Investigating the Translators' Strategies in Subtitling and Dubbing of Taboos in American Drama Television Series The Big Little Lies (2019 (original) (raw)
Related papers
The research is based on the analysis of the American television series named Friends with the focus on the CSIs (Culture Specific Items) and how these differences have been handled by Persian translators who produced the subtitles. The analysis was based on the assumption that Iranian's culture is different from the US culture so people in these two countries may have problems in understanding CSIs if they are translated literally and if the subtitle translation is not adapted to the target audience. The research looked at the way subtitle translators involved with subtitling the American television series Friends had dealt with CSIs in when translating oral discourse into Persian. The main objective of this study has been to analyze different translation choices which are currently used by the translators in questions, dealing with CSIs where cultural differences between Iran and the US arise. The researcher has provided some questionnaires among university students of this field, some of the students were B.A. students of translation studies and some other were M.A. students of linguistics. The research discovered that in the translation of CSIs, Synonymy and Naturalization are the most frequent strategies which are used and performed well, succeeding to help the Iranian audience to comprehend the cultural connotations associated with the CSIs. Also the research discovered that high efficacy is obtained in translation.
Dubbing English Culture-Specific Items into Persian: A Case of Taboos in IRIB's Hollywood Films
Teaching English Language (TEL), 2019
Demonstrating their idiosyncrasies in a culture-specific way, cultural aspects are one of the most demanding tasks in cultural transfer, especially in rendering audiovisual materials. This study investigated the applied strategies in rendering taboos from English to Persian in 10 dubbed action Hollywood movies by Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB). To this aim, the original and dubbed versions of the movies were collected from Soroush Sima Company, which is a highly official audiovisual translation (AVT) company in Iran. Afterwards, the original and dubbed versions of the movies were compared seeking for the culture-specific items (CSIs), especially taboos. Then, the taboo expressions were extracted from the original versions and compared with their translations in the dubbed versions. Finally, the results were interpreted through SPSS, considering Venuti's (1995) strategies in translation studies (i.e., domestication and foreignization). Analysis of the chi-square results indicated χ2 (27, N = 10) = 83.49, considering **p < 0.05. Besides, analysis of the data revealed that deletion, with the frequency of 60.26%, was the topmost applied strategy in the rendition of the taboo expressions. Moreover, reduction of the dubbed run-time of the movies indicated that scene omission was another strategy to censor and prevent injection of harmful thoughts into the Islamic society of Iran. Thus, Iranian audiovisual translators mainly tend to localize, or domesticate, translation of taboo expressions while dubbing. Findings contribute to a proper translation of CSIs, especially taboos in AVT, mainly in the dubbing field.
Taboos in IRIB’s Dubbed Hollywood Movies: A Look at Translation of Culture-Bound Elements
The 2nd National Applied Research Conference on English Language Studies, 2015
Different cultures express their idiosyncrasies in a culture-bound way. Cultural aspects—if not the only—are among the most arduous tasks in rendition of audiovisual materials from the SL into the TL. This study aimed at investigating the applied strategies in rendering taboos, from English to Persian, in 5 dubbed Hollywood movies by IRIB, namely Sudden Death (1995), Family Business (1989), Welcome to Collinwood (2002), Deadly Impact (2009), and Law Abiding Citizen (2009). Original movies were compared with their dubbed versions. Accordingly, the taboo expressions were extracted and compared with the Persian translations in the dubbed movies. Adapting to Venuti’s (1995) strategies in translation studies (i.e., domestication and foreignization), the results were interpreted through the SPSS software. Analysis of the chi-square indicated that the p-value was not significant at χ2 (16, N = 5) = 39.17, p = 0, considering p ˂ 0.05. Besides, analysis of the data indicated that “deletion,” with the highest frequency (53.03%), was the topmost used strategy in the rendition of the taboo expressions. Therefore, Iranian audiovisual translators mainly tend to localize or domesticate the translation of taboo expressions while dubbing. This study will contribute to the proper translation of taboos in audiovisual translation, especially the dubbing field.
Film dubbing and the Impact of English to Persian Translation on Communicative preferences
2018
Dubbing is the most prevalent method used to make foreign-language films available to visual media of countries. The dialogues that actors use in the films are the main factors for understanding the main purpose of the directors in anygenre. Orientation toward the function of the source text can be realized in the target text through the correct and appropriate translation of the speech acts. It causes dubbing for a film from other countries with different cultureto be more comprehensive and enablespeople to perceive the main points of directors' idea. This study examined the influence of English to Persian translation of the films on the communicative preferences in the target language. The corpora of the study are films with different genres with their dubbed versions. Searle's (1979) categorization of illocutionary acts was examined and attempted to investigate the influences of the target language in establishing the communicative preferences. The dialogues of the movies dubbed in IRIB were transformed to written texts. Then by comparing the source and the target corpora based on the study's theoretical framework the mismatchings between the two languages were examined and analyzed. The results showed that although the correspondence percentage between the main dialogues and the dubbed versions was high, there were some key sentences thatwere changedin meaning and had affected the film's intended purpose.
Translation of Taboos in Dubbed American Crime Movies into Persian
2014
This study aimed at investigating the strategies which Iranian AV translators use for rendition of taboo language in American crime movies dubbed into Persian. The required bilingual corpus was purposively selected based on a predetermined set of criteria. During data collection, drawing on a Persian-specific set of types of taboo language, the 642 instances in the selected sample of four American crime movies were detected and recorded. Having analyzed the strategies in rendering the original taboos into Persian, a model of four basic strategies was empirically achieved–namely, a) translating the source culture taboo to a target culture taboo, b) deletion of the source culture taboo, c) substituting the target culture taboo with a target culture non-taboo, and d) rendering the source culture taboo to a target culture euphemism. The descriptive statistics showed that the general approach taken by the AV translators was toning down the force of taboo language, following the target culture norms especially by deleting the source culture taboo as the most frequent strategy or replacing it by a non-taboo or euphemism, even though nearly one-thirds of the taboos were kept in the dubbed target product. The findings are useful data within descriptive translation studies; nevertheless, they cannot be generalized since the study is limited by a relatively small corpus and a non-probability sampling technique.
2022
Considering its field of study, translation studies is quite suitable for interdisciplinary work and remakes are one of them. Remakes took their place in the history of cinema with the movie Un partie de cartes in 1896. The involvement of remakes in the field of translation studies took place much later. This situation has caused a scholarly gap in the field of translation studies considering that the remakes are widely used in the media outlets of today's world. The aim of this study is to examine remakes in order to contribute filling this gap and to analyze how culture specific items (CSIs) are transferred in remakes. To this end, the TV series Shameless (US) and its Turkish remake Bizim Hikaye are analyzed. CSIs in the source and target series are identified and analyzed according to Pedersen’s (2005) translation strategy model. It was found that, in line with the unique characteristic of remakes, translators mainly preferred target oriented translation strategies in translating CSIs and translation was highly influenced by the socio-cultural characteristics of the target culture, especially in the translation of certain sub-headings. It was demonstrated that almost all translation strategies, due to the nature of remakes, aim to bring the source text closer to the target text. The translation strategies include complete omissions as well as situational paraphrase and cultural substitution. In parallel with the socio-cultural characteristics of the target culture, a particular pattern has been identified in the strategies utilized in the translation of sexuality and taboo related items, brand names and CSIs in the religious context. It has been revealed that this pattern detected in the use of translation strategies also affects the narrative of the story and makes the target series a TV show that considers social sensitivities more than the source series.
Translation of Multilingual Films in Iran in Persian Dubbing
International Journal of Multilingualism
Filmmakers increasingly resort to using multiple languages in their work to realistically reflect today's globalised world. However, this multiplicity poses specific challenges in the process of translation for dubbing. This study explores the rendition of Western multilingual films into Persian dubbed versions for the Iranian audience. Films as audiovisual texts have multimodal content, so both verbal and non-verbal elements were analysed. We compared the original versions of a selection of ten multilingual films with the Persian dubbed versions based on two models of analyses [i.e. Sanz Ortega, E. (2011). Subtitling and the relevance of Non-verbal information in polyglot films. New Voices in Translation Studies, 7, 19-34; Zabalbeascoa, P., & Voellmer, E. (2014). Accounting for multilingual films in translation studies. Intratextual translation in dubbing. In D. Abend-David (Ed.), Media and translation. An interdisciplinary approach (pp. 25-51). Bloomsbury Academic]. The results reveal that the most frequently used solution for translating multilingual films at the verbal level is neutralisation, which eliminates linguistic variation, and consequently, the multiplicity of languages in multilingual films is not maintained. Incidentally, a vast range of non-verbal signs is altered to conform to the socio-cultural norms of the target culture.
Translators' Agency in Persian Fansubbed Movies: A Paratextual Analysis
Critical Literary Studies, 2024
Drawing upon the notion of ‘paratextual agency’ (Paloposki, “Limits of Freedom” 191), the current study investigated the agency of the Iranian fansubbers. To do so, a corpus of 20 Persian fansubs of Hollywood movies released during the last decade was selected randomly. The study was carried out in two steps. Firstly, translators’ notes were categorized based on their content, frequency, and percentage of each category. Secondly, these notes were analyzed to scrutinize the agency of the Iranian fansubbers. The findings of the study reveal that notes added on the part of the Iranian fansubbers can be categorized into narrative-related notes, locations, famous figures, organizations, medical information, allusions, and transliteration. The study illustrates that by providing such notes to the audience, Iranian fansubbers move beyond the conventional role of subtitler and a mere linguistic conveyor of the movies and take the responsibility of teachers, researchers, cultural representatives, and intermediary agents. The study concludes that fansubbing in Iran is concerned with elucidating culture-bound items of the movies to make them more understandable for the audience. The conclusions of this study can open up prospective avenues for the sociologically-oriented approaches to audiovisual translation, with an eye on the agency and status of fansubbers.
2023
The current study attempted to determine the techniques used to render swear words and the translation quality. The present study's findings will help address the gaps in the literature and the translation practices related to translating taboo expressions and swear words. The study adopted a mixed method to conduct the analysis. The qualitative techniques of the study focused on identifying the strategies employed when working with audiovisual rendering, while quantitative techniques focused on quality assessment. It is important to note that no quantitative tests were carried out in the analysis to measure the quality of the study. From the investigation, the study confirmed that the most used translation techniques were omission and euphemism. Another reason to use omission as a translation approach is that some swear, and taboo words collide in English but not Arabic. Omission as a tactic may be appropriate if the translation does not create a vacuum on the screen that prevents viewers from thoroughly enjoying the film. Besides, the translator euphemistically interpreted various curses and forbidden phrases to contain such subtle offensiveness and vulgarity. This method is acceptable if it does not alter the essence of meaning. On quality, the study found that most of the subtitles are of low quality. While the approach provides a quantitative assessment, a qualitative assessment is also essential. Previous research on subtitling swears words and prohibited terms needs to be expanded. A paradigm that governs the tactics employed in Arabic-to-English subtitling is also required.
Translation Strategies of Taboo Words in Interlingual Film Subtitling
International Journal of Linguistics, Literature and Translation, 2020
Interlingual subtitling was singled out for this research, as it is the common mode used to translate English films intended for an Arabic audience in most Arab T.V channels. However, this form of audiovisual translation is often prone to many constraints, and subtitling taboos is a case in point. The research aims to raise awareness about the special use of some strategies and showcase the ensuing changes, omissions and errors in the target language. This article looks into the translation strategies of taboo words, be them lexemes and/or expressions about death, sex, cursing, religion or calling names. Methodology-wise, 214 English-Arabic pairs of taboo words were collected from five popular Arab T.V channels and 23 American and British films were assessed. The data was coded according to Gottlieb's subtitling strategies (1992) and both quantitative and qualitative analyses were conducted. The quantitative results showed four specific recurrent strategies during the subtitling process to cope with rendering taboo words. The qualitative analysis, however, revealed other lexico-semantic devices such as euphemism, disphemism and general words; translation techniques namely literal translation, partial rendering and inaccurate equivalence, along with other subtitling technical schemes. The research contributes to fill some gaps in the field of film subtitling from English into Arabic and insists on the importance of applying the adequate strategies when conveying taboos in the target language.