NATIONAL ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT OF BUSINESS ENGLISH Hanoi, April 2023 NATIONAL ECONOMICS UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES DEPARTMENT OF BUSINESS ENGLISH Supervisor: M. Le Thu Huong Hanoi, April 2023 Nguyễn Thanh Tú — 11195556 — Business English 61A ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Throughout the process of writing this graduation thesis, I've run across lexical issues as well as difficulties in expression. However, with the guidance, encouragement, and support of my supervisor, family, and friends, I was able to overcome these obstacles. Firstly, I want to express my gratitude to my supervisor, MA.
Le Thu Huong has supported me not only with many important recommendations and comments but also with many valuable materials. Without her helpful guidance, I would not be able to complete this important paper. Secondly, thanks to my friends and teammates, for their advice and encouragement during my writing process because they are faithfully willing to answer my questions and provide me with useful information to complete this thesis. Last but not least, I would like to express my gratefulness to my parents who always support and create good conditions for me to attentively complete this graduation paper.
Nguyễn Thanh Tú — 11195556 — Business English 61A EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Because of the linguistic and cultural barriers between the two languages, humor is a translation problem that is both interesting and challenging for a translator. A successful humor translation can not only convey a message but also evoke laughter in the audience. Humor is a difficult element to translate, but it is quite common in movie subtitles, particularly in comedies. The study comments on the tendency of Business English fourth-year students at National Economics University to translate humorous elements and the factors influencing their decision based on specific research on humor in 10 episodes selected from the series "How I met your mother." The research results were analyzed based on the questionnaire responses of 100 final-year students of the Business English Department from National Economics University.
Data analysis provides research findings for the three factors listed below. Popular humor categories. All five types of humor are used in the series “How I met your mother” but with different frequencies. Humor translation strategy application.
The student’s choice of translation method varies according to the type of humor and the complexity of the language. Factors influencing humor translation choice. Each translation method has different groups of influencing factors with varying degrees of influence. Nguyễn Thanh Tú — 11195556 — Business English 61A LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Abbreviations Meaning NEU National Economics University BE Business English SL source language TL target language HT Humor translation HIMYM How I met your mother 1 Nguyễn Thanh Tú — 11195556 — Business English 61A LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1.
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Factors influencing the fourth-year students of BE department at li 100v: 0((-:20. 26 11 Nguyễn Thanh Tú — 11195556 — Business English 61A TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMA RYY.04 04006 i LIST OF ABBREVIA TIONS. (GỌI ngu g0 ii LIST OF FIGURES .9104010000008098898 86 iii CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION. Research QU€SÍÏOIS.
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Factors that influence the choice of HT strategies. - -- 9 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS. Popular types of humor in 10 selected episodes of the series H002. Strategies that the fourth-year students of BE department at NEU apply to translate those humorous elements into Vietnamese.o cọc Ọ Họ TH T000.
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The limitation of the research. Recommendation for further sfUÏÏ€S.s5- <5 5< 55s sessse<se 29 REEERENCES.o GHI HH CC HH 0.00005000000150 30 APPENDIX 1: CATEGORIES OF HUMOR IN 10 SELECTED EPISODES OF THE SERIES “HIMYM” .cssssssssssscsssssscsscscssecsecscesessscssssecssssssesssseese 32 Nguyễn Thanh Tú — 11195556 — Business English 61A CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1. Background As a result of the rapidly increasing ways of international communication, people from different nations can simply communicate with each other. In cross- cultural communications, culture plays an important role in effective communication because cultural diversity has produced differences in terms of languages.
Moreover, in the era of globalization, people are easily exposed to various cultures all over the world through the influence of multimedia. Films, one of the most accessible forms of media, can portray the cultural aspects of a country. Films are also a kind of communication for the screenwriter to tell people about his/her ideas and stories. However, the popularity of movies cannot eliminate cultural differences and language barriers between countries.
Comedies are generally well-received for their entertainment, but there are still cultural barriers for foreign viewers to fully understand the humorous elements. Among other sociocultural factors such as geography, history, customs, or rituals, humor is considered a sensitive element in communication. Jokes can be understood differently in different countries. In some circumstances, a joke in one country can be unintelligible or inappropriate in another.
One strategy for bridging cultural distance and improving understanding in international communication is translation. As digital technology progresses, people have three methods of audiovisual translation including subtitling, dubbing, and voice-overing. Subtitling humor creates many obstacles for novice translators. Without verbal expression, the words chosen by the translator not only indicate the semantic aspect but also convey the humor of the sentence.
Generally, humor translation requires translators to use different translation techniques, which is not competent for translation beginners. Rationale The success of a comedy largely depends on how well its humor can spread laughter to the audience. Foreign audiences who do not have much knowledge of English are heavily dependent on translations to understand the film’s content. Therefore, satisfactory subtitling not only states the semantic content of the dialogue but also conveys the speaker's thoughts, and the emotions that the screenwriter wants to evoke in the listener.
Specifically, the humorous element is expected to bring laughter to audiences and show its messages such as 1 Nguyễn Thanh Tú — 11195556 — Business English 61A sarcasm or irony. Moreover, the comedy lines also reveal the character's personality. Each character in comedy has unique personality traits, so their humor-related expressions are generally diverse. However, humor is culture-specific, so in some circumstances, it cannot be simply translated word by word for foreign audiences to understand.
It is easier for translators to do their jobs if they are familiar with the foreign culture of the film. Cultural diversity causes a lack of terms, and differences in metaphors make it difficult to render some humorous lines. HT also requires translators to understand the communication context and the hidden purposes of the speaker. Therefore, it is necessary for translators to analyze the humor lines and consider suitable translation strategies for different situations.
If the humor cannot be fully conveyed, it may cause viewers confusion or misinterpretation of the film's content. Generally, HT in subtitling is a big challenge for translators, especially for beginners. They lack in-depth cultural understanding and experience in dealing with various types of HT. All of these factors influenced the researcher's decision to pursue the topic "A study on Translation Strategies of Humor in Subtitling the series “How I met your mother”.
Research questions In order to achieve the research purposes, the following questions are addressed. What are the popular types of humor in 10 selected episodes of the series “HIMYM”? b. How do the fourth-year students of the Business English Department at National Economics University apply translation strategies to translate those humorous elements into Vietnamese? c. What are the factors influencing their HT strategy choices? 4.
Scope of the research In the process of making subtitles, translators may have to deal with humorous lines regardless of the genre of the film. In particular, in comedies, the frequency of humorous dialogues is denser than in other film genres. Because of time limitations, this study only focuses on analyzing how the fourth-year students of the BE Department at NEU apply translation strategies of humor in 2 Nguyễn Thanh Tú — 11195556 — Business English 61A subtitling. Additionally, those humorous elements appear in 10 selected episodes of the comedy series “HIMYM”.
Methodology In order to approach the research questions, the study applies the following methodology. Data collection Observation of documents This research selects 10 highest-rated episodes of the series as judged by the film review website Imdb. The characteristic of the subject that this research focuses on is the humorous elements in this comedy; therefore, the use of purposive sampling enables the exploration of this feature in particular. A data-collecting activity involves collecting and categorizing humorous elements from 10 selected episodes of the series “HIMYM”.
The process of categorizing humorous elements is based on the framework of previous studies which are proposed in the next chapter. Concerning the typology of humor used in the selected videos, the model of Tengku (2020) will be used to differentiate various types of humor present. Questionnaire The main advantages of questionnaires are that they can save time and money for researchers because a large amount of data can be gathered at once and generate greater honesty among participants without fear that their information will be leaked thanks to anonymity compared to interviews, according to Cohen, Manion & Morrison (2000). However, due to a large number of participants, some might not return the questionnaire to the researcher.
This issue can be resolved by close administration of questionnaires to bring about a high response rate to enhance accuracy and reliability for the results of the research. The purpose of the questionnaire in this paper is to measure the reception of 100 fourth-year BE students at NEU to humor translation requirements to find out whether they prefer a humor translation strategy to the other in dealing with different types of humor and various linguistic features. The researcher conducts a questionnaire survey, whose participants are 100 fourth-year students of the BE Department at NEU. Due to personal connection, questionnaires will be delivered, and data will be collected faster.
3 Nguyễn Thanh Tú — 11195556 — Business English 61A Moreover, the series targets young adults who are trying to establish themselves in society and find the love of their life, similar to the main characters throughout the nine seasons. As a matter of fact, fourth-year students mostly aged 22 and above, belong to the main segment of the target audience. Therefore, the questionnaire participants satisfy the requirement of falling into the age group of the target audience. Both males and females will be included in the survey without bias.
Based on the list of humorous elements collected from 10 selected episodes of the series “HIMYM”, the questionnaire provides 10 samples of humorous text for the participants to render. In each previously synthesized humor group, the study selects 2 dialogues to serve as translation samples.