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Translating Humour

Teaching Staff: Tsigou Maria
Course Code: YE-9506
Gram-Web Code: ΓΠ0851
Course Category: Specific Background
Course Type: Compulsory Elective
Course Level: Undergraduate
Course Language: Greek
Semester: Any Spring
ECTS: 2
Total Hours: 2
Erasmus: Not Available

Translating Humour
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Short Description:

This course studies and analyzes humoristic texts based on two theories of humor and their translation from Greek to English and / or French and vice versa. The course focuses on certain types of humoristic texts, such as comics, cartoons, subtitles of films, presenting particular translation difficulties. The training of the students consists in developing their capacity to translate humoristic text in the best possible way.

Objectives - Learning Outcomes:

Upon successful completion of the course, the student should be able to:

recognize particular lexical, syntactic and pragmatic phenomena (puns, special comments, irony, etc.) which characterize the humoristic text, based on the principles of humor theories
distinguish the humoristic variety of the text for each language
manage pragmatic elements with a humoristic essence in comics, cartoons, movies etc
use a variety of translation techniques to convey humorous elements to the target language
translate a variety of humoristic texts from Greek to the target language
develop the capacity to find appropriate and equivalent expressions of humor

Syllabus:

Week 1

Presentation of the principles of the basic theories of humor.

Week 2

Study and analysis of cartoons and identification of the humorous elements. Translation practice from Greek into English and French.

Week 3

Study and analysis of English and French cartoons and identification of the humorous elements. Translation practice from English and French into Greek.

Week 4

Study and analysis of an excerpt from a Greek comic and the identification of humorous elements. Translation practice from Greek into English and French.

Week 5

Study and analysis of an excerpt from a French comic and its comparison with the English, German and Greek translations. Critical approach of the quality of translating parallel texts taking in account the cultural differences of humor.

Week 6

Study and analysis of a new excerpt from a French comic and its comparison with the English, German and Greek translations. Critical approach of the quality of translating parallel texts taking in account the respective cultural differences of humor.

Week 7

Week 8

Week 9

Review and discussion of the translation techniques used in previous weeks.

Week 10

Study and analysis of the humor of an English or French film and critical approach of the Greek subtitles.

Week 11

Study and analysis of the humor of an English or French film and critical approach of the Greek subtitles.

Week 12

Conclusions on the principal translation techniques used in subtitling humor.

Week 13

Review of all the translation techniques used in the humorous texts analyzed during the course and discussion on the translation difficulties due to cultural differences

Suggested Bibliography:

Attardo S. (1994). Linguistic Theories of Humor. Brlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Raskin V. (1979). Semantic Mechanisms of Humor. Proceedings of the Fifth Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society. 325-335.

Γαβριηλίδου, Ζ. & Τσάκωνα, Β. (2004-2005). Οι χιουμοριστικοί μηχανισμοί στα κόμικς: ανάλυση της σειράς ιστοριών του Αστερίξ. Γλωσσολογία. 16. 145-165.

Teaching Methods:

Face to face teaching. This is a two hours a week course and it is conducted in Greek. During the course three lectures are given for the theoretical principles and the remaining weeks are dedicated to the students' practice. All material is web based.

New Technologies:

Use of ICT in teaching.

Evaluation Methods:

Students are assessed based on their participation in the teaching process and their performance during the relevant exercises throughout the term. The final assessment and grading of the course will be held through an obligatory term paper, in which the students are expected to use and develop the term’s learning material (lecture notes and exercises).

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