Humour in Audiovisual Translation: New Girl as a case study

This thesis focuses on the challenges involved in translating humour within the field of audiovisual translation (AVT). Specifically, it examines the Italian subtitled version of the American sitcom New Girl (2011, Meriwether, USA), focusing on the strategies used to convey humour across the two languages and cultures involved. The study is structured into three main chapters, each outlining a particular aspect of the analysis: the first is an introduction to the field of audiovisual translation and its many modalities, focusing on the distinctive characteristics of subtitling, and presenting the translation strategies proposed by key scholars in the field. The second chapter explores culture-related challenges in translation, with particular attention to humour as a cultural element and the various strategies that can be employed to render comedic effect in translation. Lastly, the third and concluding chapter covers the actual analysis, presenting selected examples from New Girl in order to illustrate how humorous elements have been translated into Italian subtitles, attempting to assess the effectiveness of the translation choices.