Translator’s subjectivity reflected in the Indonesian subtitle of Hasan Minhaj: Off with His Head

Humor translation—based on the inherent incongruity of the language and cultural aspects specific to the source language (SL)—has always presented significant challenges, but subtitling humorous content adds a level of difficulty that requires exceptional care to detail. To produce high-quality subtitling, translators/subtitlers must set the correct steps that also unconsciously reflect their subjectivity. This study elaborated on the translator’s subjectivity portrayed in the Indonesian subtitle of the Netflix Comedy Special “Hasan Minhaj: Off with His Head” by determining the translator’s approaches in translating/subtitling verbal humor, particularly in the ethnic jokes contained in the show, using Gottlieb’s (1992) Subtitling strategy. Relevance theory, proposed by Sperber & Wilson (1995), was also employed to look into the translator’s cognitive process amid the translation process. The result shows that the subtitling strategies, particularly paraphrasing and deletion, used in subtitling the ethnic jokes in the show reflected the translator’s subjectivity by conforming to the linguistic and cultural norms of the target audience, which is supported by the claim of Relevance Theory that maximizes interpretative relevance rather than the literal one. Regrettably, the translator’s subjectivity can also be a drawback, as it can lead to the loss of meaning, in this case, a humorous intent in the expression.