“I haven’t had that much fun since labour.” Subtitling sarco-ironic remarks in Gilmore Girls

The purpose of this study is to explore how the potential cues of spoken sarcasm and irony are transferred into written Finnish subtitles in the American television series Gilmore Girls. The aim is to discover how the use of cuing differs between the English source text and the Finnish target text. The research is conducted through qualitative and quantitative analysis and comparison between the two languages. Three (3) episodes from Gilmore Girls are analysed using the Finnish DVD subtitles and the episodes’ English unofficial transcripts. The sarco-ironic remarks and their translations are identified, and their individual sarco-ironic cues are categorised. The number of cues, the number of cues in each category and the number of cue shifts are compared quantitatively in order to find whether the translator uses less or different cues than the writer of the original source text. The qualitative analysis focuses on the cue types used in both texts. The results confirmed the hypothesis of sarcasm and irony being relatively straightforward linguistic phenomena to translate, and the hypothesis of the category of words of reinforcement/trivialising being the most used in conveying sarcasm and irony. However, the study also showed that even though some cues were cut in the translation process, the sarco-ironic meaning was rarely omitted entirely from the translation. The findings also showed that the number of cue shifts was surprisingly low. From these results we can deduce that at least in the context of DVD subtitles, sarcasm and irony can be conveyed also in writing, and even though some cues were omitted or shifted, sarcasm and irony were still detectable in the Finnish subtitles. The language used in DVD translations uses less cues of sarcasm and irony and it could thus be considered less versatile than the original source language.

Learning English is Fun! Incidental vocabulary acquisition of music and traditional class ninth graders via listening to pop songs

Finnish youth are constantly exposed to music and lyrics in English in their free time. It is likely that this has a positive effect on vocabulary learning. Learning vocabulary while simultaneously accompanied with melodies is likely to result in better learning outcomes. The present thesis covers a study on the vocabulary learning of traditional and music class ninth graders in a south-western upper comprehensive school in Finland, mainly concentrating on vocabulary learning as a by-product of listening to pop music and learning vocabulary through semantic priming. The theoretical background presents viable linguistic arguments and theories, which provide clarity for why it would be possible to learn English vocabulary via listening to pop songs. There is conflicting evidence on the benefits of music on vocabulary learning, and this thesis sets out to shed light on the situation. Additionally, incorporating pop music in English classes could assist in decreasing the gap between real world English and school English. The thesis is a mixed method research study consisting of both quantitative and qualitative research materials. The methodology comprises vocabulary tests both before and after pop music samples and a background questionnaire filled by students. According to the results, all students reported liking listening to music and they clearly listened to English pop music the most. A statistically significant difference was found when analysing the results of the differences in pre- and post-vocabulary tests. However, the traditional class appeared to listen to mainstream pop music more than the students in the music class, and thus it seems likely that the traditional class benefited more from vocabulary learning occurring via listening to pop songs. In conclusion, it can be established that it is possible to learn English vocabulary via listening to pop songs and that students wish their English lectures would involve more music-related vocabulary exercises in the future. Thus, when it comes to school learning, pop songs should be utilised in vocabulary learning, which could also in turn result in more diverse learning and the students could, more easily than before, relate to the themes and topics of the lectures. Furthermore, with the help of pop songs it would be possible to decrease the gap between school English and real-world English.