Elementos constitutivos do humor em sitcoms: uma análise à luz dos estudos da tradução baseados em corpus

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

The italian translation of allusive jokes from three american sitcoms: A focus group analysis

The translation of allusions has presented an issue for translators, in a trend that has seen a shift in translation studies to a more culture-oriented perspective. “Allusion” is defined by doctor Ritva Leppihalme as a culture-bound element that is expected to convey a meaning that goes beyond the mere words used and can only be accurately translated through knowledge of both the source and target culture. Allusions in comedy, and more specifically, allusive jokes, can pose an additional challenge to translators, since failing to translate them in a satisfactory way, can lead to unfunny and puzzling results that completely miss the original comedic value of the allusion itself. For the purposes of this dissertation, an experiment, based on the one done by doctor Ritva Leppihalme, was conducted: a focus group consisting of eight people from different socio-demographic groups was asked to discuss three comedic scenes, translated in Italian, containing an allusive joke, from three different American sitcoms: Community, The Office, and Superstore. The purpose of this research was to find the best and most effective strategies, according to the average Italian viewer, to translate in Italian allusive jokes from the American culture and the English language. The participants were asked to state if they understood the translated joke, and if they did, to rate how funny they found it, and to discuss among themselves on possible reasons for their responses, and on possible alternative solutions. The results seem to indicate that the best course of action involves choices that stray from a literal translation of the words used, by changing items that need a deeper knowledge of the source culture to be understood and therefore cause hilarity, with items more familiar to the target culture. The worst possible solutions seem to be ones that focus on the literal translation of the words used without considering the cultural and situational context of the allusion.

Crise identitaire : Arrested Development et le portrait d’une sitcom dans le paysage télévisuel contemporain

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Texture, realism, performance: exploring the intersection of transtexts and the contemporary sitcom

Contemporary US sitcom is at an interesting crossroads: it has received an increasing amount of scholarly attention (e.g. Mills 2009; Butler 2010; Newman and Levine 2012; Vermeulen and Whitfield 2013), which largely understands it as shifting towards the aesthetically and narratively complex. At the same time, in the post-broadcasting era, US networks are particularly struggling for their audience share. With the days of blockbuster successes like Must See TV’s Friends (NBC 1994-2004) a distant dream, recent US sitcoms are instead turning towards smaller, engaged audiences. Here, a cult sensibility of intertextual in-jokes, temporal and narrational experimentation (e.g. flashbacks and alternate realities) and self-reflexive performance styles have marked shows including Community (NBC 2009-2015), How I Met Your Mother (CBS 2005-2014), New Girl (Fox 2011-present) and 30 Rock (NBC 2006-2013). However, not much critical attention has so far been paid to how these developments in textual sensibility in contemporary US sitcom may be influenced by, and influencing, the use of transmedia storytelling practices, an increasingly significant industrial concern and rising scholarly field of enquiry (e.g. Jenkins 2006; Mittell 2015; Richards 2010; Scott 2010; Jenkins, Ford and Green 2013). This chapter investigates this mutual influence between sitcom and transmedia by taking as its case studies two network shows that encourage invested viewership through their use of transtexts, namely How I Met Your Mother (hereafter HIMHM) and New Girl (hereafter NG). As such, it will pay particular attention to the most transtextually visible character/actor from each show: HIMYM’s Barney Stinson, played by Neil Patrick Harris, and NG’s Schmidt, played by Max Greenfield. This chapter argues that these sitcoms do not simply have their particular textual sensibility and also (happen to) engage with transmedia practices, but that the two are mutually informing and defining. This chapter explores the relationships and interplay between sitcom aesthetics, narratives and transmedia storytelling (or industrial transtexts), focusing on the use of multiple delivery channels in order to disperse “integral elements of a fiction” (Jenkins, 2006 95-6), by official entities such as the broadcasting channels. The chapter pays due attention to the specific production contexts of both shows and how these inform their approaches to transtexts. This chapter’s conceptual framework will be particularly concerned with how issues of texture, the reality envelope and accepted imaginative realism, as well as performance and the actor’s input inform and illuminate contemporary sitcoms and transtexts, and will be the first scholarly research to do so. It will seek out points of connections between two (thus far) separate strands of scholarship and will move discussions on transtexts beyond the usual genre studied (i.e. science-fiction and fantasy), as well as make a contribution to the growing scholarship on contemporary sitcom by approaching it from a new critical angle. On the basis that transmedia scholarship stands to benefit from widening its customary genre choice (i.e. telefantasy) for its case studies and from making more use of in-depth close analysis in its engagement with transtexts, the chapter argues that notions of texture, accepted imaginative realism and the reality envelope, as well as performance and the actor’s input deserve to be paid more attention to within transtext-related scholarship.

Iowa State Daily (December 9, 2011)

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