ABSTRACT
Humoristic discourse is highly culture-sensitive. Its translation becomes a complex process of juggling a plethora of issues and disciplines: semiotics, pragmatics, cultural references, faithfulness, taboos and all the limitations they impose on humour translation. As such, humour is tied up with identity, and cultural differences and/or similarities influence perception of humour across cultures. Deploying the techniques of Vinay and Darbelnet (1958), this chapter empirically analyses the translations of a corpus of audiovisual material from stand-up comedies by Andreu Buenafuente for Spanish, Dani Boon for French and Robin Williams for English. The chapter investigates the specificities of audiovisual humoristic texts and the difficulties that emerge during the translation of such texts. The texts will be studied from a pragmatic perspective. The method is empirical, based on analysis, empirical logic and observations to bring to light the fundamental characteristics of the translation of audiovisual humoristic texts into Arabic. The chapter provides descriptions of the texts, and explores the possible translations that may convey the intended connotations. The final objective is to assess the possibility of translating this type of text into the Arabic language in consideration of cultural differences, and to highlight the possible strategies applicable to audiovisual humoristic texts in the proposed linguistic combinations.
