“Is this Bizarro World?” The Adaptation of Characterisation and Intertextuality in German Audiovisual Translation Nicholas David Peat Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Linguistics and English Language Lancaster University February 2017 !1 Declaration I hereby confirm that this thesis is my own work and has not been submitted for the award of a higher degree elsewhere. Nicholas David Peat February 2017 Lancaster University !2 Dedication To my parents and Bernadette. !3 Acknowledgements Discussing the German language, Mark Twain once claimed that “a gifted person ought to learn English (barring spelling and pronouncing) in 30 hours, French in 30 days, and German in 30 years”. After five-and-a-half years of analysing German dialogue, encompassing two supervisors and one diagnostic laparoscopy, I can see his point: analysing German dialogue in a PhD has proven to be a very long marathon, encompassing surprise diversions (the demise of an 18 month-programme in Siegen was a classic of the genre) and shocking twists (deadline coming up? Here’s appendicitis!). But only now, as I inch across that finish line, do I see the myriad of people without whom I would have fallen many times over. To begin, I would like to thank so many people within Lancaster University. First thanks go to Marjorie Wood from LAEL, for always being completely sensible and sympathetic, where and when I need her (and having exemplary taste in sweets). Ann Thomas of DELC, who has known me for a decade, has never been anything other than amazing every time I’ve seen her; the thing I have always done when reaching Lancaster is head straight for Ann’s office for her unique blend of common sense and kindness. She is a true credit to Lancaster as a whole and also introduced me to the delights of Brian Blessed-style shouting while invigilating exams. (An amazing stress-relief technique, try it at home.) Thanks also to Rebecca Braun, Elena Semino and Jonathan Culpeper for their insights and extraordinary helpfulness during panels. Outside of the Lancaster bubble, I would like to express my gratitude to many people whose personal support has been invaluable. Ultra-special thanks are due to my !4 parents and brother Daniel, who have not only offered unwavering support and kindness during those long, annoying periods of insecurity and obstreperousness, but also put up with me moving back in for two years, turning the conservatory into a Gladiators-style obstacle course of literature and gibbering German phrases in an attempt to articulate back-translations. At least I make good cups of tea. Thanks are also due to my aunt Bernie — there are no words to express my gratitude for your common sense, empathy and utter refusal to let me see defeat. Additional thanks go to Linda Oster (meine Domfrau), whose pithy and Germanic explanations of figures of speech brightened up each dead end, and to Amanda Elizabeth Evans: “Queen of the Teaspoons”, who provided understanding right when I needed it. Emotional support from Sue (from Skipton) and Jane (from the NAS) should not be ignored either. But I have saved the greatest thanks of all for last: years from now, when I am Britain’s ambassador to the BRD/playing Doctor Who/fending off bears in the wild (depending on how the economy goes), I shall look back on this entire stage of my life and think of it in terms of two people. The first of these people is Birgit Smith; from when I arrived at Lancaster as a wide-eyed 18-year-old (but looking curiously the exact same: I have one of those faces), Birgit has always been a vital presence in my academic career. From working with her as German-representative to being supervised by her for my Masters to having her come aboard this PhD halfway through and making it shine, my gratitude to Birgit will never cease. If one person summarises my entire Lancaster experience, it is Birgit. I can offer no higher compliment than that. The other person to whom I owe everything is the one and only Johann Unger. First entering his office as a gormless 23-year-old, I had no way of knowing that a half-decade of tumultuous rewrites, making jokes about “Murder She Wrote” at academic conferences and wrestling with typologies awaited. That such chaos managed to come together to form !5 coherent research is a testament to Johann’s skill, patience and understanding as a supervisor; he has taught me what it means to be an academic. Nobody else can boast such a thing. Now the marathon is over: let’s slay some vamps… !6 Abstract This thesis contributes to the scholarly understanding of intertextuality, characterisation and translation theory; building upon earlier analyses of audiovisual translation of genre television (e.g. Bosseaux 2015, Knox and Adamou 2011), my thesis undertakes analyses of interactions between recurring characters in the sixth season of the US television programme, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The first major contribution of this thesis is the construction of a model of textual cues for characterisation specifically for audiovisual media (e.g. film, television), including non- English language media, building on Bosseaux’s (2015), Culpeper’s (2001) and Walker's (2012) models for dubbed television, drama and novels, respectively. The scene-based analysis of these textual cues in the original English, German dubbing and German subtitles allows the viability of my model for characterisation to be assessed with regard to the audiovisual-specific aspects they incorporate; examples include the visual features of a character's milieu (e.g. the furnishings with which characters are seen to surround themselves) or the visual representation of mental processes (e.g. hallucinations to which the viewer is privy), neither of which could be discerned from non-visual scripts or prose narration. The second major contribution of this thesis concerns intertextual references (see e.g. Fairclough 2003, Allen 2011) which, as a form of textual adaptation, are used in the text to create characterisation. As intertextual references are adapted in audiovisual translation (see e.g. Pérez-González 2014), the characterisation provided by those intertextual references is also adapted; these adaptations are the focus of analysis. For the purposes of this analysis, intertextual references are categorised as allusions, quotations, !7 adaptations and co-text (categories chosen to reflect how intertextuality can be removed or introduced via audiovisual translation): these categories serve to help discern how specific forms of intertextuality are adapted in translation. These qualitative, scene-based analyses (Bednarek 2012) explore different ways in which audiovisual translation can adapt characterisation; adaptations via translation are considered in accordance with the specific limitations of dubbing and subtitles, as well as Systemic Functional Grammar (e.g. Halliday 2014) and multimodal codes (e.g. Chaume 2012), to explain salient decisions taken by translators. Through so doing, it is demonstrated that characterisation can be analysed in dubbed and subtitled texts and intertextual references can be analysed in terms of the characterisation they convey, which can be adapted in translation as the intertextuality is adapted. These are the contributions of this thesis to the fields of intertextuality, characterisation and translation. !8 Contents Declaration 2 Dedication 3 Acknowledgements 4 Abstract 7 List of Figures, Tables and Transcripts 14 Chapter 1: “Doppelgangland” — an introduction 15 1.1: Overview of thesis 15 1.2: Relationship between intertextuality and characterisation 16 1.3: Innovations of this research 17 1.4: Outline of research questions 18 1.5: Structure of thesis 20 Chapter 2: “Welcome to the Hellmouth” — the background on Buffy 24 2.1: Introduction 24 2.2: Buffy the Vampire Slayer — the show 25 — 2.2.1: Creation of Buffy 25 — 2.2.2: The “Buffyverse” — the fictional world of Buffy 26 2.3: Buffy the Vampire Slayer — the characters 30 — 2.3.1: Protagonists — “The Scoobies” 31 — 2.3.2: Antagonists — “The Troika/Trio” 32 — 2.3.3: Classification of Willow and Spike as protagonists 33 2.4: Synopsis of the sixth season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer 34 2.5: Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a global phenomenon 41 — 2.5.1: Buffy in the United States 41 — 2.5.2: Buffy in Germany 42 — 2.5.3: Intended audience for Buffy 43 2.6: Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a source of academic interest 44 — 2.6.1: Buffy the Vampire Slayer in cultural studies 45 — 2.6.2: Buffy the Vampire Slayer in translation studies 46 !9 — 2.6.3: Previous analyses of the sixth season of Buffy 47 — 2.6.4: The appeal of Buffy to academics 49 2.7: Summary 51 Chapter 3: “What’s My Line” — a theoretical framework for adaptation of 52 intertextuality and characterisation in translation 3.1: Introduction 52 3.2: Intertextuality 54 — 3.2.1: Intertextuality and adaptation 54 — 3.2.2: Allusion 61 3.3: Audiovisual translation, translation theory for television and Systemic Functional 66 Grammar — 3.3.1: Audiovisual translation 66 — 3.3.2: Translation theory for television 73 — 3.3.3: Systemic Functional Grammar 80 3.4: Characterisation 87 — 3.4.1: Protagonists and antagonists 87 — 3.4.2: Elements of characterisation 91 — 3.4.3: Discourse structure 104 3.5: Context 111 3.6: Genre 113 3.7: Multimodality 117 3.8: Conclusion and (re)definition of key terms 126 — 3.8.1: Definition for “intertextual reference” 127 — 3.8.2: Definition for “textual cue for characterisation” 128 Chapter 4: “Get It Done” — a systematic account of data and methodology