Translating French Into French: The Case of Close Encounters of the Third Kind (original) (raw)
Related papers
2014
Our twofold aim is to show how the traditional interlingual (L1-->L2) approach to translation can be challenged (Corrius and Zabalbeascoa 2011), and to validate the L3 proposal further with examples from Inglourious Basterds (IBST) and its dubbed versions in Spanish, German, and italian. We have drawn examples from the dubbed versions of the film made in Germany, Spain (, and Italy. Each of these countries, where dubbing is a common practice, provides a different context in which one of the film’s languages may happen to coincide with the main language for the translation, and translators use different approaches when it comes to dealing with such a linguistically complex and unusual source text. A further challenge for the translator of the German dubbed version is that there are numerous encounters between English- and German-speaking characters. In the dubbed version, this language barrier disappears as both languages are rendered in German. The script for the dubbed version is therefore forced to create another sort of communication problem or even a different sort of conversation. Multilingual texts pose specific translation problems, practical and theoretical, regardless of whether they are audiovisual. Among these problems is the case of a coincidence of the main language of the TT with one of the languages of a multilingual ST which can be complicated even further if the ST includes a scene of intratextual translation (Zabalbeascoa 2012). Inglourious Basterds offers a rich array of languages and their varieties, but we found no examples in any of the three different dubbed versions that challenge or contradict the variables and transfer options proposed so far for the concept of L3 in translation. A model like the one explained here can help us to account for multilingual films and television series in Translation Studies. Given the multilingual trend in Hollywood, multilingual audiovisual source and target texts include successful, highly grossing box-office films. Potential TT audiences are therefore very large and not necessarily the stereotypical independent film polyglot spectators, which shows that the problem we are dealing with (and its theoretical importance) is far from marginal.
A New Approach to the Study of Translation: from Stage to Screen
Cadernos de Tradução, 2008
Using the concept of translation, proposed by André Lefevere, as a bidirectional process, the article discusses concepts such as originality, fidelity, equivalence and interpretant to approach film adaptation as a kind of intersemiotic and cultural translation. It poses a question to faithful translation and suggests that any translation, besides taking the label of cultural, can also be praised for becoming a transformation, which aims at modifying the work of art for ideological and poetological purposes.
Language variation in source texts and their translations: the case of L3 in film translation
coauthor Montse Corrius. in Target. Journal 0924-1881. Vol.: 23:1. Pages 113 – 130. Published by John Benjamins, place: Amsterdam [etc.]. , 2011
In addition to the two languages essentially involved in translation, that of the source text (L1) and that of the target text (L2), we propose a third language (L3) to refer to any other language(s) found in the text. L3 may appear in the source text (ST) or the target text (TT), actually appearing more frequently in STs in our case studies. We present a range of combinations for the convergence and divergence of L1, L2 and L3, for the case of feature films and their translations using examples from dubbed and subtitled versions of films, but we are hopeful that our tentative conclusions may be relevant to other modalities of translation, audiovisual and otherwise. When L3 appears in an audiovisual ST, we find a variety of solutions whereby L3 is deleted from or adapted to the TT. In the lat- ter case, L3 might be rendered in a number of ways, depending on factors such as the audience’s familiarity with L3, and the possibility that L3 in the ST is an invented language.
Translating multilingualism in film: A case study on Le concert
IPCITI 2013 Proceedings, guest-edited by Pedro Castillo, Panagiota-Penny Karanasiou, Marwa Shamy and Lee Williamson, 2015
The paper sheds some light both on the different ways in which multilingualism may be represented in film and on the difficult task of managing it in translation. A comparative analysis is carried out between the original version of the film Le concert (Radu Mihăileanu, 2009) and the dubbed versions for the French, Italian and Spanish markets as well as the subtitled version for the British market. Different ways to deal with multilingualism are identified: on the one hand, dubbing the film entirely into the target languages by resorting (or not) to “would-be” foreign accents to signal the origin of characters; on the other, some more “innovation” in subtitling to verbally reproduce instances of broken language. The analysis of the different solutions adopted in the four countries leads us to consider the opportunities and limitations that dubbing and subtitling multilingual films may afford. Available at: http://www.iatis.org/images/stories/publications/new-voices/Issue12-2015/Articles/03-article-DeBonis-2015.pdf
THE THIRD LANGUAGE: A RECURRENT TEXTUAL RESTRICTION IN AUDIOVISUAL TRANSLATION
If the process of translating is not at all simple, the process of translating an audiovisual text is still more complex. Apart from technical problems such as lip synchronisation, there are other factors to be considered such as the use of the language and textual structures deemed appropriate to the channel of communication. Bearing in mind that most of the films we are continually seeing on our screens were and are produced in the United States, there is an increasing need to translate them into the different languages of the world. But sometimes the source audiovisual text contains more than one language, and, thus, a new problem arises: the translators face additional difficulties in translating this "third language" (language or dialect) into the corresponding target culture. There are many films containing two languages in the original version but in this paper we will focus mainly on three films: Butch Cassidy and the Sundance , Raid on Rommel (1999) and. This paper aims at briefly illustrating different solutions which may be applied when we come across a "third language".
2018
Subtitle translation which is one of the oldest types of translation, can be defined as translation of audiovisual constituents in the source language simultaneously into the target language in a limited duration. In this translation type, the source text should be translated into the target text without meaning and information loss, in a correct and understandable way, simultaneously with picture and sound. In subtitle translation, which is a type of both intralingual and interlingual translations, audiovisual elements in the source text should be translated in a simple, clear and effective way in a short time in accordance with grammar and syntax rules of the target language. What the audience reads in the target language is what they hear in the source language. Subtitle translation which is presented together with the original sound of the movie is a bare translation; therefore it is open to criticism in this respect as well. In addition, it is observed that there is a challenge being faced in subtitle translation to convey cultural components. Based on the translation approach adopted, subtitle translation can be target-oriented and foreignization between the audience and the product belonging to a different culture can disappear. On the other hand, it can be source-oriented and foreignization between the audience and the product can occur. And yet, translator is the person who decides how to represent a foreign culture and what kind of strategy to follow in the translation of the cultural components. From this point forth, the cultural components in subtitle translation will be examined in this study through translator decisions in the light of Venuti's domestication and foreignization approaches. For this purpose, in the translation of cultural components from French to Turkish in the film called Qu'est-ce qu'on a fait au bon Dieu?, it was attempted to determine the restrictions that the translator was exposed to, which strategies were followed and what kind of decisions were made by the translator.