Rendering Satire in Dubbing vs. Subtitling: A Case Study of the Arabic Translation of the American Sitcom The Simpsons

Abstract

This study investigates translation strategies used to render satire of the American animated sitcom The Simpsons from American English into Modern Standard Arabic (Subtitling) and Egyptian vernacular (Dubbing). Besides, it attempts to unveil the contribution of language variety and translation modality in rendering satire. The study draws on Simpson’s (2003) stylistic model of satirical humour for understanding and analyzing satire. Furthermore, it adopts Mateo’s (1995) taxonomy to highlight the strategies used in dubbing and subtitling satire. Applying these two models helps in examining the issues posed by the nature of satire and the shifts in the configuration of satire when rendered from English into Arabic and the effectiveness of these shifts.

The findings of the study show that the socio-cultural nature of satire poses a serious challenge for translators. Furthermore, it has proved that subtitling tends to use the literal translation strategy to render satire in instances that share the same background of the source text and has failed in dealing with sociocultural based ones. Conversely, it was observed that dubbing tends to utilize the equivalent effect strategy, which proved to be sufficient when adapting sociocultural elements of satire. Finally, language variety and translation modality seemed to govern the efficiency of rendering satire in translation into Arabic.