Specific features of rendering humor-generating devices in the Russian translation of American sitcoms

The study aims to identify the specific features of rendering humor-generating devices when translating American sitcoms into Russian. The analysis considers not only the structural, semantic, and functional characteristics of linguistic devices – lexical and phonetic – and the cultural context against which they operate, but also the non-verbal elements that interact with verbal content. This interaction is essential to achieving an adequate audiovisual translation. The scientific novelty lies in identifying stable correlations between humor-generating devices operating at different linguistic levels in audiovisual works and the dominant translation techniques used to render them. The findings indicate that rhyme is most often translated through compensation; onomatopoeia is typically rendered using established equivalents or lexical substitution; and the dominant techniques for translating nonce words and wordplay are calque and compensation, respectively. The choice of translation technique is shaped by the audiovisual context, since verbal elements do not function independently but are inseparably connected with image and sound.