RENDERING ENGLISH WORDPLAY IN UKRAINIAN AUDIOVISUAL TRANSLATION (BASED ON THE SITCOMS “FRIENDS” AND “HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER”)

Abstract

The article examines strategies for rendering English-language wordplay in Ukrainian audiovisual translation, based on the sitcoms “Friends” and “How I Met Your Mother”. The relevance of the study stems from the rapid development of audiovisual translation in Ukraine and the need to systematize translation solutions capable of reproducing the comic effect of the original text under the technical constraints of screen translation. The aim of the article is to identify the factors that determine a translator’s choice between calque and pragmatic adaptation of humorous text. The material comprises authentic lines from both series and their Ukrainian translations, selected through continuous sampling; the analysis draws on descriptive, contrastive, and linguocultural methods. The study establishes that the choice of translation strategy depends primarily on the degree of structural and semantic correspondence between the two languages. Under conditions of isomorphism, when the logical structure of a joke (repetition, contrast, paradox) is shared by both languages, translators consistently apply calque as confirmed by examples of expressive tautology, syntactic repetition, word formation based on international elements, polyptoton, and oxymoron. In cases of anisomorphism, particularly phonetic puns based on homophony or paronomasy and spoonerisms, translators create situational nonce words that preserve the underlying play rather than the original’s sound form. Semantic adaptation is applied where idiomatic or attributive constructions cannot be translated literally without loss of naturalness; in extreme cases, translators resort to transcreation a complete replacement of the original content with a newly coined Ukrainian expression. The findings show that in translating wordplay in sitcoms, priority is given to preserving the pragmatic effect of the original rather than to formal accuracy. The results of the study may be applied in further research on audiovisual translation and in the training of translators working with film and television content.