The Influence of Humour and Cultural References in the Dubbing of the Series Fawlty Towers into both Spanish and Catalan

Abstract

Translating humour and cultural references from one language to another can create some of translations greatest challenges in the digital era we live in. These together with multilingual situations, henceforth referred to as multilingualism, can sometimes make the audiovisual translator’s job a difficult one. This dissertation aims to address these issues of contemporary relevance in the 1975 series Fawlty Towers (John Cleese and Connie Booth), translated into both Spanish and Catalan years later. In this British sitcom, the main characters attempt to run a fictional hotel with the help of Manuel, played by Andrew Sachs, an English-challenged Spanish waiter who swaps between languages throughout both series, trying to make sense of strange and challenging situations. We will firstly take a step back and offer a theoretical reflection about the main problems encountered in audiovisual translation. We will then analyse the similarities and differences encountered between the translations, and create a table to classify said findings from the information obtained in the three chosen episodes (“Basil the Rat”, “The Builders” and “The Anniversary”). The analysis of the dubbing into both Spanish and Catalan will help us present a classification of the humour and multilingualism, and reflect on the techniques chosen as to resolve the problems at hand. We will visually display these methods and techniques with both a quantitive and qualitative analysis.