Audience Types in Translating Humor in TV Shows from English into Arabic

This study undertakes the issue of translating humor TV shows in relation to audience types and the translation strategies by examining a corpus of seven English-Arabic humor TV shows. Specifically the study identifies the translation strategies adopted in translating children and family humorous TV shows. It also highlights the problematic issues that face any translator when translating such shows. In analyzing the corpus of the humorous TV shows, the researcher adopted a descriptive and analytic approach in which examples were collected, categorized and explained and, in some cases, more appropriate translations were suggested. The analysis demonstrates that using the formal translation strategies does not always give the intended humorous effect and sometimes causes loss in the intended humor. Consequently, the findings showed that translators tend to add, omit, change, or euphemize the source text terms and references to get the intended humorous effect in the target audience in relation to their ages, cognition and culture.