When humour and culture clash: Subtitling in Spanish Affair

The translation of humour presents one of the most difficult and attractive challenges for translators. This is, in large part, due to the diversity of elements that can converge with a single function, to get a smile from the audience. Regarding audiovisual products, despite the concurrence of multiple codes, which may, in the first instance, be of assistance, this is not always the case when ideological and cultural elements come into play. This work aims to study the translation of humour in the film Spanish affair (Martínez Lázaro 2014), a comedy based on the culture clash between communities. From the analysis of the subtitling, we intend to contribute to the debate about the translatability of humour, paying special attention to those cases in which the cultural component is determining or, at least, extremely meaningful.The research process leading up to the elaboration of this article has been financed by the Government of Aragon, by the consolidated research group Swift H46 and the European Regional Development Fund