Equivalence and translatability in the subtitling of South African situation comedies and soap operas

Abstract

The South African television entertainment industry has created a utopia of perfect multilingualism despite existing cultural disparities. The object of any translation consists in communicating in the target language (TL) the message that is functionally equivalent to the one emitted in the source language (SL). This requires use of researched techniques, linguistic and extralinguistic competencies in both languages. However, sometimes the translation fails to tick all the boxes and this calls into question the translation processes followed. This article studies South African sitcoms and soap operas with the aim to explore audio-visual translation (AVT) techniques employed to render subtitles in English. It tries to establish to what extent the English subtitles are equivalent to the discourse uttered by Sesotho speaking actors and to determine how well translators handled both the linguistic and extralinguistic complexities as well as other cultural and creative expressions. It proposes scatologization as a form of subtitling technique that can be used in unique and befitting situations.