The Deliberate Non-Subtitling of L3s in Breaking Bad: A Reception Study (original) (raw)
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This research investigates the effects of intralingual (or same language) subtitling on characterisation, with a specific focus on the AMC drama, Breaking Bad. A corpus-stylistic approach was used, with a focus on several characters. Corpora of the subtitle track to the third season were compared with similar corpora containing the transcribed speech of the same season, in order to generate data which could then be compared. Sub-corpora were also created for the eight individual characters chosen to research. In order to investigate the stylistic side of the research, Jonathan Culpeper’s triggers of characterisation were utilised, and Paul Rayson’s Wmatrix corpus software was then used to identify statistically significant words and domains. This list was compared against the statistics produced by Wmatrix in order to understand their significance, if any. The differences and similarities between the subtitle corpora and the spoken corpora for each individual character were investigated, as well as more general trends which were shown to occur throughout all of the data.
2016. A reception study on non-professional subtitling: do audiences notice any difference?
The audience's reluctance to wait for the international release of audiovisual products, coupled with the easy access to audiovisual material and subtitling tools on the Internet, has triggered an increase in the production and use of non-professional subtitling. However, up to now, we know little of how people receive the subtitles and how much they understand when watching products with non-professional subtitles. This paper presents the results of a study that explores the audience reception of subtitled TV series using professional and non-professional subtitling. Fifty-two participants were shown three excerpts from The Big Bang Theory with three subtitle versions: the professional version extracted from the Spanish DVD and two non-professional versions produced by two different non-professional subtitling communities. Data were collected through questionnaires, eye-tracking and interviews. The results show that non-professional subtitles do not necessarily affect the audience reception negatively. Further, both eye-tracking and self-reported data yielded interesting insights into audience's reception. Based on the findings, it is possible to say that there are non-professional translations that are as good as their professional counterparts.
Across lingua-cultures: Introductions and wishes in subtitled TV series
"Subtitling and Intercultural Communication. European Languages and beyond", Beatrice Garzelli, Michela Baldo (eds), Pisa: ETS, 2014
Across lingua-cultures: Introductions and wishes in subtitled TV series Veronica Bonsignori, Silvia Bruti In previous studies (Bonsignori, Bruti, Masi 2011, 2012), we have focused on greetings, leave-takings and good wishes as ‘complex’ expressions that convey a vast array of socio-pragmatic meanings. The importance of such expressions and the consequences of their complexities in translation in general and in dubbing in particular have also emerged, especially as they correspond to cultural practices and habits. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the role of two rather negletcted English conversational routines (Coulmas 1981), namely introductions and good wishes, in Italian subtitling by establishing how much narrative space they are granted, which specific linguistic features they have, how frequent conventional expressions are used in both original dialogues and translation, and, finally, the emerging patterns of translation in subtitling, with special attention to cross-cultural habits that are necessarily reflected in the linguistic texture of an exchange. The translation of socio-pragmatic aspects has not received the lion’s share in the domain of audiovisual translation studies, although much more sensitivity towards the area has been observed in the last decade. Although it has since long been recognised that the transformation from oral to written language implicated in subtitling makes wording more formal and neat, almost devoid of the many sociolinguistic and pragmatic markers that give spoken language its natural flavour (Kovačič 1996, Hatim, Mason 2000, Greenall 2011), studies on the translation of socio-pragmatic meanings in interlingual subtitles are not particularly numerous. Blini and Matte Bon (1996), for example, pointed to the necessity of reaching a compromise in which “the illocutionary aspect of the text should […] be privileged by trying to reproduce the same speech acts in the target language on the basis of a careful analysis of the […] pragmalinguistic elements” (1996: 328, our translation). In recent years some pragmatic and cross-cultural issues have been investigated: the speech act of advice in translation from Spanish to English (Pinto 2010), vocatives in Italian subtitles (Bruti, Perego 2005, 2008), the Gricean cooperation principle in Polish subtitles (Bączkowska 2012), the translation of the nuances of meaning contained in the T/V person pronouns into English (Guillot 2010), direct, indirect and implicit compliments in (Italian) subtitles (Bruti 2006, 2009a, 2009b). Many more topics are yet still to be thoroughly explored. The data are retrieved from a small self-compiled corpus which comprises the transcription of the original dialogues of two seasons (one for each series) of Brothers & Sisters and Gilmore Girls and the Italian subtitles for the routines that are analysed. Both series are mostly ‘conversational’, as they are centred on the conversational exchanges between characters in their everyday life, a fact that potentially grants more space to the use of the two types of conversational routines under investigation. In this work we adopt a multidisciplinary approach, one that integrates an analysis of original audiovisual dialogues with the aim of identifying general trends in terms of language use and then investigates the translational practices in subtitling, by making reference to cultural scenarios in the target lingua-culture.
Translation of extralinguistic cultural references in professional and amateur subtitles
Translation of extralinguistic cultural references in professional and amateur subtitles, 2022
This thesis delves into the intricate realm of audiovisual translation, focusing on the translation of extralinguistic cultural references (ECRs) in Romanian subtitles. Through a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches, we investigate the varying strategies employed by professional subtitlers and non-professional enthusiasts in rendering ECRs in two distinct films, "The Trial of the Chicago 7" and "Lost in Translation." Drawing from the theoretical framework proposed by Ian Pedersen in "Subtitling Norms for Television" (2011), our study aims to comprehend the impact of foreignization and domestication techniques on the preservation of cultural nuances and the accessibility of the target audience. We analyze the translation strategies used in both professional and amateur subtitles, assessing potential distortions of meaning and errors. Moreover, our research examines the comprehensive landscape of audiovisual translation, its historical evolution, linguistic intricacies, cultural implications, and the intricacies of subtitling, including the phenomenon of fansubbing. The findings shed light on the complex process of ECR translation, underlining the critical balance between maintaining the original cultural essence and ensuring the comprehensibility for the target audience.
2018. New audiences, international distribution, and translation
The interconnectivity made possible by the technological advancements of the past three decades has changed the way how audiences engage with audiovisual content around the world. On the one hand, viewers have become empowered consumers who are also engaged in the distribution of content; on the other, companies serving global audiences have emerged as key players in the audiovisual market. With more access to content, through piracy or official channels, new consumption habits, such as binge watching, have become common among viewers. Non-professional subtitling has played a key role in the expansion of the audiovisual market, the configuration of international audiences and the development of new viewing traditions. By looking at non-professional subtitling as a constituent of the international media flows, this chapter proposes Translation Studies should look at the reception of non-professional subtitles at a global scale to understand the interplay between non-professional subtitling, its producers/users and the audiovisual market, as well as the societal impact of the phenomenon. Since its inception in the last century, television and the form of entertainment that it provides have morphed significantly, mostly due to the thriving development of the technology that makes it possible. Nowadays, watching television has expanded to become an overarching experience that occurs across platforms, media and resources engaging various social, technological and human agents at a globally interconnected level. In the world of transmediality, newspapers and
Original Language Subtitles: Their Effects on the Native and Foreign Viewer
Comunicar, 2017
This study investigates the impact of same-language subtitles on the immersion into audiovisual narratives as a function of the viewer’s language (native or foreigner). Students from two universities in Australia and one in Spain were assigned randomly to one of two experimental groups, in which they saw a drama with the original English soundtrack either with same-language English subtitles (n=81) or without subtitles (n=92). The sample included an English native control group, and Mandarin Chinese, Korean, and Spanish groups with English as a foreign language. Participants used post-hoc Likert scales to self-report their presence, transportation to the narrative world, perceived realism, identification with the characters, and enjoyment. The main results showed that subtitles did not significantly reduce these measures of immersion. However, subtitles produced higher transportation, identification with the characters, and perceived realism scores, where the first language of viewe...
2014. Where is the audience? Testing the audience reception of non-professional subtitling
From Translation Research Projects 5, eds. Esther Torres-Simon and David Orrego-Carmona, Tarragona: Intercultural Studies Group, 2014. pp. 77-92 http://isg.urv.es/publicity/isg/publications/trp\_5\_2014/index.htm This paper presents the results of a pilot study exploring the reception of non-professional subtitling. Nine participants were shown three video excerpts with commercially available professional subtitles and two different versions of non-professional subtitles. To examine participants’ reception, eye-tracking was used to collect gaze data, while questionnaires and interviews were used to assess comprehension and translation difficulty. The results indicate that the reception of the product depends on the participants’ level of English. Additionally, the participants demonstrated a greater degree of comprehension with professional subtitling, but their level of satisfaction with the content and the translation does not vary significantly. The methodology to explore the reception of subtitled material is supported by the results of the pilot study.
TRANSLANG 22/1, 2023
One of the most difficult tasks that translators deal with when dubbing or subtitling an audiovisual product is translating offensive terms or expressions such as taboos. Translators must handle the translation of taboos with care, as their equivalents may be contrary to the religion and cultural norms of the target country. To that end, some strategies should be employed by translators to choose appropriate equivalents based on the cultural and religious norms of the target language. Thus, the current study aimed to investigate the strategies employed in subtitling and dubbing English taboos in seven episodes of one American television series using Davoodi's (2009) model. This was corpus-based research that has a qualitative-quantitative method with a comparative approach. To conduct the study, the American English drama crime TV series The Big Little Lies (2019) season two was chosen as the study corpus. 174 taboos, specifically Sh*t and F*k word, were found based on Sharifi and Darchinian's (2009) model in the above-mentioned TV series. Descriptive statistics have been run to examine the frequencies and percentages of implemented translation strategies in subtitling and dubbing the taboos. The results revealed that "Substitution", and "Censorship" were the commonly most frequently used strategies in Persian subtitled and dubbed versions of taboos. Moreover, the findings of the Chi-square test indicated that no significant difference was identified between the strategies of Iranian translators in subtitling and dubbing taboos. The findings of this research can be useful for subtitlers, dubbers, and translation students in Iran who specialize in translating English TV series.
Mediating Lingua-Cultural Scenarios in Audiovisual Translation
2018
The article offers insights into media content consumption, especially through subtitling, from the point of view of the users’ awareness and agency as key factors for change. Starting from a redefinition of audience in relation to today’s media and their viewers’ proactive attitude (prosumption), the article reports on an experiment aiming to test the comprehension and appreciation of professional and non-professional subtitles for two popular series by Netflix, namely Black Mirror and Narcos. In its conclusions, the article reflects on changes in viewing habits as inspired, among other factors, by the viewers' active participation in the making of subtitles.
Subtitling multilingual films: the case of Inglourious Basterds, 2013
Rooted in the Descriptive Translation Studies paradigm, this paper starts by discussing some of the main subtitling constraints that impinge on the translator's task and moves on to analyse the various strategies employed in the subtitled Spanish version of Tarantino's multilingual film Inglourious Basterds. Bearing in mind that the film was made with English, as the predominant language, and is peppered with German, French and Italian scenes, this analysis aims to examine how the combination of the SLs is reflected through subtitles. In order to resort to triangulation, a quantitative analysis of data is contrasted with a subtitler's interview of the Spanish version, analysed qualitatively. In doing so, it is hoped to shed some light on what the final product received by the audience is like as far as multilingual films are concerned.