Translation of humour in the English subtitles of two Malaysian Chinese films / Tu Kah Yee

This study attempts to investigate humour translation in two Malaysian Chinese New Year films: Woohoo! and The Journey. There are two objectives of this study: i) to find out the translation strategies used in subtitling humour into English subtitles, and ii) to analyse whether the humour in the fil...

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Main Author: Tu , Kah Yee
Format: Thesis
Published: 2020
Subjects:
Online Access:http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/12722/
http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/12722/1/Tu_Kah_Yee.pdf
http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/12722/2/Tu_Kah_Yee.pdf
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author Tu , Kah Yee
author_facet Tu , Kah Yee
author_sort Tu , Kah Yee
building UM Research Repository
collection Online Access
description This study attempts to investigate humour translation in two Malaysian Chinese New Year films: Woohoo! and The Journey. There are two objectives of this study: i) to find out the translation strategies used in subtitling humour into English subtitles, and ii) to analyse whether the humour in the films is effectively translated into English subtitles. Chiaro’s (2010) strategies for subtitling verbally expressed humour (VEH) are adopted to analyse the strategies employed in subtitling humour. The results of the study show that leaving the humour unchanged and ignoring the humour are the two most common strategies used in subtitling humour in the selected films. Moreover, it is found that for some humorous instances, a combination of strategies is used to translate the humour. The findings also reveal that some subtitling strategies are more commonly used in translating certain types of humour. To answer the second research question, Martínez_Sierra’s (2006) methodology is adopted to investigate the effectiveness of the translation of humour by analysing the humorous elements found in the source language and the target language. The findings show that humorous elements are preserved, changed or lost in the English subtitles. In addition, the findings reveal that humour that is generated based on linguistic elements is the most difficult type to translate.
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institution University Malaya
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last_indexed 2025-11-14T14:02:44Z
publishDate 2020
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spelling um-127222021-12-14T19:22:00Z Translation of humour in the English subtitles of two Malaysian Chinese films / Tu Kah Yee Tu , Kah Yee P Philology. Linguistics This study attempts to investigate humour translation in two Malaysian Chinese New Year films: Woohoo! and The Journey. There are two objectives of this study: i) to find out the translation strategies used in subtitling humour into English subtitles, and ii) to analyse whether the humour in the films is effectively translated into English subtitles. Chiaro’s (2010) strategies for subtitling verbally expressed humour (VEH) are adopted to analyse the strategies employed in subtitling humour. The results of the study show that leaving the humour unchanged and ignoring the humour are the two most common strategies used in subtitling humour in the selected films. Moreover, it is found that for some humorous instances, a combination of strategies is used to translate the humour. The findings also reveal that some subtitling strategies are more commonly used in translating certain types of humour. To answer the second research question, Martínez_Sierra’s (2006) methodology is adopted to investigate the effectiveness of the translation of humour by analysing the humorous elements found in the source language and the target language. The findings show that humorous elements are preserved, changed or lost in the English subtitles. In addition, the findings reveal that humour that is generated based on linguistic elements is the most difficult type to translate. 2020-05 Thesis NonPeerReviewed application/pdf http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/12722/1/Tu_Kah_Yee.pdf application/pdf http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/12722/2/Tu_Kah_Yee.pdf Tu , Kah Yee (2020) Translation of humour in the English subtitles of two Malaysian Chinese films / Tu Kah Yee. Masters thesis, Universiti Malaya. http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/12722/
spellingShingle P Philology. Linguistics
Tu , Kah Yee
Translation of humour in the English subtitles of two Malaysian Chinese films / Tu Kah Yee
title Translation of humour in the English subtitles of two Malaysian Chinese films / Tu Kah Yee
title_full Translation of humour in the English subtitles of two Malaysian Chinese films / Tu Kah Yee
title_fullStr Translation of humour in the English subtitles of two Malaysian Chinese films / Tu Kah Yee
title_full_unstemmed Translation of humour in the English subtitles of two Malaysian Chinese films / Tu Kah Yee
title_short Translation of humour in the English subtitles of two Malaysian Chinese films / Tu Kah Yee
title_sort translation of humour in the english subtitles of two malaysian chinese films / tu kah yee
topic P Philology. Linguistics
url http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/12722/
http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/12722/1/Tu_Kah_Yee.pdf
http://studentsrepo.um.edu.my/12722/2/Tu_Kah_Yee.pdf