Analysing Czech Redubs of Star Wars: Episode IV – a New Hope Master’S Diploma Thesis
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Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English-language Translation Bc. Matěj Fouma Analysing Czech redubs of Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope Master’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: Mgr. Renata Kamenická, Ph.D. 2019 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. Bc. Matěj Fouma Acknowledgement I would like to thank my supervisor Mgr. Renata Kamenická, Ph.D. for her guidance, splendid feedback, patience, and astonishing dedication. TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 1 2 AUDIOVISUAL TRANSLATION ......................................................................... 2 2.1 Specification of AVT ........................................................................................ 2 3 DUBBING ............................................................................................................... 8 3.1 Specification of dubbing ................................................................................... 8 3.2 Dubbing history .............................................................................................. 11 3.2.1 Dubbing in the Czech Republic/Czechoslovakia ...................................... 11 3.3 The dubbing process ....................................................................................... 14 3.4 Lip sync .......................................................................................................... 15 4 TRANSLATION STRATEGIES IN REGARD TO CULTURE-SPECIFIC ITEMS .......................................................................................................................... 17 4.1 Culture-specific items ..................................................................................... 17 4.2 Aixelá’s strategies ........................................................................................... 18 4.2.1 Conservation of the reference ................................................................... 18 4.2.2 Substitution of the reference ..................................................................... 19 4.3 Vinay-Darbelnet’s strategies .......................................................................... 20 4.3.1 Direct translation strategies ...................................................................... 21 4.3.2 Oblique translation strategies .................................................................... 22 4.4 The taxonomy proposed for this thesis ........................................................... 24 5 RETRANSLATION .............................................................................................. 25 5.1 Retranslation Hypothesis ................................................................................ 26 5.2 Redubbing ....................................................................................................... 28 5.2.1 Types of redubbing ................................................................................... 33 5.3 Translator’s consistency ................................................................................. 34 6 COMPARISON OF DUBBINGS .......................................................................... 36 6.1 Analysed product ............................................................................................ 37 6.1.1 Star Wars ................................................................................................... 37 6.1.2 Dubbing versions ...................................................................................... 39 6.2 The data collection .......................................................................................... 42 6.2.1 Corpus data ............................................................................................... 43 6.3 Linguistic and sociolinguistic features ........................................................... 46 6.3.1 Pronunciation ............................................................................................ 47 6.3.2 Selected CSIs ............................................................................................ 48 6.3.3 The analysis of the pronunciation table .................................................... 52 6.3.4 T–V distinction ......................................................................................... 54 6.3.5 Register ..................................................................................................... 57 7 THE ANALYSIS OF THE CULTURE-SPECIFIC ITEMS ................................. 59 7.1 The selected CSIs ........................................................................................... 59 7.2 Translation strategies ...................................................................................... 60 7.2.1 Individual references ................................................................................. 60 7.2.2 The analysis of the most diverging translations ........................................ 64 7.3 Consistency of the CSIs .................................................................................. 69 7.3.1 Significant quotes and their consistency ................................................... 71 8 CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................... 73 9 WORKS CITED .................................................................................................... 76 9.1 Primary sources .............................................................................................. 76 9.2 Secondary sources .......................................................................................... 76 10 LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................. 82 11 LIST OF FIGURES ............................................................................................... 83 12 LIST OF APPENDICES ........................................................................................ 84 13 RESUMÉ ............................................................................................................... 85 14 SUMMARY ........................................................................................................... 86 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS AVT – audiovisual translation CSI – culture-specific item DVD – digital versatile disc LD – LaserDisc SL – source language ST – source text SW – Star Wars TL – target language TT – target text VHS – Video Home System 1 INTRODUCTION Dubbing is one of the significant forms of audiovisual translation in the Czech Republic; for over 70 years, the movies and TV series are being translated and dubbed into Czech. In the 1990s, a new phenomenon emerged: redubbing. Films that have previously been translated are being revised or even retranslated for various reasons. This thesis examines these reasons, together with the processes and translation strategies applied in the field of audiovisual retranslation, as this field remains highly under-researched. To demonstrate the differences between the first dubbing and the subsequent redubs, the film Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope was chosen. The film and the related culture-specific items were not as renowned in the 1991 as they were in 2011. Moreover, much has changed over the 20 years that passed between the first dubbing version of the film and its latest redub. New possibilities of acquiring information, private studios, evolving audience behaviours, and a new generation of viewers vastly transformed the demands on quality of the final product. The aim of this thesis is to conduct a research in context of Czech audiovisual production by investigating the strategies used in the three dubbing versions of the same film, by analysing the consistency of the translated references, and by verification of the retranslation hypothesis in the context of audiovisual translation. The data will also verify a hypothesis whether the redubs are based on or influenced by the previous dubbing version or not. 1 2 AUDIOVISUAL TRANSLATION Over the past few decades, audiovisual translation has been a significantly growing branch of translation studies due to a tremendous progress in the field of digital technology together with immense and perpetual interest in media, shared by people all over the world. Since the digital technology revolutionised everyday life and became its important part, ranging from work to social activity, it had a widespread impact on modern society. AVT therefore became a prominent branch of translation studies and its significance is likely to grow in the near future: films, live streams, music videos, all delivered via the Internet, are slowly pushing printed products, the main media of every translator hitherto, aside. AVT has also “opened up new horizons and possibilities for certain sectors of the audience” (Díaz-Cintas, 2008, p. 2) as it encompasses not only multimedia translation (video games, Internet communication, fansubs, fandubs, webtoons), but also a language transfer for persons with disabilities (subtitling for the deaf and the hard-of-hearing, audio description and audio subtitling for the blind and the partially sighted, signed language interpreting). For example, due to the fact that “conventional dubbing and subtitling are not suitable AVT forms for quick access products or translation on the spot, because they are time-consuming and cannot