Dottorato in STUDI IN LETTERATURE, LINGUA E TRADUZIONE
INGLESE

Titolo della tesi: Italian subtitling solutions for English-language stand-up comedy

Stand-up comedy can be regarded as an audiovisual text given its increased availability on streaming services. Despite not receiving much scholarly attention, stand-up performances are characterised by different features on a structural and artistic level that can prove challenging in the context of interlingual translation. As broadcast stand-up comedy encompasses well-known issues and restrictions in translation studies, humour studies, and audiovisual translation, this dissertation is concerned with a qualitative study of selected performances to assess the variables involved in its translation. In order to do so, this work focuses on the humour and translation strategies employed in broadcast stand-up comedy performances, taking into account how the jokes are delivered, how the build-up and punchlines impact the translation and specifically subtitling of the texts. To ultimately discuss the translation of broadcast stand-up comedy in a system of priorities and restrictions (Zabalbeascoa 1999), the dissertation adopts an interdisciplinary theoretical progression, in order to answer the following research questions: 1) What are the audiovisual elements present in the performances? 2) Are there textual features specific to stand-up jokes? Do stand-up texts and sit-coms have humorous techniques in common? 3) What are the circumstances in which the subtitled texts are produced, and how do they impact their Italian translation? The first research question is addressed in Chapter 2, which include examples to showcase a varied range of audiovisual techniques employed by different performers, in the form of props, stage décor, and demeanour of the performer. The relationship between the audio channel and the visual channel, semiotically, is discussed following audiovisual codes (Delabastita 1989), with a visual representation of broadcast stand-up comedy on a mapping plane (Zabalbeascoa 2008). Chapter 2 ultimately demonstrates that stand-up comedy is not exclusively audioverbal. The second research question is answered in Chapter 3. Chaining and hooking are proposed as concepts to define humour as a textual device for topic transitioning, and their presence is observed in both the stand-up special and the sit-com to assess the nuanced relationship between humour and narrative. This analysis was carried out following a model of linguistic humour theory that combines the seminal contributions of Nash (1985) and Attardo (2017), with a stand-up special by Ricky Gervais (Humanity, 2018) and a sit-com by the same author (The Office, 2003-2005) being the object of the analysis. The third research question, on the subtitling of the performances, is addressed in Chapter 4, in which examples from six different performances are discussed to observe varied translation mechanisms and solutions in a highly prescriptive context. This context is reconstructed by combining verbalised prescriptions (in the form of subtitling guidelines by Netflix and theoretical models for subtitle assessment). By combining both reconstructed prescriptions and a qualitative inquiry on the Italian subtitling of jokes, Chapter 4 collects relevant information on the restrictions that influence the Italian subtitling of broadcast stand-up comedy. The dissertation concludes with a profiling of the translation variables in a system of priorities and restrictions (Zabalbeascoa 1993, 1999). The reconstruction of priorities and restrictions is made possible by the results presented in Chapter 2, 3 and 4, along with specific instances of audiovisual humour discussed in Chapter 5 and 6. In particular, Chapter 6 includes two sets of priorities and restrictions (respectively before and after considering the subtitling of audiovisual humour), which demonstrates the relevance of an interdisciplinary approach to audiovisual humour translation (AVHT).