Subtitling Wordplay - An Audience Study

Svea Schauffler is a lecturer at the University of Augsburg (Germany). Her research explores audiovisual translation and audience reception. She obtained an PhD as well as an MA degree in Screen Translation from Sheffield University, and a Magister Artium degree in English from the University of Mannheim.

Within the field of translation studies, experimental research is essential, yet rarely undertaken. The research project detailed in this book represents a contribution to a highly relevant area of study in this context - the audience. It investigates the reception of wordplay in English-language films which has been translated (subtitled) into German, taking both source language comprehension and subtitle acceptance into consideration. Two versions of the same film, which are based on two different approaches to wordplay translation, are shown to audiences whose reaction is then documented and analysed. The constrained nature of subtitling as a method of linguistic transfer, as well as the lingua-cultural specificity of wordplay, are the main aspects explored in the study. The results are of interest to the academic field, but are also relevant to the professional practice of translating wordplay.