Humour and self-interpreting in the media: The communicative ethos and the authenticity contract in late-night shows.

Abstract

While humour in translation has received a considerable degree of scholarly attention and new perspectives and methodologies keep advancing this field of study, it is a topic that is underexplored in the context of interpreting in general and self-interpreting in particular (Chiaro, 2002). Humour in interpreting is most visible in the media, particularly in the so-called infotainment genre (Katan and Straniero Sergio, 2001). Given the live and immediate nature of interpreting, it is widely acknowledged by practitioners and trainers alike that interpreting humour is one of the biggest challenges for interpreters (Pavlicek and Pöchhacker, 2002, Pöchhacker, 1995), with the live broadcast setting only adding further stress. But what happens when self-interpreting is consciously used as an intrinsic part of a late-night comedy show? To what extent is it part of the production of humour? And can this type of mediation be explored through the lenses of interpreting standards (c.f. Darwish, 2006) and ethics (Katan and Straniero Sergio, 2003)? These are the key questions that this paper aims to tackle by looking at a case study of a self-interpreted interview (English-Spanish) by the host of a popular Spanish late-night show: La Resistencia on Movistar TV, hosted by David Broncano. The data will be explored via the theoretical frames of the communicative ethos of broadcasting (Scannell, 1988) and the authenticity contract (Enli, 2015). Studies have shown how interpreting is heavily impacted and framed by the broader communicative context and, whether organised ad hoc or as an intrinsic part of the production, the interpreter-mediated interaction becomes part of the ethos of the broadcaster, with submerged discourses and ideologies in place (cf. Gieve and Norton, 2007, Katan and Straniero Sergio, 2003, and Castillo Ortiz, 2015b). By applying Conversation Analysis to the bilingual interaction in the broadcast, this study aims to unveil the mechanisms used to integrate self-interpreting into the comedy programme and highlight patterns that may contribute to a conceptualisation of this type of socially situated practice which moves beyond normative views of TV interpreting.