Translation of humor in English TV situation comedies into Thai

Abstract

This dissertation examines ten American sitcom episodes broadcast with Thai subtitles on cable TV in Thailand with an aim to study characteristics of sitcom humor and examine translation methods and translation problems that impede the transfer of sitcom humor from English into Thai. The result of the study shows that sitcom humor exhibits two major characteristics: superiority and incongruity. The incongruity characteristic can be further divided into two types: language incongruity and non-language incongruity. The language incongruity includes a) linguistic incongruity, and b) pragmatic incongruity. The non-language incongruity includes a) intertextual incongruity, b) natural incongruity, c) character incongruity, d) social incongruity, and e) multimodal incongruity. Each of these humor characteristics is realized through different humor techniques, 47 of which are found in the study. Most humorous items, regardless of the humor characteristics, are translated into Thai with the communicative translation method, focusing on communicating the source text meanings with the natural and oral forms of the target language. Some items are translated with the faithful translation method, putting more emphasis on following the forms of the source language. According to a sample of Thai and American viewers’ perception, 24% of humorous items are not translated successfully as a joke into Thai. Three main translation problems are found: a) loss of humor characteristics, b) downgrading of humor characteristics, and c) inoperative humor characteristics.