Abstract

Abstract
Translating the Québécois Sociolect for Cinema:
The Creation of a Supertext in Bon Cop Bad Cop

Jo-Anne Hadley


This thesis addresses the subtitling of the Québécois sociolect into English. In the bilingual comedy film Bon Cop Bad Cop, although the meaning of the Québécois dialogue is rendered, the flavour of the original sociolect is lost. This thesis posits that the failure to render the Québécois sociolect in the English subtitles of Bon Cop Bad Cop gives rise to understatement, thereby creating a “supertext” for bilingual movie-goers who read the subtitles that actually enhances the humour of this comedy. Examples of the supertext will be drawn from Bon Cop Bad Cop to illustrate this hypothesis. Dialogue and subtitles from Bon Cop Bad Cop will be compared and contrasted with those from De père en flic/Father and Guns, a film whose subtitles successfully render the Québécois sociolect and thus do not create a supertext. This analysis will serve to determine the types of adaptation and compensation that were used in Father and Guns to render the sociolect. The findings from this project will be of interest not only to subtitlers but all translators of the Québécois sociolect.