Language-play can briefly be described as the wilful manipulation of the peculiarities of a linguistic system in a way that draws attention to these peculiarities themselves, thereby causing a communicative and cognitive effect that goes beyond the conveyance of propositional meaning. Among the various phenomena answering this description are the different kinds of puns, but also more strictly form-based manipulations such as rhymes and alliteration, in addition to a host of other, sometimes even fuzzier, subcategories.



Due to its unusual nature, and especially its frequently strong dependence on the idiosyncrasies of a particular language, language-play can generally be assumed to constitute a significant challenge in a translation context.

Furthermore, given its non-negligible effects, the translator is not free to simply ignore the language-play (provided it has been recognized as such in the first

place) without having taken an active stance on its treatment. However, the difficulties in finding a suitable target-language solution are possibly exacerbated if the source text is a complex multimedia product such as a film, the translation of which, normally in the form of dubbing or subtitling, is subject to additional constraints.



In view of these intricacies, it has been the aim of this study to analyze and measure how language-play in film has actually been treated in authentic dubbing and subtitle versions. As a prerequisite, the concept of language-play has been elaborated on, and more than a dozen subcategories have been described, developed, and employed. For the purpose of carrying out a

meaningful analysis of the dubbing and subtitling of language-play, a corpus has been compiled, comprising 18 family films and 99 of their various target versions, most on DVD, and yielding nearly 800 source-text instances of language-play and thousands of translation solutions.



The results indicate that especially two sets of factors, among the many that are likely to influence a translation, play a prominent role: the type of the

language-play, and the identity and working conditions of the translator. By contrast, the mode of translation (dubbing vs. subtitling), the target language, or

the general properties of the films, could not be shown to have a sizeable impact

A large array of strategies, ranging from simple alliteration and rhyme to puns and elaborate manipulations of the grammar, can contribute to the humorous character of a text. Language-play based on such strategies is thus a heterogeneous yet important element in many film comedies. Due to its function in that genre, almost all language-play occurring there would normally be expected to have counterparts in a translation, but the usually language-specific ways in which the strategies have been used, in addition to the well-known constraints of dubbing and subtitling, can be suspected to work in the opposite direction.

Based on an analysis of seven English-language movies and a variety of translations (covering dubbing, subtitling and five different target languages), it is suggested that on average, roughly one third of the strategies employed in original language-play are neither copied nor replaced by other strategies in screen translation. The mode and language of the target text do not appear to influence that result.

This article compares the original dialogue, the German dubbing and two different Swedish subtitle versions (TV and DVD) of the American feature film The Nutty Professor. It first discusses the four versions and the quantitative differences between them in terms of the number of words, characters, conversational turns, and subtitles. The focus then shifts to qualitative aspects of the three translations, including content-related changes and clashes with target-language norms. This leads to hypotheses concerning the mode and the medium of a translation and its qualitative profile

At the end of their upper secondary studies, German students write about their experiences, thoughts, and visions related to teaching and learning in freedom and solidarity