THE EFFECTS OF PROSODIC FEATURES ON HUMOR RETENTION: THE EGYPTIAN VERNACULAR VS MODERN STANDARD ARABIC DUBBING OF MONSTERS, INC. AS A CASE STUDY

Abstract

This study aims to investigate the effects of prosodic features on preserving humor in dubbing the American animated movie Monster’s, Inc. from English into Modern Standard Arabic and the Egyptian vernacular. Furthermore, it looks into uncovering the impact of prosodic features on loss or retention of humor in translation. The study adopts J. L. Austin’s speech acts theory (1975), as well as Attardo’s (2017) General theory of verbal humor, in addition to acoustical analysis to investigate the impact of prosodic features on humor. The study reiterates that one of the most complicated tasks that the translator could come across is translating and dubbing humor, due to its complicated nature. Moreover, it has proved that the Egyptian vernacular rendering of the movie tends to highlight and amplify prosodic features, while the Modern standard Arabic rendering tends to understate them. Thus, through the utilization of prosodic features, the Egyptian vernacular rendering was more successful in maintaining humor and had the more humorous end product, when comparing it to the Modern Standard Arabic rendering.

Date of Award	2023
Original language	American English
Awarding Institution	HBKU College of Humanities and Social Science