It’s No Laughing Matter: Translating Lingua-Cultural Humour in Asterix in Britain into Sinhala

Abstract

Humour in audio-visual texts, particularly in animation films, plays a pivotal role. They are mainly based on linguistic and lingua-cultural elements. The translators who dub them into the target languages must adopt strategies to successfully transfer the humour. This study examines the strategies employed by translators to translate the humour generated by the lingua-cultural elements in animation films. The English dubbed version of the animation film Asterix in Britain and its Sinhala dubbed version were chosen for the study. This particular film highlights a clash of cultures between Romans, Britons, and Gauls, offering humour to the audience and challenges to the translators. The three strategies proposed by Chiaro (2006) are applied to the analysis of the chosen examples. The study reveals that the translators look for substitutions in the target culture to preserve, at times partially, humorous elements and, in doing so, create new humour absent in the English version. Absence of humour in the target text is also noted. However, compensation strategies applied throughout the film fill this void and keep the target audience entertained.

Keywords

• Animation
• compensation
• dubbed films
• strategies
• substitution

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