Subtitling Community: Translating and Subtitling NBC’s Community

Abstract

Nowadays, subtitles are omnipresent on television. It is one of the few forms of translated text viewers come across daily. In fact, Dutch viewers spend about five to six hours per week reading subtitles (Koolstra, Peeters, and Spinhof 340). They are often the only way for some people to be able to follow a storyline or interpret a news item and are therefore vital in modern day television. Since the invention of the computer, technological advancements have made the lives of translators easier. However, devices such as Google Translate do not give a satisfactory solution to all translation problems. Certain fields of translation still need human intervention. One of those fields is humour. For instance, computers have not been programmed yet to translate sarcastic or ironic humour. However, there are guidelines and conventions about how to translate humour, which will be discussed in this thesis.

There are multiple elements that a subtitler should keep in mind. For instance, a subtitle should follow the content and rhythm of the spoken text and the viewer should preferably only have to read the subtitle once to understand what it reads (Hoek &Sonépouse). One of the nuisances in subtitles of comedy series in particular, is that the punch line is often already to be read in the subtitles before the actor actually says the words. This can take away a great part of the enjoyment of a series. This particular element bothers many viewers, and it has been the main trigger to write this thesis about subtitling a comedy series. Both the challenges on the socio-cultural level of translation as well as the unique meta-humour in Community made it appealing to choose this particular series as a subject.

In this thesis, I will start off with a theoretical framework, including a description of the different types of AVT, the development of subtitling techniques, the role of humour in subtitling, both a textual and character analysis and an insight in the translation problems encountered during the translation process. A brief conclusion is given, followed by the subtitles of both the translated episodes of Community, fully annotated and including transcripts.