THE RECONSTRUCTION OF IMPOLITENESS STRATEGIES AS A DEVICE FOR CHARACTERIZATION IN THE SUBTITLE OF AMERICAN TV SERIES COMEDY ‘THE BIG BANG THEORY’

Alfian Yoga Prananta

Abstract

Using the theory of impoliteness strategies rooted from the view of politeness strategies coined by Brown & Levinson and translation quality assessment proposed by Nababan, the study investigates the reconstruction of impoliteness strategies as a device for characterization in the subtitle of American TV Series The Big Bang Theory as well as the quality of the translation. Impoliteness strategies are used to frame characterization in the film. Therefore, the shift of strategies is deemed to affect the construal of characterization in the subtitle. Two episodes of the first season were selected for the analysis. The shifts found in the film are the shift from swearing positive impoliteness to no FTA and the shift from sarcasm off – record impoliteness to positive impoliteness. The shift caused by the omission of the strategies in the subtitle has a negative impact on the quality of translation. The shift caused by explicitation of the sarcasm off – record impoliteness strategies has a relatively positive effect on the quality, given that the interpretation of the implicature is conducted correctly.

Key words: film comedy, impoliteness strategies shift, characterization, translation quality

 

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References

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.20961/pras.v0i0.1456

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