My principal research areas are humour and translation. I am
especially interested in the perception of verbally expressed
humour when it is translated on screen (i.e. cinema; TV and
video-games) by audiences who do not belong to the lingua-cultural
communities from which the humour originated. Thus I partake in
truly interdisciplinary research projects involving scholars from
very different fields from my own such as psychologists,
sociologists and economists while adopting tools and methods more
usually found in the social sciences such as interviews,
questionnaires and statistics.
I am also a keen supporter of the Italian dubbing industry - a
cottage industry that employs several thousand operators that are
responsible for creating what is probably the world's best dubbing.
However the industry risks extinction with the invasion of quicker
and cheaper subtitling. In an attempt to save this industry,
together with my group of young reserachers, I am attempting to
promote the dubbing (as opposed to subtitling) of the latest
Italian filmic products in the USA.
Most recently I have become involved in issues regarding the way
Italy markets its products abroad and especially on the Worl Wide
Web.
