Abstract

The perception of humour is highly individual, while the appreciation of humour differs from person to person in the same culture, not to mention people from different cultures. Native Cantonese speakers are keen to appreciate a unique type of Cantonese humour, namely "Mou Lei Tau," however, whether such kind of humour can also be appreciated by the English speakers is still questionable. There have been studies on the translation of humour in movies subtitles. However, few studies have been conducted on the translation of Cantonese humour into English subtitles, especially in the genre of animated cartoons like one of the very few Hong Kong animation productions Mcdull, Prince de la Bun, in terms of the quality of humour from English-speaking viewers' perspective. In the present study, the viewers' responses were gathered for quantitative and qualitative analyses by means of two self-designed survey questionnaires. The subtitles are analysed with Zabalbeascoa's classification of joke types, techniques for the translation of wordplay/puns advocated by Delabastita and Newmark's semantic and communicative translation strategies. The results indicate that the humorous effect brought about by the English subtitles appears to be slightly less satisfactory than that produced by the Cantonese original. Moreover, the ten examples extracted from the movie for analysis mainly compose of three types of jokes; six of them are translated communicatively, while the remaining four, semantically. In terms of translation methods, "Pun to Non-pun" is used most frequently. Possible factors influencing the results of this research are also be discussed. Keywords: Cantonese humour, "Mou Lei Tau," classification of jokes, translation methods, wordplay, puns, translation strategies

Issue date

2016.

Author

Kong, Kuan Wai

Faculty
Faculty of Arts and Humanities (former name: Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities)
Department
Department of English
Degree

M.A.

Subject

Motion pictures -- Titling

Motion pictures -- Translating -- Hong Kong -- Case studies

Motion pictures -- Translations into English

Supervisor

Wang, Xian

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Location
1/F Zone C
Library URL
991001642489706306