I Couldn’t Help But Wonder: Does Fansubbing Or Official Subtitling Do More Justice To S.A.T.C. Bawdy Puns?
I Couldn’t Help But Wonder: Does Fansubbing Or Official Subtitling Do More Justice To S.A.T.C. Bawdy Puns?
Subtitling in Romania, a subbing stronghold surrounded by dubbing countries, is a phenomenon yet to be studied thoroughly by the autochthonous academia. Amateur subtitling or fansubbing, despite its prevalence among the younger generations, has been barely touched upon. What this paper aims to achieve is to shed a light on the manner in which these two audiovisual translation solutions have evolved in this geographic context with a view to highlighting professional and amateur subtitlers’ approach to translating bawdy puns featured in American sitcoms. By drawing parallels between a series of eight vertical and horizontal instances of wordplay based on homonymy, homophony, and paronymy found in several episodes of Sex and the City, this article seeks to test the hypothesis that amateur subtitlers, unburdened as they are by any form of audiovisual regulation, are more likely to produce daring renditions of ribald words and phrases than their official omologues. Through these analyses, this paper also aspires to pave the way for research into this relatively new area of study in the Romanian translation studies literature and to elicit interest in how the autochthonous subtitlers and fansubbers of movies and sitcoms tackle instances of language that bring about moral and translational challenges.
Keywords: bawdy, fansubbing, pun, Romanian, Sex and the City, subtitiling, translation, wordplay.
