CHARACTER VOICE in ANIME SUBTITLES Peter Howell, Hiroshima Prefectural University, Japan [email protected]
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292 CHARACTER VOICE IN ANIME SUBTITLES Peter Howell, Hiroshima Prefectural University, Japan [email protected] Abstract One of the main functions of dialogue in film narrative is the construction of character voice, which is partly realized through the skillful use of the sociolinguistic and pragmatic resources of language. In the English subtitling of Japanese animation, there are however two barriers to recreating this function. The first barrier is the major pragmatic and sociolinguistic difference between Japanese and English, and the second consists of the technical constraints of subtitling as a mode of translation. The article describes from a textual point of view how subtitlers have addressed the stylistic problem of character voice, focusing on the work of Neil Nadelman in the film Grave of the Fireflies (“Hotaru no Haka”) and in single episodes from two TV series, Revolutionary Girl Utena (“Shōjo Kakumei Utena”) and Slayers Try (“Sureiyāzu Torai”), and on the work of David Fleming in the film Akira (“Akira”). For all four works, another commercially available subtitled version, either in English or French, is considered for purposes of comparison. Comparison suggests that strategies vary with regard to character voice, but that the decimation of stylistic function is not inevitable in subtitling as a mode of translation. Key words: Anime subtitles; character voice; compensatory procedures. Introduction Sarah Kozloff’s study, Overhearing Film Dialogue (Kozloff 2000), indicates in its title the dual-layered pragmatic context of dialogue in film. Within the inner pragmatic layer of the film, dialogue is addressed primarily to other characters, but in the context of the outer layer it is addressed to an “overhearing” audience to fulfill narrative functions within the overall semiotic design of film as a work of art. Kozloff outlines the functional nature of dialogue in film, and highlights the importance of these functions in view of the fact that film is often regarded as a predominantly visual medium. Among the chief functions outlined is characterization: Each time a character opens his mouth, filmgoers learn more about him – is his accent “upper class” or “hillbilly”? Is he or she polite? brusque? thoughtful? quick? lazy? (Kozloff 2000: 43). Manfred Pfister explains that characterization can also be non-verbal (facial expression and costume) and may be explicit (e.g. in commentary by other characters) (Pfister 1988). But writers, whether in film, drama or novels, typically seek to differentiate between characters by giving them a particular character voice as a kind of implicit badge of identity: …the recurrence of certain stylistic features delineates the contours of the figure’s identity and distinguishes him from the other figures.(Pfister 1988: 148) The stylistic features often involve the writer making use of the diverse varieties of language found within speech communities, including idiolect, dialect, sociolect and register. In Japanese anime and manga, writers make use of the connotations of language varieties to create a ‘virtual’ yakuwari-go (“role- language”) and bring to life stereotypical characters such as the kindly old 0907-676X/06/04/292-14 $20.00 © 2006 Peter Howell Perspectives: Studies in Translatology Vol. 14, No. 4, 2006 Howell. Character Voice in Anime Subtitles 293 scientist, the cosseted young rich girl, the wise-cracking Osakan etc. (Kinsui 2003). As language varieties are closely linked to particular cultures and societies, they present special problems for translators of dialogue in verbal art. Japanese language and society, in particular, diverge widely from language and society in America, Britain and other English-speaking countries, and this creates a significant barrier to attempts to achieve functional correspondence of character voice in translation. The challenge is compounded in the case of subtitling, which is a mode of translation constrained by technical factors: in particular the need to reduce the number of words in the target text in comparison to the original. Linguistic barrier: sociolinguistic and pragmatic differences One of the most difficult problems for translators is geographical dialect. In the target language it is not possible to reproduce dialect’s function of implicitly indicating the regional origins of a character (Levý 1969: 101). The Japanese local colour of, for example, Kōbe dialect cannot be directly reproduced in another linguistic culture. But in functional translation some procedure should ideally be sought to recreate the general connotations conveyed by the dialect in the source culture. Although in prior eras the substitution of source-language dialect by target-language dialect was not uncommon (Czennia 1992: 113), contemporary norms in literary translation firmly reject that procedure. Japanese-English literary translators have described it as “ludicrous” (Keene 2001: 328) and “ridiculous” (Seidensticker quoted in Richie 2000: 77). However, this interdiction on dialect substitution seems to be less absolute in the popular culture world of anime dubbing and comic-book translation. In its homepage liner notes to the TV series Macross (episode 12), the anime distribution company Animeigo (2006) explains that it “has traditionally translated the Osaka-ben dialect into Southern English”. In the translation of the SF manga Neon Genesis Evangelion, a stereotypical Brooklyn dialect is used for a character speaking Osaka dialect. An alternative translation procedure is to use standard, non-regional language in the target text, but a style level that is marked for spoken language. Herbst (1994: 108-109) reports that this is a common procedure in dubbing into German and can recreate the connotations of social intimacy, directness and emotion conveyed by regional dialect. If, however, spoken style is extended to include non-standard and slang words, this risks producing an effect demeaning to a fictional character, quite different from that of the dialect in the original text (Schogt 1988: 119; Schreiber 1993: 211). The problems of translating regional dialect would seem essentially the same for all language pairs. But pragmatic aspects of Japanese constitute a particular difficulty for the English translator because of the fact that linguistic resources used in Japanese to express pragmatic meanings often have no directly corresponding counterparts in English, and that indeed Japanese socio- cultural structures – social hierarchies, in-group out-group membership, gender construction etc. – are significantly different from those in English-speaking countries. One such pragmatic difficulty is presented by sentence-final particles, some of which are used to “express the speaker’s emotion or attitude toward the hearer” (Makino & Tsutsui 1986: 45), and which may – for instance in the case 294 2006. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology. Volume 14: 4 of the particles ze and zo – be strongly associated with informal male speech. Such particles do not exist in English, a fact which can cause them to be labelled by language teachers as untranslatable (e.g. Kawashima 1999). Japanese terms of self-reference and address are also very different from those used in English. When addressing someone outside one’s intimate group or of higher status, it would be normal to use the addressee’s family name + the address suffix -san, while the use of name + the address suffix -sama represents an instance of honorific language elevating the addressee to a yet higher status. Conversely, the term of address omae (“you”) is socially acceptable among males of the same social status and in-group, but is rude in other contexts where it may convey aggression and contempt. Furthermore, the non-standard pronunciation omē is considered still rougher and more aggressive. Younger Japanese people, such as schoolchildren, students and junior company employees, may often simply use the term senpai (“senior”) to address those older than them in a particular social hierarchy. The recreation of these distinct pragmatic aspects of character voice presents a major challenge when translating represented speech from Japanese into English. Three types of overall strategic approach may be adopted in the face of this challenge. A foreignizing strategy could conceivably seek to convey something of the nature of the Japanese social system by simply transferring address terms such as senpai and suffixes such as -san directly from Japanese. Although rare in commercial translations, this is a strategy not infrequently found in non-commercial fan translations. It risks however creating an exotic stylistic effect totally absent from the original dialogue. A neutralizing strategy would simply omit the social meaning encoded in the Japanese dialogue by the use of an unmarked style in English. It results in stylistically flat, bland dialogue. A domesticating strategy, on the other hand, would have recourse to compensatory procedures using a variety of sociolinguistic and pragmatic resources of the target language which, although they are not necessarily equivalent, recreate a corresponding stylistic effect. A heavily domesticating strategy can make the characters sound distinctly American, which may potentially be jarring for more purist fans of anime as a specifically Japanese genre, or for non-American audiences, particularly if the setting of the anime is Japan itself. Modal barrier: the constraints of subtitling Academic literature on subtitling has stressed the technical constraints of subtitling