From &quot;Five and Ten in Woolworth&quot; to &quot;Negen Jaar in Tienhoven&quot;: An Analysis of the Dutch Translation of the Puns and Wordplay in the Marx Brothers Movies

In my thesis I analyzed the Dutch subtitles of the puns and wordplay in Duck Soup and several examples from other Marx Brothers movies. I used two different criteria to examine the Dutch subtitles. The first was: does the subtitler manage to come up with a translation that remains true to the absurdism of the Marx Brothers’ humor, to the characters, and to the time in which the movies were made? The second was based on Dimitris Asimakoulas’s ‘ideal translation’: a translation that remains faithful to all aspects of the General Theory of Verbal Humor. What my analysis has shown, on the basis of the two above-mentioned criteria, is that the subtitler frequently managed to come up with a translation that retained the absurdism of the humor and remained faithful to the time in which the movies were made, but that the subtitles do not remain faithful to the individual characterizations. Furthermore, in this thesis I also argued that a successful translation does not have to remain...Show moreIn my thesis I analyzed the Dutch subtitles of the puns and wordplay in Duck Soup and several examples from other Marx Brothers movies. I used two different criteria to examine the Dutch subtitles. The first was: does the subtitler manage to come up with a translation that remains true to the absurdism of the Marx Brothers’ humor, to the characters, and to the time in which the movies were made? The second was based on Dimitris Asimakoulas’s ‘ideal translation’: a translation that remains faithful to all aspects of the General Theory of Verbal Humor. What my analysis has shown, on the basis of the two above-mentioned criteria, is that the subtitler frequently managed to come up with a translation that retained the absurdism of the humor and remained faithful to the time in which the movies were made, but that the subtitles do not remain faithful to the individual characterizations. Furthermore, in this thesis I also argued that a successful translation does not have to remain faithful to all elements of the General Theory of Verbal Humor. My thesis question “What makes for the ‘best’ translation of the puns and wordplay in the Marx Brothers movies, considering they rely heavily on puns and wordplay” can thus be answered as follows: a successful translation does not have to be a literal translation of the puns and wordplay or remain faithful to the aspects of the General Theory of Verbal Humor, but it should remain faithful to the characteristic absurdism of the Marx Brothers’ humor, to the time in which the movies were made, and to the personality of the characters.Show less

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From "Five and Ten in Woolworth" to "Negen Jaar in Tienhoven": An Analysis of the Dutch Translation of the Puns and Wordplay in the Marx Brothers Movies