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.
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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 keep up with the latest news” (Bartolomé and Cabrera, 2005, p. 91), new forms of AVT, such as YouTube’s direct subtitle creation and translation, had to be established.
2.1 Specification of AVT
AVT is by all means one of the youngest forms of translation. The first studies in the field referred mainly to film translation; after TV and video became popular, the term language transfer was introduced. However, this term was problematic as it did not label the supplemental elements, such as picture and sounds; hence, the term
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audiovisual translation was introduced” (Gambier, 2003, p. 171). González (2011) defines AVT as “a branch of translation studies concerned with the transfer of multimodal and multimedial texts into another language and/or culture” (p. 13). This definition includes a considerable number of different areas—not only television and film industry—but also theatre, computer games, and electronic devices or content related to the Internet, since the included texts do not stand alone here: they are a partial element of a larger whole. Not only has the translator to work with the text, but he also has to deal with the surrounding elements, such as the atmosphere on the stage, situation in the film, the gestures and facial expressions of the actors, sometimes even with the audio cues that accompany the setting. However, it is not possible to define AVT simply, due to the unceasing development of new and improved digital deliverance of ideas and approaches.
The process itself consists of transforming the audiovisual medium in a way that brings the original product to the audience that is not familiar with the source language.
This means that the translator has to deal with two different channels: acoustic and visual. Hence, the most significant difference between AVT and literary translation is that AVT is not perceived only visually, but also acoustically; the output is not read only, it is perceived by multiple senses. To synchronise the text with the screen or stage is therefore one of the most challenging issues for the translator. Oftentimes the text may be provided without any comments as well as without the contextual video due to copyrights of the authors, making the ‘blind’ translation quite challenging.
Jorge Díaz-Cintas (2009) distinguishes two basic modalities of the audiovisual language transfer: The process of transferring the oral output into written output called
‘subtitling’ (visual), and the process in which the oral output remains oral output called
‘revoicing’ (auditory) (p. 4). In the process of revoicing, the original audio cue is
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replaced by a new one. In case of replacing the audio cue partially, we talk about
‘voiceover’, when the original soundtrack still is audible, and in case of a total replacement, we talk about ‘dubbing’.
After a century of practising this relatively young discipline, various modes of
AVT were defined. Scholars who deal with AVT cannot currently quite agree on a definite list. Bartolomé and Cabrera (2005) ascertained that the figures vary considerably, depending on the author consulted. Twenty years ago, there were only 5 to a maximum of 10 AVT modes named, whereas nowadays some could list up to 13 modes (p. 92). Although the list may probably be extended even more in the future,
Bartolomé and Cabrera (2005, p. 93) suggested the following classification based on those of Y. Gambiér’s La traduction audiovisuelle: un genre en expansion (2004) and
F. Chaume’s Cine y traducción (2004) that I split into two main categories, depending on whether the mode is visual or acoustic:
Visual Acoustic Subtitling Dubbing Surtitling Voice over Live subtitling Partial dubbing Subtitling for the hearing-impaired Free commentary Narration Simultaneous translation Audio description Both Interpreting Script translation Animation Multimedia translation Double versions Remakes Table 1. Audiovisual modes
Subtitling is one of the basic AVT modes that do not alter the audio cue.
Subtitles are defined by Luyken (1991) as “condensed written translations of original dialogue which appear as lines of text, usually positioned towards the foot of the screen.
Subtitles appear and disappear to coincide in time with the corresponding portion of the
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original dialogue (p. 31). These are usually based on the sound track and they either provide identical utterances as they are in the audio cue (sometimes even ambient noises are noted) or present it in a condensed form in order to make the text easily readable.
Whereas conventional subtitles are added to the audiovisual work subsequently, live subtitling emerged along with the onset of the speech recognition software, which can transmit spoken discourse into a written one in a real time (Pérez, 2017, p. 25). Both techniques figure in subtitling for the hearing-impaired. The difference between subtitles and surtitles is that whereas subtitles are displayed below in an audiovisual work, “surtitles are displayed above the stage, in live opera or theatre performances”
(Burton, 2009, p. 58). Concisely, surtitles present the translation of the sung dialogues.
Dubbing is a technique that alters the spoken dialogues. Its main aim is to make the dialogue appear as if it were uttered by the TL actors through “the replacement of the original speech by a voice track which attempts to follow as closely as possible the timing, phrasing, and lip-movements of the original dialogue” (Luyken, 1991, p. 31).
The sound track in both voiced-over and partially dubbed material coexist and overlap.
Usually the original track can be heard in the first few seconds of the dialogue until the volume is lowered and the new track is played over the original (audiovisual-19). These techniques are “conventionally used for the translation of televised interviews, documentaries and other forms of audiovisual content where lip-synchronization is not of the essence” (p. 20). The difference between voice over and partial dubbing is that in voice over, all voices are covered by one person, but in partial dubbing, each person is dubbed by a different voice actor. Nevertheless, there are cases of partial dubbing with only 3-5 voice actors present in the studio that cover a larger number of characters.
Although the rest of the revoicing techniques may seem to cover the same process, they differ in conditions in which they are produced and in their settings. Free commentary is
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performed by commentators when broadcasting a high-profile event and Gambier
(2003) defines it as “an adaptation for a new audience, with additions, omissions, clarifications and comments. Synchronization is done with on-screen images rather than with the soundtrack” (p. 174). On the other hand, narration is an extended form of oral transfer that “aims to provide a summarized but faithful and carefully scripted rendition of the original speech, and its delivery is carefully timed to avoid any clash with the visual syntax of the programme” (Pérez, 2011, p. 16). Simultaneous translation is usually carried out at the film festivals due to time and budget constraints, because no elaborate form of language transfer can be performed (p. 17). The counterpart of the subtitling for the hearing-impaired is the audio description – a spoken account of the visual aspects that conveys the plot of the film or TV series. This additional narrative is delivered between stretches of dialogue to describe important visual events that the visually impaired viewer should know about to understand what is happening on screen.
Although interpreting is usually considered an acoustic AVT mode, we must not forget about the deaf interpreters – “hearing professionals who are trained to interpret in a bi-modal and bidirectional way: spoken language – signed language” (Meulder and
Heyerick, 2013, p. 111). In case the deaf interpreter is present in a show, the language transfer is visual. Script translations are not aimed at the audience; they are solely created for obtaining financial support for co-productions. These translations are not visible, but vital since they are the departure point of the whole production (Gambier, 2004, p. 2). An interesting AVT mode is animation, which includes both translation and scriptwriting features. The translator has to envision the images and create the dialogues from scratch since the animation itself is not rendered yet. As for the multimedia translation, its complexity lies in a combination of AVT modes (dubbing and subtitling), programming skills, and sci-tech expertise of the
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translator, as he needs to keep both modes synchronized with the environment of a video game (Bartolomé and Cabrera, 2005, p. 99). Multilingual production of an audiovisual work sometimes includes double versions. In this AVT mode, the actors play their roles in their native language, and their voice tracks are replaced in the postproduction process with the voice track intended for the target audience (Gambier,
2004, p. 4). The multilingual production can also include remakes, which consist of contextualisation of the audiovisual work in accordance with the target culture (p. 4).
According to Mera (1999), the most common forms of AVT in Europe are dubbing and subtitling, whereas voice-over and narration are less frequent (p. 74).
Danan (1991) evaluated the reasons why different countries choose a different form of
AVT subsequently: “Subtitling and dubbing represent two extremes on the translation spectrum because they originate from two opposite types of cultural systems. Subtitling corresponds to a weaker system open to foreign influences. Dubbing results from a dominant nationalistic1 system in which nationalistic1 film rhetoric and language policies are promoted equally. Suppressing or accepting the foreign nature of imported films is a key to understanding how a country perceives itself in relation to others, and how it views the importance of its own culture and language” (p. 613). For example, after the Spanish Civil War, the military dictator Francesco Franco strove to keep Spain as unilingual as possible and thus required the obligatory dubbing into Castilian
Spanish. This also led to suppression of other languages located in the territory of
Iberian Peninsula, such as Basque, Catalan, or Galician, and dubbing became the perfect tool for propaganda, manipulating the content, and for keeping the national unity through language (Díaz-Cintas, 2018, p. 186).
1 In terms of patriotism
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3 DUBBING
This chapter deals with dubbing, an AVT form that is still predominant in the Czech
Republic, as the research is entirely dedicated to different dubbing versions of the analysed film. The prevalence of dubbing started in the late 1940s and for decades, it was the most widespread method of AVT of foreign movies. Despite its rich history and justified position on the Czech audiovisual market, the Czech audience seem to be losing interest in dubbed work since the language skills and general education of the individual recipients have widely developed in the recent years. Yet dubbing of audiovisual works remains one of the preferred forms of translation for the Czech audience. Even though dubbing has always been preferred in former Czechoslovakia and the successor states of the Czech Republic and Slovakia, subtitling is slowly overtaking the exclusive position of dubbing. The current chapter summarizes why dubbing achieved its reputation, and reasons for its usage as the major form of AVT.
3.1 Specification of dubbing
The process of dubbing can be described as “the replacement of the original speech by a voice track which attempts to follow as closely as possible the timing, phrasing, and lip- movements of the original dialogue” (Luyken, 1991, p. 31); the other tracks, such as ambient sounds or music, are left untouched. This type of AVT is especially used in the so-called “dubbing countries”. These include countries of Central and Western Europe
(Austria, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Slovakia, Spain, and
Switzerland), most Asian countries, Turkey, Brazil, and some of the North-African countries (Chaume, 2006, p. 6).
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Figure 1. Distribution of AVT modes in Europe. From Dubbing or Subtitles for TV and Films in European countries, by whiplashoo21, July 5 2018, retrieved from www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/8waxc3/dubbing_or_subtitles_for_tv_and_fil ms_in_european/e1u0q7o/.
The above map clearly represents the distribution of the individual AVT modes of each country. The data do not assert that the mode holds an exclusive position in each country, but rather that it is the most prominent. For example, the films and TV series in the Czech Republic are dubbed into Czech, but subtitled versions are also available (e.g. the latest blockbusters are currently provided in the cinemas of one of the most prominent multiplex companies in both dubbed and subtitled version. TV series may be broadcasted with subtitles on one station, but with dubbing on a different one).
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The countries are divided as follows:
Subtitles: The films in these countries are generally subtitled, unless they are
intended for a younger audience, but not exclusively.
Dubbing: The majority of audiovisual products such as films, TV series, or even
video games are provided with a full-cast dubbing.
Mixed: Full-cast dubbing is used occasionally; otherwise, all products are solely
subtitled.
Voice over: One or just a couple of voice actors provide the TL sound track,
whereas the original sound track persists.
Countries that produce dubbing in their own language, but also broadcast
dubbing versions of another country with a sorely similar language.
Belgium: A special case where the Dutch-speaking Flemish region occasionally
produces their own-dialect dubbing versions (counter to Spanish regions), but
also uses dubbing versions from the Netherlands, both for the younger audience,
the films for the adult audience are subtitled. The French-speaking region of
Wallonia uses exclusively a full-cast dubbing.
The map shows that the countries of Northern and South-Eastern Europe prefer subtitles to dubbing and the majority of Eastern Europe countries prefer voice-over, also known as Lektor. The utilisation of Lektor is, according to Chiaro (2012), “a nonsynchronized form of dubbing in which all the different actors, regardless of gender, are dubbed by a single male voice (…), but may also consist of two voices, one male and one female, voicing-over the male and female characters respectively” (p. 4).
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3.2 Dubbing history
By the end of the 1920s, the producers started to contemplate how to bring sound film to the foreign audience. Until 1927, when the first sound movie The Jazz Singer
(Talpová, 2013, p. 7) was released, films did not include a synchronised recorded sound; therefore, the foreign audience was able to understand what was happening in the movie since most of the information was transferred visually. The accompanying elements were usually intertitles that conveyed the dialogues, and sometimes the storyline information; silent movies were usually also supported by pre-recorded or live music. The translation was then carried out by transcribing the original intertitles to the mother tongue of the audience. Nevertheless, this process was not suitable for a sound film, and many short-term solutions were executed, until the Austrian producer Jakob
Karol realised in 1930 that it might be possible to replace the original sound track of the sound movie with the TL track thanks to the state-of-the-art technology. (Chiaro, 2012, p. 3)
3.2.1 Dubbing in the Czech Republic/Czechoslovakia
Whilst the practice of dubbing was becoming very popular, especially in France,
Germany, or Italy (Audissino, 2012, p. 22), it seemed that subtitling would remain the definite way of Czechisizing foreign movies for Czechoslovakia (Kautský, 1970, p. 19).
This approach was logical since the “dubbing countries” favoured dubbing because of protectionism policies, whereas smaller markets chose subtitling due to its lower price
(Audissino, 2012, p. 22). Between the two World Wars, only few films were dubbed in
Czechoslovakia, and the quality was appalling. For example, the amateurishness of the first dubbings was amplified by the fact that all characters were dubbed by the translator and by the dissatisfaction over the fact that foreign actors in a foreign environment
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suddenly spoke Czech, which annoyed the audience (Kautský, 1970, p. 25).
Nevertheless, the audience definitely wanted to understand foreign movies and there were two possibilities how to deliver the translation – it would either be read during speech scenes or delivered in form of subtitles embedded in the film. However, subtitling was still more time consuming than reading the text aloud.
During the Great Depression the Czechoslovak industry production volume decreased rapidly, which lead to a series of interventions and regulations that reinforced national production. Import restrictions helped the film industry of Czechoslovakia to grow significantly, though at the expense of zero acquisition of foreign movies.
Therefore, there was no need for translation (Szczepanik, 2009, p. 26). By 1933, Prague film studios started to experiment with dubbing in the form of a synchronised commentary that was independent of the image. The first film ever dubbed in
Czechoslovakia, translated and edited by Miroslav Gebert, was Trailing the Killer and it was produced in 1933. The Czech dubbing of the film Snow White and the Seven
Dwarfs (1938) received the greatest public acceptance of the decade. Despite all this, dubbing was not a popular AVT form in Czechoslovakia at that time and the standard method of introducing foreign movies to the Czechoslovak audience was, until the
1950s, subtitling (Szczepanik, 2009, p. 64).
In 1948, dubbing was officially established as a new field of dramatic arts. The first post-war film dubbed in Czechoslovakia was Nebezpečná křižovatka (The Secret
Brigade) and it was processed in Oddělení jazykové úpravy Československého státního filmu (The department of stylistic revision of Czechoslovak national film), today’s
Barrandov studio dabing. Barrandov dubbing studios gradually expanded, translating and modifying ten times more movies during the 1950s. Some of the studios then moved to the headquarters of Czechoslovak Television. Nevertheless, the majority of
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movies were dubbed directly (in real time) at that time due to prevalence of television broadcasting.
During the following decades, the standard of Czechoslovak dubbing progressed and reached its golden era in the 1970s. Contemporary witnesses claim that the quality of the Czechoslovak dubbing was the best in the world; actors at that time even attempted to proclaim dubbing as a new art form. The fact that most publications about dubbing were written around the 1970s supports the claim that dubbing was indeed an important part of the Czechoslovak film industry. Why was the Czechoslovak dubbing better than the Italian, German, or Spanish, taking into account that Czechoslovakia was a small country with a smaller target audience? The voice actor Klapka declares that it was because the top professional stage actors – not professional voice actors, dubbed the films. The utmost effort of the studios was to produce dubbings of such quality that the audience could just listen to the sound track and still know what is going on, much like a radio play (Česká televize, 2011). However, a less noble reason has been a better conduct of censorship through dubbing by the political forces, and inconspicuous discouragement from learning foreign languages. (Talpová, 2013, p. 11) It was more convenient for the political force to determine the viewers’ standards: the movies were chosen for the citizens, and the unwanted scenes were cut out. It was also easier to rewrite the original script, since nobody who was capable of understanding the SL of the film could notice that the sound does not match the subtitles, as it would have been in the case of a subtitled film. Therefore, the dubbed versions could have been easily abused; this was also the case why dubbing was favoured primarily in countries of the former Eastern Bloc (Talpová, 2013, p. 49).
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3.3 The dubbing process
The dubbing process starts when a television station, distributor, or producer acquires the rights to offer a foreign film or a show in the local market. The film or a show is then sent to a dubbing studio, along with the original script for the translator and instructions, such as whether songs are to be dubbed, whether screen inserts are to be subtitled, and whether certain dubbing actors should take certain roles (Martínez, 2004, p. 18). Before the 1990s, the original script was often missing; hence, the transcript had to be made manually (Talpová, 2013, p. 14). The dubbing studio will then commission the text to a translator who is usually independent of the studio. The translator usually produces a rough translation along with a ‘translation brief’, which reflects all the idiosyncrasies of the source text and culture (Chaume, 2006, p. 6). The translation should contain the same number of sentences and preferably, a similar number of syllables. The rough translation is then rewritten either by the translator, or by the proofreader to make it sound more natural and to synchronise the utterance with the movement of the lips.
According to Walló (2012), it is best to choose a proofreader of the rough translation who does not master the source language, but rather the target language in order not to be affected by the text and to reformulate the target text as naturally as possible. His or her main aim is to modify the text in order to synchronise the words with the movement of actor’s lips, his or her gestures. The editor’s responsibility is also to re-spell the foreign names and terms phonetically. The translator seldom does the synchronisation; usually the proofreader or the director is the person who edits the lines.
Even the voice actors sometimes alter the text in case it is too short, or it contains some sort of error, however, this still has to be approved by the director (p. 116). While
Talpová (2013) implies that the final text cannot be good in case the rough translation is
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edited by the same person who translated it, Kautský (p. 21) (a translator and an editor at the same time) has an opposite opinion. Talpová argues that translators cannot keep enough distance during the process since they usually edit the text during the process of the rough translation and therefore are more hesitant to alternate it subsequently.
3.4 Lip sync
Lip synchronisation is an important part of every high-quality dubbing, and often appears during the postproduction phase of filmmaking. It consists in the adjustment of the dialogues, which ensures that the words ‘fit the mouth’. In other words, the viewers are led to believe that the foreign actor or actress utters the sentences in the TL. The necessity of lip sync is directly related to the movement of the actor’s or actress’ mouth:
The closer the camera moves, the more accurate the lip sync has to be. However, the lip sync is not required in instances where the individuals do not face the camera directly or when they speak off camera.
When the lip synchronisation is required, the dubbing director may even alter the translation, just so the words can match the lip movements (Chaume, 2004, p. 37). In a close up shot, the actor or actress may pronounce one or more distinctive sounds; in that case, the translation “should particularly respect the open vowels and bilabial and labio- dental consonants pronounced on screen” (Chaume, 2006, p. 7). The text then must be altered to match their lips perfectly so there is no contrast between what the viewer sees and what the viewer hears. The translators usually do not concern themselves with this issue, as they usually lack the experience in dialogue adaptation and adjustment techniques (Luyken, 1991, p. 31).
In order to maintain synchrony with the movement of the actor’s or actress’ mouth, fillers are sometimes used. The fillers are discourse markers that are used by the
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speakers when they need to think or hesitate during their speech, however, they do not convey the primary message in a discourse (Erten, 2014, p. 70). They are present in dubbings either repeating the filler from the SL in the TL, or as a technique that helps the proofreaders or the voice actors to encompass the full length of the translated dialogue when it is too short.
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4 TRANSLATION STRATEGIES IN REGARD TO CULTURE-
SPECIFIC ITEMS
The elements chosen for the analysis of the three different dubbing versions of SW are the so-called culture-specific items. To identify these items, the following translation strategies were chosen: those proposed by Javier Franco Aixelá (1996), and by Jean-
Paul Vinay and Jean Darbelnet (1958/1995). These taxonomies were chosen as they contain both methodology and strategies suitable for the analysis of AVT. One of the most influential taxonomies is that of Vinay and Darbelnet and even though it was not designated to evaluate culture-specific items, it can still serve as a referential point. The resulting classification contains a set of translation strategies that are suitable directly for the particular needs of this thesis. The resulting taxonomy based on the aforementioned two will be proposed to serve as a tool for the analytical part of the thesis.
4.1 Culture-specific items
When the translators’ focus is directed on a reference of the ST that is not present in the
TL or does not have a precise equivalent in the TL, they might have stumbled upon a culture-specific reference. Aixelá (1996) defines these references as culture-specific items that “are usually expressed in a text by means of objects and of systems of classification and measurement whose use is restricted to the source culture, or by means of the transcription of opinions and the description of habits equally alien to the receiving culture” (p. 56). Any linguistic reference can be defined as a CSI, depending on its function alone or within the text, and whether the CSI poses a comprehension problem for the target audience (p. 58). Although this chapter is focused on the specific
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items in sense of an existing culture, the taxonomy can also be applied to the fictitious universe of SW.
The initial task that precedes the analysis of CSIs is to establish a proper tool for defining cultural references. As Aixelá (1996) put it, “the main difficulty with the definition lies, of course, in the fact that in a language everything is culturally produced, beginning with language itself” (p. 57). Regrettably, not many scholars within translation studies take interest in this topic, and each of those who did proposed their own strategies in order to find a truly comprehensive taxonomy. Thus, there are no established classifications of CSIs concerning dubbing.
4.2 Aixelá’s strategies
The main pitfall of translating CSIs is when the translator is unable to find an equivalent term, as it simply does not exist in the target culture, or the concept is not known by the general audience. In 1996, Aixelá attempted to group all possible strategies related to
CSIs together. Although his taxonomy was designed mainly for the analysis of the literary works, it could also be used for analysing AVT. The strategies related to a written text (e.g. orthographic adaptation, intratextual and extratextual gloss) were not included as they cannot be examined in dubbing. Short examples from the SW universe were added to each strategy.
4.2.1 Conservation of the reference
➢ Repetition
The translator keeps the original reference of the SL in the TT. This is usually the case of toponyms (Aixelá, 1996, p. 61).
Example: The spaceport of ‘Mos Eisley’ → ‘Mos Eisley’.
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4.2.2 Substitution of the reference
➢ Synonymy
The translator chooses a synonym or a parallel reference in order to avoid repetition to the original reference (Aixelá, 1996, p. 63).
Example: Kid → Hoch, chlapec, or Luke.
➢ Limited universalization
In case the original reference is too obscure, the translator replaces the original reference with a term that also belongs to the SL but is closer to the target audience
(Aixelá, 1996, p. 63).
Example: Tractor beam → Transportní paprsek (‘transport beam’).
➢ Absolute universalization
An identical situation as the previous one, but in this instance the translator replaces the reference with a more general word (Aixelá, 1996, p. 63). Using a superordinate word when the TL does not have an accurate equivalent on the specific level is one of the most common strategies when dealing with non-equivalence (Baker,
2013, p. 23).
Example: Gaffi stick → Hůl (‘staff’).
➢ Deletion
The translator considers the CSI unacceptable, irrelevant for the required comprehension, or too obscure, and decides to omit it in the TT.
Example: It's not wise to upset a Wookiee → Nedráždi ho (‘do not upset him’)
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➢ Autonomous creation
The translator decides to insert reference that was not present in the ST to make the translation more interesting for the target audience. This technique is not frequently used nowadays (Aixelá, 1996, p. 64).
Example: the translator of the 1991 version of SW decided to add a reference
to a well-established director Steven Spielberg to the resulting
translation: ‘Well, not at making them [stories] interesting, anyway’
→ ‘Neumím je správně podat, nejsem Spielberg’ (I am unable to tell
them in the right manner, I am no Spielberg).
4.3 Vinay-Darbelnet’s strategies
The following translation procedures were proposed by Jean-Paul Vinay and Jean
Darbelnet for the first time in 1958 in their book Stylistique comparée du français et de l’anglais, a comparative study of French and English stylistics dealing with methodological translational guidelines. These procedures are used for analysis of sentences and smaller language units within the text.
The taxonomy in Sager’s translated edition of Vinay and Darbelnet’s book
(1995) includes seven methods: borrowing, calque, literal translation, transposition, modulation, equivalence, and adaptation (p. 31-40). These are covered by two umbrella translation strategies – direct and oblique translation. None of the procedures concern discussing longer stretches of text, but rather short clusters, and all of them are usually present in a majority of translations.
Direct translation Oblique translation Literal Translation Transposition Borrowing Modulation Calque Equivalence Adaptation Table 2. Vinay and Darbelnet's taxonomy
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Translator can choose between two general methods of translating – direct and oblique translation. Although language message elements can be transposed from SL to
TL easily when they are based on parallel categories or parallel concepts, gaps in the TL may appear during the direct translation and they need to be filled by corresponding elements in order to keep the overall message. However, structural or metalinguistic differences can alter the syntactic order or lexis, and therefore a more complex method of oblique translation has to be used (p. 31). These methods are divided into following the sub-procedures according to the above table.
4.3.1 Direct translation strategies
➢ Literal translation
This method is one of the essential and supposedly the simplest strategies of all translators. Literal translation is a direct transfer of the ST into the TT. Vinay and
Darbelnet (1995) believe that the method may work when the SL and TL share the same culture and/or are from the same language family since the solution is reversible and complete in itself (p. 34). This method cannot be used during the entire translation process as there often are many syntactic differences between the SL and the TL and the resulting text would not feel natural. The oblique translation methods need to be pursued in cases where literal translation is not acceptable, such as when the literally translated message has another meaning, has no meaning, is structurally impossible, does not have a corresponding expression within the metalinguistic experience of the
TL, or has a corresponding expression, but not within the same register (p. 35).
➢ Borrowing
A borrowing is the simplest translation method that consists in using the word from the SL in the TT. It may be virtually applied to any part of speech and it gives the
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text a touch of foreignness that can make the reader or viewer more engaged with the content. Ranks, local jargon, or even exclamations can interestingly introduce an element of local colour to the work and may even shape further development of the TL when used by translators frequently (p. 32). In addition, instead of trying to create a tolerably equivalent term for a specific word—such as ‘Stormtrooper’—it is more desirable to remain faithful to the original.
➢ Calque
A kind of borrowing that differs in using the form of an expression from the SL, but all elements in the expression are translated literally. Vinay and Darbelnet (1995) further distinguish two types of calque: a lexical calque, which “respects the syntactic structure of the TL, whilst introducing a new mode of expression”, and a structural calque, which “introduces a new construction into the language” (p. 32). For example, in one instance, ‘sublight engine’ is translated as ‘podsvětelný motor’.
4.3.2 Oblique translation strategies
➢ Transposition
Transposition consists of the replacement of a word class by another word class without changing the meaning. Not only can the method be used as a translation technique, it can also be applied within a language. There are two types of transposition, obligatory and optional (p. 36); obligatory transposition must be made if the utterance structure has to comply with the grammatical rules of the TL, and in case the utterance is not imposed by the grammatical rules, the transposition is optional. This oblique translation method is one of the most frequently used ones.
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➢ Modulation
Modulation is a kind of reformulation of the message that is produced by changing the point of view to make the resulting translation sound more natural in the
TL. It is important for the translator to be well acquainted with both source and target language, as well as creative, in order to use this method without any constraints (p. 36).
For example, modulation may sometimes appear in a form in which a negative SL expression needs to be turned into a positive TL expression and vice versa. Vinay and
Darbelnet (1995) distinguish between fixed or obligatory modulation and those that are free or optional. An obligatory modulation is a method used by the translators with a good knowledge of both languages, as they are aware of the frequency of use and the overall acceptance. Free modulations are instances that are not yet fixed by usage and have to be carried out repeatedly until they become fixed in the TL (p. 37).
➢ Equivalence
Translational equivalence appears when a word or a locution in one language refers to the same item in another language and renders an equivalent effect without being a literal translation. It could concern a single word or even a phrase, since “most equivalences are fixed, and belong to a phraseological repertoire of idioms, clichés, proverbs, nominal or adjectival phrases, etc.” (Vinay and Darbelnet, 1995, p. 38).
➢ Adaptation
Adaptation is used in cases where the situation in the ST is unknown in the target culture and requires rendering a completely new situation for the TT. This kind of translation usually occurs when translating film titles (which may even confuse the viewers) – for example, ‘Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging’, was translated to Czech as ‘On je fakt boží!’ (‘He is so awesome!’). Adaptation may also be labelled as ‘free translation’ as the culture-specific item is fully substituted.
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4.4 The taxonomy proposed for this thesis
Based on the above translational methods and strategies, the following list of 12 chosen strategies was set up to serve as the heuristic tool for the comparative analysis.
Strategy Brief definition Absolute replacement of an obscure reference with a more general one universalization Adaptation rendering a completely new text
Autonomous creation insertion of a reference that was not present in the ST
Borrowing/Repetition keeping the original reference in the TT a reference created by literal translation (lexical) or Calque constituted on the ST locution Deletion a complete omission of the CSI a word or a locution in one language refers to the same item Equivalence in another language and renders an equivalent effect replacement of an obscure reference with a reference with Limited universalization the same cultural background that is closer to the target audience Literal translation a direct word-for-word transfer
Modulation reformulation to make the message sound more natural avoiding repetition of the reference by using a word with the Synonymy exact same meaning Transposition variation in a grammatical function of a word Table 3. Strategies proposed for the analysis
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5 RETRANSLATION
Since the main focuses of this thesis are subsequent translations of the same film, the following chapter explains the process of repeated translation in more detail. Simply put, retranslation is a subsequent translation of a work that has already been translated into the same TL. There might be many reasons why a ST should be translated over again; it is not only a vagary of the translator, the ST either may have been edited, or the first translation just does not meet the requirements of the audience, whether the translation is visual or auditory. The need for retranslation is as old as translation itself, for centuries, various retranslations were conducted, ranging from retranslations of the oldest texts such as ancient epic poems or the Bible, to the subtitles of the latest television programmes. New translation is then a completely new update of the original text for the target audience. Although this phenomenon was visible and known, no special attention had been given to retranslation until famous Berman’s article in the journal Palimpsestes in 1990.
There are various definitions of retranslation since more meanings are distinguished. Second-hand translations, ergo translations of a text from a different SL than the original one, may also be considered retranslations, together with back- translation, adaptation, and revision (Cadera, 2017, p. 6). Moreover, “some texts are hybrids, containing chunks of revised earlier translation and chunks of retranslation
(…)” (Koskinen and Paloposki, 2010, p. 295), making it challenging to differentiate between revision and retranslation. Even bringing the text closer to a different audience that speaks the same language (e.g. a Spanish translation intended for the audience of
Spain and a different version of the same translation for the audience of Mexico) might be considered a sort of retranslation. Pym (2014) defines these simultaneous translations
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for the same market “passive retranslations”, whereas those that share the same cultural location are defined as “active retranslations” (p. 82).
Issues may arise when the source text is somehow altered (for example due to revisions, adding chapters, scenes). Do we still talk about a retranslation if the edited original, or its part, is translated again? Is revision also a retranslation? There is a significant parallelism between revision and retranslation. As Koskinen and Paloposki
(2010) stated, “a close reading of numerous case studies has revealed that versions may get labelled as revisions or retranslations rather arbitrarily. This means that a version that has relied heavily on a previous translation and has initially been labelled as a revised edition in the publishing house may later be reprinted as a new translation” (p.
294). Such state draws a rather thin line between these two terms; to distinguish between revision and retranslation one should simply compare the first and the second version. Depending on how much the two texts differ from each other the term that suits the second version best could be determined.
5.1 Retranslation Hypothesis
Although the practice of retranslation is quite common both nowadays and historically, some academic research has been carried out in this area. A solid theoretical background is yet to come for the retranslation of audiovisual products as well, as it remains a largely under-researched phenomenon (Zanotti, 2015, p. 110).
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was one of the first to be concerned with different types of (re)translation within the same cultural location:
The first acquaints us with the foreign country on our own terms (…). A second epoch follows,
in which the translator endeavours to transport himself into the foreign situation but actually only
appropriates the foreign idea and represents it as his own (…). The third epoch of translation (…)
is the final and highest of the three. In such periods, the goal of the translation is to achieve
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perfect identity with the original, so that the one does not exist instead of the other but in the
other’s place (…). We are led, yes, compelled as it were, back to the source text. (Goethe, 1992,
p. 60-3)
The above excerpt represents one of the first investigations of retranslation.
Goethe believed that this gradual process would produce the best translations possible.
Goethe’s idea has unfortunately not been thoroughly examined until Antoine Berman published a journal entry in 1990 which was dedicated to retranslation.
Berman (1990) proposed the Retranslation hypothesis that has later been coined as such by Andrew Chesterman (2000) as the Retranslation Hypothesis (Cadera, 2017, p. 6). The main idea of the hypothesis is that the first (domesticating) translations simply cannot be good as they are more ST oriented, whereas subsequent (foreignizing) translations have the advantage of being inspired by the original one. Therefore, the translator can make the most of the new text in accordance with the first translation, bringing the text back to its original contextualization and the real spirit of the TL.
Compared to the ‘eternally young’ original, the initial translations age for a variety of reasons – the language, literature, and culture is developing, and a hundred-year old translation simply cannot suffice to a present-day audience (Berman, 1990, p. 1); the retranslation has to be done since the existing translation no more reveals or communicates the concept of the work. Any translation made after the first translation of a work is therefore a retranslation.
Berman also introduced the so-called great translations. Those are equal to or even more brilliant than the original work. Inspired by Goethe, Berman saw their greatness in their perfect systematics, authentic locution and language equivalence, and intensive interconnectedness with the original (which is measured by the impact it has on the target culture). One thing all great translations have in common is that all of them
(chosen by Berman himself)—The Vulgate of St. Jerome, The Luther Bible, Galland’s
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One Thousand and One Nights, Baudelaire’s Poe—are retranslations (Berman, 1990, p.
2). According to Berman, first translations can never be great translations and the idea of first and subsequent translations is often referred to as the Translation hypothesis.
The subsequent translations will refine the text in a way in which the author’s style will be more visible and thus improve the quality of translation itself.
Most retranslations are literary ones. However, there are other types such as audiovisual retranslation, which are given less attention than the literary. Zanotti (2015) discovered that “while retranslation in the field of literature is usually regarded as a positive phenomenon, leading to diversity and a broadening of the available interpretations of the source text, retranslation in the audiovisual field tends either to be neglected or is negatively received” (p. 111).
5.2 Redubbing
A second or subsequent dubbing version of the same audiovisual text in the same TL is called a redub. The occurrence of redubs is a matter of the last few decades, due to a tremendous boom of audiovisual products as mentioned in the previous chapters and is predominantly found in the ‘dubbing countries’. Having significant features in accordance with translational and audiovisual context, I believe that the retranslations of audiovisual texts could become a new mode of AVT. Yet the field of audiovisual retranslation remains under-researched, even more than the retranslation of literary works.
Regarding the relation to the Retranslation Hypothesis, the approach towards redubs differs from the approach towards retranslation of literary texts. Zanotti (2015) listed a few important remarks in which redubs challenge the hypothesis, regarding the perception of audiovisual and literary retranslation, attitude towards redubbing and
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resubtitling, and financial reasons. Although retranslation is considered a positive phenomenon, which diversifies and broadens the interpretations of the text, AV retranslation tends to be neglected or negatively received. It is intriguing that whereas the audience seldom notice that a film is resubtitled, redubbing usually draws attention of a majority of viewers and is often subjected to negative judgment (p. 111). However, this issue may be simply linked to the viewers being accustomed to the voices of the voiceover artists. The voice artist may have been chosen to revoice the specific actor/actress or character so many times that when the actor/actress speaks in the film with a different voice; the result is far more noticeable than when only the subtitles are changed.
What are the main motivations for creating a new dubbing when there already is an existing one? The basic explanation by Zanotti (2015) is that “linguistic updating is often regarded as a major reason for both revision and retranslation” (p. 132). Besides linguistic updating, which is usually the main motivation for literary retranslations, various non-linguistic issues concern this field of AVT. First, social changes may lead to production of a new altered sound track. As mentioned in the previous chapter that deals with dubbing, by creating a new language version of the sound track, a political manipulation can be committed, or the old translation may be altered to suit current trends in accordance with political correctness, worldviews, and education.
Nevertheless, these changes are (at least to the current day) quite rare. The usual reasons concern a damaged sound track, new technical possibilities, a commercial success of the film, unawareness of a previous dubbing version, coordinating a film anthology in which one film is dubbed differently, copyright laws, and added scenes to the original work (Zanotti, 2015, p. 112). Concerning the latest version of the Czech dubbing of SW, the currently latest version (2011) was definitely needed in context of
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quality of the sound track, since the trilogy, recorded 20 years back, simply did not have the proper technical quality for the Blu-ray edition.
Generally speaking, the main motivations for recording a new dubbed sound track are: the original dubbing may have been recorded on an unreliable carrier that deteriorates over time; the sound track was created only for cinema projection; or, it was simply lost or destroyed. The motivation for a redub is quite clear then. New technical possibilities go with the audiovisual industry hand-in-hand: gramophone records were pushed out by magnetic tapes and those by the digitalisation; the same is true for the film strips. Videotapes were replaced with DVDs and those with Blu-rays. While videotapes offered a limited sound quality, DVDs introduced a 5.1 surround sound, available only in cinemas at the time, and many film classics undergone a sound revision to adapt to the new technology. From a commercial point of view, the dubbing companies sometimes take the advantage of the film’s popularity and introduce their own dubbing version since the production manager may assume that the film would be watched again due to its success. This is of course not the case of all such situations – the companies may also be unaware of a different language version, or were simply asked to create a new version due to copyright laws associated with high costs of obtaining them; the process is also quite complicated (for example, when the original studio has already been abolished). The last reason is scenes newly added to the original footage that unfortunately require creation of a completely new sound track. According to the unofficial database of Czech dubbings, more than three hundred films had been redubbed in the Czech Republic (Dabingforum.cz, 2019).
The following charts depict the user ratings and genre of the redubbed films.
The data had been acquired from films listed on the Dabingforum.cz site that included information on second dubbing versions. To find a pattern, which would tell more about
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what films are generally redubbed, I searched the database using a string ‘2. Dabing’
(second dubbing). The search results returned all films found in the database that were redubbed. Thereafter, I searched the Czechoslovak movie database ČSFD to ascertain the ratings and genres of each film. The data were acquired in April 2019 for the most up-to-date rating of each film.
140 121 119 120 112 110 100 74 80 65 60 43 37 35 34 29 34 40 26 20 20 10 9 8 0
Figure 2. The genre of the redubbed films
140 118 120 104 100
80
60 35 35 40
20 14 10 0 0 100% – 85% 84% – 70% 69% – 55% 54% – 40% 39% – 25% 24% – 10% 9% and less
Figure 3. User ratings of the redubbed films
The vast majority of all 316 examined films were classified with more than one genre; hence, the collected data contain more genres than films. Genres that occurred less than five times were transferred to the conjoint group other. Different colours were assigned to each range of the user ratings: the film ratings in the red colour are considered good, the blue ones are considered fine, and the grey ones are bad.
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According to the collected data, the Czech dubbing studios have no exact preference of the films that should be redubbed. About two thirds of the redubbed films comprise works with user ratings between 55% and 84%. Of all 28 genres, the most frequent ones—comedy, action, thriller, and drama—make up more than half of the aforementioned genres, followed by crime and adventure films, leaving the less prominent 22 genres significantly behind. Therefore, there is no exclusive genre or film quality that would determine whether the film should be redubbed or not. More likely, the reason for redubbing is determined by the general popularity of the film when a new sequel is released, or by purely commercial reasons. Most of the new dubbings were produced for commercial TVs and DVDs or Blu-rays and concerned movie classics dubbed around the beginning of the 1990s. These include popular anthologies such as
The Godfather, Back to the Future, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Lethal Weapon,
Terminator, or Die Hard.
Redubs were not common before the 1990s. After the fall of the communist regime, many foreign films finally came to distribution in the Czech Republic. A vast number of films from all decades of the 20th century was never seen before by the
Czech audience and in order to prepare them for screening in the cinemas in the shortest possible time, the films were often dubbed hastily (and then redubbed for distribution or
TV). Redubs in the Czech Republic emerged with the advent of private stations, which wanted to broadcast films in addition to TV shows. The stations produced their own dubbing versions of movies in order to avoid paying exorbitant prices for the copyright and the lengthy process of obtaining the sound track produced for the cinemas. In case the rival station wanted to broadcast the same film, they often resorted to a similar solution for the same reason. Other cases of redubs included versions for VHS, DVD, or
Blu-ray due to a different recording technique for cinemas unsuitable for the
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aforementioned. Finally, the better grasp of the English language also led to many revisions of the film sound tracks.
In terms of quality, it seems that most of the Czech redubs improved the translation of the film. However, this remark cannot confirm whether redubs are better than the original dubbing in terms of accuracy of the translation and quality of dialogues; on the contrary, some redubs may be of a significantly worse quality. Zanotti
(2015) explains this phenomenon by pointing out that such circumstances are more likely to happen with lower budget productions (p. 130). This is partially true with the
Czech redubs: in the 1990s, new possibilities of establishing a private dubbing studio emerged and many people embraced the idea. Nevertheless, in comparison with the established Studio pro úpravu zahraničních filmů, the private studios did not possess enough financial resources to pay quality translators and voice artists. According to
Vanderschelden (2000), “given the number of quality criteria, it is difficult to provide an objective quality assessment model for retranslations”. The conclusions confirm the assumption that whether retranslation improves the quality of a translation “cannot be confirmed nor dismissed” (p. 8). Zanotti (2015) believes that film retranslations could allow scholars to “investigate the evolution of translational norms and practices in the audio-visual field” (p. 110) and concurrently provide evidence of new forms of AVT due to changes in habits and cultural expectations of the viewers.
5.2.1 Types of redubbing
Redubs were grouped into three categories by Zanotti (2015), each based on the motivation for creating a new language version (p. 115): Revoicing, revision, and retranslation.
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In case of revoicing, a new sound track based on the original script one is produced. New voice actors and sometimes a new director are selected to create new voice cues for the redubbed version; the text is usually not edited (p. 115). The process of revision includes changes and edits of the TT, while the structure and tone of the former version prevail. It can encompass correction of mistranslations, mispronunciations, stylistic changes, or changes undertaken for a better lip-sync. It can also be a cost-effective strategy for the distributors, since a simple text revision is much less expensive than a completely new translation (p. 116). Even though revision of a script is less expensive, retranslation is sometimes necessary predominantly due to unsatisfactory state of the translation, be it its obsoleteness or bad quality.
5.3 Translator’s consistency
It is essential for individual translators to keep the cultural-specific items as consistent as possible. In this way, the audience would not get lost in the plot when the same specific references are mentioned. The translators should thereby keep for example a list of all references specific for the audiovisual work they are currently working on. This practice would not only help the translators in terms of consistency in their translation but might be of use to other translators that work on similar-themed work in any media format. During the process though, it is possible for the individual translators to build up a capability of routinization of translating specific items in their work and keep the consistency in accordance to the information acquired through the years. Toury (2012) noticed that “the connection established between SL and TL segments during an act of translation does not necessarily dissolve when the act is over, to be resumed (or not resumed) in future acts. Rather, it often leaves more or less permanent imprints in the translator’s mind” (p. 119). This remark on routinization may signify that the
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consistency of translation is subconsciously stored in the translator’s mind and the correct translation may come up each time the reference is found in the text.
Analogous to the same way fictional and non-fictional characters that break the usual translation norm enter the target culture (e.g. Queen Elisabeth’s name being translated to Czech as Alžběta), the previous existence of a generally accepted translation of any CSI will usually force a concrete translation (Aixelá, 1996, p. 68). If the significance of the CSI is high, the translators who produce a new text will usually prefer the well-known solution instead of a temporary or more correct one. However, if the CSI is not strongly embedded in the target culture or the translation is simply infelicitous—despite the receiving culture being accustomed to it—the translators could come up with a better solution that will eventually remain established in the TL. Both of these translation methods are implied in recurrence. Aixelá (1996) claims that “the more frequent a CSI, the greater its chances of appearing with the highest degree of conservation in the target text” (p. 70). Therefore, the more prominent the translation of a CSI is, the more often it is repeated in further translations, and the more consistent can the content of a specific culture be.
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6 COMPARISON OF DUBBINGS
Based on the theory introduced in the previous chapters I decided to analyse three versions of the Czech dubbings of Star Wars. Using a comparative perspective, I aimed to investigate the major differences between each dubbing version that alter the audience’s experience. Apart from quantitative analysis, which concerns speech style and its relation to the total number of words in each subcorpus, a qualitative analysis was conducted. The latter analysis is based on consistency of the CSIs, which constituted of the film references, speech style, and culture within the movie, and examination of the strategies adopted by each translator when dealing with challenging linguistic features. The categorization of the strategies is based on the taxonomy proposed in the chapter dealing with translation strategies. The main aim of the qualitative analysis is to find out whether the key lexical elements are translated in the same manner as in the previous translation, whether the subsequent translators used the same translation of the CSIs as the previous one, and how consistent they are. In the analysed film, all dialogues are important for understanding the storyline, the personality of each character, and references in regard to sequels. The reason why the dialogues are important, apart from the visual aspects, is that although the film is of standard to longer duration, it is quite fast paced; therefore, each utterance is loaded with references to other parts of the saga.
The results not only concern the Retranslation Hypothesis in context of redubs, and the most frequently used translation strategies of this type of film in the field of
AVT, but also evaluate the quality of the individual translations. Several elements that were affected by distorted or irrational meaning and lines that differ considerably in each version were identified. These include three selected scenes: Explaining the concept of the Force, The Assault on the Death Star, and The conflict in the Cantina.
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Within the framework of the analysis, linguistic and sociolinguistic features such as pronunciation or register were also analysed, as they still form a distinctive characteristic of dubbing.
6.1 Analysed product
The film Star Wars was selected for the analysis for several reasons: Its importance and significance reside not only in the global context, but also in the context of the target culture; to this day, the film, together with the anthology, has influenced generations of people worldwide (for example, 4 May is celebrated as the ‘Star Wars Day’2, a Star
Wars Wiki containing over 140,000 entries related to the universe was established3, and thousands of inhabitants of several countries listed themselves as Jedi in the population censuses between 2001 and 2012)4. In addition, the available dubbing versions are interesting in terms of their development, market determination, and overall context in the Czech dubbing history. Each version was produced in a distinctively different developmental stage of the society; even though the second version was produced only four years later, the demands of the Czech audience were already different thanks to a better access to foreign films that emerged in the 1990s, accepting analogous films in a completely different manner. Therefore, each version had to be revisited prior to the release, as the main motivation was to transfer the film to a different type of media.
6.1.1 Star Wars
Star Wars is a space opera first released in 1977. Due to its tremendous commercial success, two sequels and later a whole anthology of SW-themed films were released,
2 www.starwars.com/may-the-4th 3 www.starwars.fandom.com 4 www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedi_census_phenomenon
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leading the writer and director of the films George Lucas to alter the title to Star Wars:
Episode IV – A New Hope. Its significance amplifies the fact that the film won seven
Academy Awards in 1978, and that the film was added to the US National Film
Registry in 1989 for its narrative features. The film is generally considered one of the most influential and most successful films of all time.
The plot is set around a conflict between the Galactic Empire and Rebel Alliance formed after the fall of the Old Republic. One of the main characters, princess Leia, stole the plans of the Empire’s space battle station called the Death Star to help the rebellion find a weak spot in order to destroy the station. Unfortunately, her ship is captured by Darth Vader of the Empire. To make sure the plans would not fall into hands of the Empire, she stashed them into a droid and instructed him to find general
Kenobi who would be able to deliver the plan should something happen to her. The droid is found by a young farmer Luke Skywalker who seeks Kenobi and helps him to deliver the plans to the Rebels. After commissioning a ship piloted by Han Solo and
Chewbacca, they endeavour in delivering the plans, but the Empire tracks them down and captures them. After the crew finds out princess Leia is present on the same ship, they save her, take the princess on board and all of the characters escape the cruiser.
The success of the film led to many reeditions that included digital enhancement, remastering, dialogues and shots alteration, and addition of scenes; the implementation all of these changes was instructed by Lucas. The most notable reedited versions were the 1997 Special Edition for VHS and LD, and the 2004 version for DVD, both modified with CGI effects and recreated scenes. The film was most recently re-released in the Blu-ray format in September 2011.
Star Wars was also privately screened in former Czechoslovakia in 1977 for selected guests and important officials in order to decide whether the film was suitable
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for the Czechoslovak distribution. It was not received well and repeatedly dispraised in various newspapers of the time. After the fall of the communist regime, novelized script of the film was translated by Ondřej Neff in 1991 and published as ‘Hvězdné války: Z dobrodružství Luka Skywalkera’, thanks to which the story finally found its way to the general public (Šrajer, 2015). A few months later, Lucernafilm bought the film for distribution and screened the first volume of the original trilogy in the Czechoslovak cinemas for the first time.
Although the title of the movie was translated to Czech as ‘Hvězdné války’ and this convention persisted with the sequel films as well, in 1999, a new volume of the anthology was released together with new localisation rules: the name of the saga must not be translated. This behest supervened since the name of the film is trademarked, along with the names of the characters (“May the 4th be with Star Wars Intellectual
Property,” 2017). On the other hand, the same rules advised the translator to translate the names of the droids, probably inadvertently (Fuka, 2016). The request for keeping the droids’ names was claimed in the localisation rules for the following film; however, since the names were translated in the previous volume, the producers decided to leave the names that way. This fact was later projected in the redubs of the original trilogy in
2011.
6.1.2 Dubbing versions
The first dubbing version was created in 1991 in the general dubbing studio Barrandov for cinema release. Similar to the original release, the film was named simply ‘Hvězdné války’, despite the existence of other volumes of the original trilogy. Four years later, the renowned 1995 version was released for the public station and VHS distribution.
Two years later, a special edition of the film was released, and the 1995 version was
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digitally remastered in accordance with the THX high fidelity audio/visual reproduction standard. This dubbing was considered the official one as it was broadcasted and distributed on every audiovisual media, including DVD releases, for 16 years. Such conditions ministered common knowledge of this version in the Czech Republic. In
2011, a Blu-ray version of the film was released worldwide. Thereupon, not only a technical, but also a linguistic update had to be undertaken. Different standards of the audio a DTS-HD MA 6.1 favoured the creation of a new sound track. The Czech dubbings of the original trilogy were of unsatisfactory quality to be released on Blu-ray, and thus had to be recorded anew. After the revision of the precedent translation and dubbing, the Czech distributor decided that the film is to be redubbed completely.
Studio Translation/revision Dialogues and direction Year
Filmové studio Barrandov Zdenek Sirový5 Zdenek Sirový 1991 dabing
Studio Budíkov ve Soňa Bubníková Zdenek Sirový2 1995 spolupráci s S Pro Alfa (Zdenek Sirový)
LS Productions dabing František Fuka Petr Sitár 2011
Table 4. The creators of each dubbing version
The table shows the individual studios and people responsible for each translation. The first studio is the official studio of the public television, responsible for the absolute majority of all dubbings at the time. The remaining two studios are private.
Bubníková of Studio Budíkov revised of the original translation together with the previous director, and S Pro Alfa studio was chosen for collaboration as they provided dubbing distribution for VHS. LS Productions dabing, currently being one of the most acclaimed studios, created the latest redub, presumably since the studio produced
5 According to www.filmovyprehled.cz/cs/revue/detail/tuzemska-stopa-hvezdnych-valek
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dubbing for the prequel trilogy between 1999 and 2005. This decision notably helped to unify all CSIs, as the films were translated by the same person who knew and understood the storyline, its setting, and references.
Unfortunately, it is unclear whether the first translation was carried out by one of the translators of Barrandov studio or by Sirový himself – Sirový’s primary occupation in the studio was direction and dialogue revision; he was never considered a translator
(Historik, 2009). After reading Neff’s translation of the novelized script, I came to the conclusion that it is possible that Sirový could have been inspired by or even has used
Neff’s translation for the actual film dialogues. As can be seen in table 4, the second dubbing resulted from the first one; hence, the second redub may be considered a revision of the first one. Sirový did not participate in the direction of the second redub, as it is uncommon for films to have two directors, and probably could not have supervised the direction since he passed away in the same year. Some of the most problematic dialogues in terms of synchrony were edited by Bubníková in the second version. To achieve better lip sync, the unnecessarily long sentences were shortened by deletion of fillers or splitting in into two separate lines; some of the words were altered to fit the movement of the lips. However, several scenes and lines of this version were altered to such a great extent that crucial information was lost, which made the plot baffling. The third translation was created from scratch, as the previous one was not only inaccurate, but also obsolete in regard to CSIs.
In conclusion, the difference between the first and the second dubbing version is not as prominent in terms of contents; therefore, the 1995 redub may be considered a revision. Some of the sound tracks from the first dubbing were reused in the first redub
(e.g. line 1122 where the voice actor clearly mispronounces Bigg’s name with the same
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intonation in both versions). The 2011 version was not based on the previous ones, and except for a minor number of references that could have been inspired by the precedent dubbings, the second redub was translated anew. The primary motivation for redubs was the advent of new technical possibilities and requirements for audiovisual works, and the secondary motivation was a linguistic update.
6.2 The data collection
To perform a comparative analysis, I decided to create an audio transcription of each dubbing. Since subtitles are nearly always dissimilar to the sound track due to different timing rules, I transcribed the audio cues manually. The transcriptions were then appended to the original script and supplemented by phonetic transcriptions of the CSIs.
After the file that contains all transcriptions was finalised, I read each column of each line successively to evaluate the data. The following example represents what a line in the transcription file looks like:
Line Time EN – 1977 CZ – 1991 CZ – 1995 CZ – 2011 № I was once a Kdysi jsem byl Od té chvíle, Býval jsem rytíř 00:32:52,010 Jedi knight, the rytířem Jedi, 322 → kdy se i z něj Jedi, stejně jako same as your stejně jako tvůj 00:32:55,680 stal rytíř Jedi. tvůj otec. father. otec. Table 5. Line 322, appendix
Whenever a borrowed reference occurred in the text, its pronunciation in each dubbing was appended to the related line. All pronunciations were highlighted in yellow for a better orientation within the table:
CZ – 1991 CZ – 1995 CZ – 2011 /ˈjɛdɪ/ /ˈd͡ ʒɛdɪ/ /ˈd͡ ʒɛdaːj/ Table 6. Pronunciations, appendix
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The entries chosen for the analysis comprise of categories that are analysed further in the thesis: translators’ strategies, CSIs and their consistency, and linguistic features.
6.2.1 Corpus data
Corpus № of words № of lines № of syllables Syllables per word English 1977 10,098 1,294 14,546 1.440 Czech 1991 7,921 1,281 12,296 1.552 Czech 1995 7,472 1,282 11,530 1.543 Czech 2011 7,565 1,291 11,707 1.558 Table 7. Corpus data
Table 7 shows the basic corpus data that demonstrate differences between the individual translations and the original script. The total number of words in the whole corpus is
33,056, and the total number of words in each dubbing version is more or less the same, containing 2,177 to 2,626 fewer words than the original script. In comparison with the
English script, this discrepancy was mostly caused by the difference between the languages, and by the limited space for phrasing. Theoretically, if the whole text were translated literally, the words in the Czech language would generate more syllables than the original; thus, the lip sync would be impracticable.
The table also clearly shows that the first version was more prolific as it contains more words than the second one. Since the second version is a revision of the first one, the reason why the second version contains fewer words is evident: the dialogues were too long, which caused the voice actors to speak too fast to match the characters’ lip movements. The first dubbing was longer than the second one in 609 instances. Not only unnecessary fillers and addressing were left out after the revision, the lines were also edited according to the rules of lip sync – to match the number of syllables of the
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original utterance in the close-up shots. Eventually, 453 dialogues were shortened similarly to the following example:
480 Chewbacca here is first mate on a ship that might suit us. 1991 1995 Tady Žvejkal je první důstojník na Žvejkal je první člen posádky, která nás vesmírné lodi, která by se nám hodila. odveze. Table 8. An example of dialogue adjustment
Nevertheless, the major issue of the revised redub was that crucial references were omitted only to improve the length of the sentences. This issue is discussed in the following chapters.
Of all 1294 lines, 519 were identical in the case of the first two dubbings. This confirms the assumption that the 1995 redub was a revision of the 1991 dubbing.
However, the comparison of lines between the first and the third version returned 99 matches, and between the second and third version 109 matches. These lines were usually simple sentences solvable with equivalent translation strategies and the redubs were not inspired by the original translation. Of all three subcorpora, 80 lines are identical.
15% 1991 = 1995 14% 1991 = 2001 71% 1995 = 2011
Figure 4. Matching lines
To find the similarities and dissimilarities between the individual translations, a more in-depth analysis was conducted. I wrote an algorithm that identified the words and letters in each row and compared the rows to each other using fuzzy matching,
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a method that processes queries that do not match exactly. The resulting data can be found in the following chart:
800
700
600
500 100-75% 400 74-50% 49-25% 300 24-0% 200
100
0 1991 + 1995 1995 + 2011 1991 + 2011 All together
Figure 5. Fuzzy matches
The green column on the left confirms that the second dubbing is a revision of the previous one. In comparison with the third dubbing, it is clear that the translator was not influenced by the previous translation much. Using this method I also identified the scenes that contain the least matches between each translation, which are described in the chapter ‘The analysis of the most diverging translations’.
A few dialogues in each version are missing; either they were written into another dialogue or completely omitted. In the 1991 version, 13 lines are completely missing. In the revised 1995 version, 12 lines are missing, six of which were omitted even though they were translated in the previous version; the remaining ones were not translated in the previous version either. However, seven lines that were missing in the
1991 version were translated. As for the 2011 version, three lines are missing, two of which were written into another dialogue and the remaining one was a phrasal verb
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come on considered redundant. In any case, looking at the three subcorpora together, no line remains untranslated.
To summarize the characteristics of each dubbing, it is important to take into consideration the time setting of each production, available means of communication, and the research options each director had. Since the first dubbing was produced only two years after the fall of the Iron Curtain, while it was still difficult to get in touch with the American distributor, the options were quite limited. This resulted in the first dubbing being more improvised and spontaneous in cases where the director did not understand the circumstances. The second, revised version unfortunately improved the dialogues only in terms of dubbing-related issues, not focusing on the problematic parts, which resulted in a better-delivered speech, but a worse delivered storyline. Twenty years later, the third dubbing version was produced in accordance with the instructions provided by the American distributor. The audience was already much better acquainted with foreign movies in general and with six Star Wars films to that date. Therefore, the translator did not have to evade concepts that would be too challenging for the viewer back in the 1990s. The last translator was also acquainted with the SW universe, since he translated the complete prequel trilogy, and knew about the issues that were present in the previous translations. Thanks to the translator’s knowledge of the topic and the opinion of the fans that he gathered prior to the translation, the latest dubbing release was improved substantially. Unfortunately, such approach was inconceivable at the beginning of the 1990s.
6.3 Linguistic and sociolinguistic features
Determination of linguistic features of a translation is one of the essential steps that have to be executed by the translator in order to deliver a quality translation. Knowing
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and understanding the processes which occur within each feature helps the translator to select the most suitable translation strategy. In dubbing, the most important features are those that are related to speech; only the expressed information helps the viewers to learn more about the fictional world, such as the names of the characters, cities, or daily objects. The sociolinguistic features help the viewers to determine the characters’ status, their mentality, or personality, and the social processes that happen between the characters. I chose four features significant for AVT, which help the audience to understand the specific details of the storyline that cannot be comprehended by visual perception only and therewithal unravel the procedures each translator adopted.
6.3.1 Pronunciation
This linguistic feature is important in context of AVT due to its prominence. As the audience seldom has the option to see the written form of the reference, it is essential to deliver the CSIs as accurately as possible. Not only for further references, but also because these references are often trademarked by the author, and thus need to be easily recognizable.
When taking words or names over from foreign languages, Czech does not retain the same way of pronunciation of the SL words. The individual phonemes are adapted; hence, if the phoneme is not present in the Czech phonetic system, it is replaced with a sound that is as close to the original sound as possible. In this chapter, a closer look is given to pronunciation of the CSIs in comparison to the English pronunciation. The total number of analysed borrowings is 32.
I decided to exclude the following characters from the analysis of the pronunciation: Ben, Beru, Hutch, Jack, Leia, Luke, Porkins, R2-D2, Tarkin, Vader, and
Wedge. The reason was that there is no doubt about the pronunciation of these names,
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as they are either known to the target culture, or need not to be reflected upon. Although the addressing of the droid R2-D2 has changed in the last redub, the CSI does not contain any phonemes unknown in the TL pronunciation system, thus no issues arose regarding the pronunciation. In case a multi-word reference (e.g. Obi-Wan Kenobi) was made only partially in the dialogue, it was included in the table as a whole reference.
The only exception was the combination ‘Ben Kenobi’ as the name ‘Ben’ was excluded.
Considering the names ‘Darth Vader’ and ‘Luke Skywalker’, they were analysed partially; only the part that included problematical phonemes was analysed. All references were included in their singular form for a better overview. The following
CSIs were selected, as their modification affects the comprehension of the film more radically than the remaining ones.
6.3.2 Selected CSIs
Biggs /ˈbɪgz/
Biggs is a rebel pilot, Red three of the Rogue Squadron, who participated in the assault on the Death Star. He is Luke Skywalker’s boyhood friend from the planet
Tatooine. Luke mentions him a few times before he actually meets him while preparing for the assault, right before the take-off. However, in this scene, Luke calls him /ˈbrɪks/ two times in the 1991 and 1995 version, which may confuse the viewer. The 2011 version is correct and consistent.
C-3PO /ˈsiː ˈθriː ˈpiː ˈəʊ/
C-3PO is a protocol droid and translator that accompanies R2-D2 on his way to
Obi-Wan. According to the new rules set by the distributor, the droid’s name has to be localised; therefore, in 2011 version the name is pronounced as /ˈtsɛː ˈtr ̝̊ ɪ ˈpɛː ˈoː/ in all instances. However, the precedent dubbings regarded the droid’s name as an actual
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name instead of a model number, thus he was addressed as /ˈsriːpɪjo/ in most cases.
Unfortunately, the chosen addressing sometimes makes the name incomprehensible for an average viewer. Moreover, in the 1991 version, the droid is addressed differently in five cases, where the final /o/ is pronounced as /oʊ/.
Darth /ˈdaːθ/
Darth is a title of the Dark Lord Vader, the enforcer of the Empire and one of the main characters. The pronunciation of his title is one of the most discussed pronunciations amongst the Czech community. The dubbing consensus of pronouncing
/θ/ in the Czech language is to pronounce the phoneme as /s/ (e.g. the name Smith is pronounced /ˈsmɪs/); hence the title should be pronounced as /ˈdaːrs/. On the other hand, the Czech fans got used to the pronunciation that occurred in the 1995 version, which was /ˈdaːrt/ and /ˈdaːrth/, even though the pronunciation with /s/ occurred once in the
1991 version. Surprisingly, the 2011 version was also inconsistent. Nevertheless, the decision whether to pronounce the final sound as /s/ or /t/ is important since the vocative case differs from the nominative in the Czech language because of declension; the title in vocative case then becomes either /ˈdaːrsɪ/ or /ˈdaːrtɛ/. In 1991 and 1995 version, the vocative case was omitted in both instances; instead, the lord is addressed by his name
(/ˈvɛjdrɛ/) in the first instance and in the second one, the name is omitted. In the 2011 version, Vader is addressed as /ˈdaːrtɛ/, thus it can be assumed that the official Czech pronunciation is now /ˈdaːrt/.
Han Solo /ˈhɑːn 'səʊləʊ/
Han Solo is a smuggler who provides his service to Luke and Obi-Wan by taking them and the droids to planet Alderaan, and also one of the main characters. The pronunciation of his name is consistent, as the phoneme of the vowel in the name Han is the same as in Czech. Nevertheless, he is referred to as /ˈhɛn/ once in the 1991 version,
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which probably was a mistake of the voice actor. As for Han’s surname, its pronunciation is Czechisized in all versions as /ˈsolo/ since the word ‘solo’ exists in the target language.
Chewbacca /͡tʃuˈbaːkə/
Chewbacca is a Wookiee warrior and Solo’s associate on the ship. Most of the time, Chewbacca is addressed with the shortened version of his name as Chewie
(/ˈ͡tʃuːwiː/). The directors of the 1991 and 1995 version decided to Czechisize his name as Žvejkal. This translation method is a derivation in form of a calque, as ‘to chew’ means ‘žvýkat’ in Czech language. Even though the fans got used to the translation, it was not received well. Since 1999, the name remains untranslated.
Jabba /ˈd͡ ʒaːbə/
Jabba is a crime lord who placed a price on Solo’s head after Solo lost his cargo.
In the 1991 version, he is addressed as /ˈjaba/ only in the chapter Cornered by Greedo.
This problem might have occurred since in this version, Greedo, speaking a different language, was dubbed into Czech, counter to the redubs. As both voice actors were present in the studio while dubbing the scene, they both pronounce the initial ‘J’ as /j/.
A few minutes later, when Solo is visited by Jabba in a different scene, the voice actor pronounces the initial ‘J’ as /d͡ ʒ/.
Jawa /ˈd͡ ʒaːwə/
Jawas are scavengers who re-sell gathered droids. They found C-3PO and
R2-D2 in the desert and sold them to Luke and Owen. Similar to the previous entry, their name is pronounced with the initial /j/ in the first dubbing version; this was corrected in the consecutive redubs, where the initial sound is /d͡ ʒ/.
Jedi /ˈd͡ ʒɛdaɪ/
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Jedi knights were the guardians of peace and justice in the old Republic who can control the Force. Obi-Wan used to be a Jedi knight, thus he teaches Luke the ways of the Force. ‘Jedi’ is an important CSI, which is pronounced as /ˈjɛdɪ/ in the 1991 version.
The reason why this CSI was pronounced in this manner could have been caused by adopting the German pronunciation of the word, since the CSI is also pronounced /ˈjɛdɪ/ in the German dubbing6, or the proofreader simply has not included the phonetic transcription in the dubbing script. The initial sound was once more corrected to /d͡ ʒ/ in the revised version, but the final sound remained /ɪ/. In all dubbings created after 1999 the CSI is pronounced as /ˈd͡ ʒɛdaːj/. Nevertheless, this led to issues concerning the title of the sixth volume of the anthology, ‘Return of the Jedi’. In Czech, the locative case of
/ˈd͡ ʒɛdɪ/ is /ˈd͡ ʒɛdɪho/, which sounds natural in Czech. However, the locative case of
/ˈd͡ ʒɛdaːj/ is /ˈd͡ ʒɛdaːje/. Therefore, with the updated pronunciation, the former title
‘Návrat Jediho’ would sound awkward (/ˈd͡ ʒɛdaːjho/). On the other hand, the more natural pronunciation was also not a good choice, since there was the possibility that the viewers would read the word ‘Jedie’ as /ˈd͡ ʒɛdiː/. This problem was resolved by using the plural of the word Jedi (which is also Jedi in English) – Jediů (Fuka, 2016). The fans that are used to the pronunciation with the final /ɪ/ did not favour this change; however, the word originally comes from Japanese. The original word ‘Jidaigeki’, pronounced
/d͡ ʑida̠ iɡe̞ kʲi/, inspired the creator of SW to name the knights as such (IMDb, n.d.).
Jundland /ˈd͡ ʒandlənd/
Similar to the previous entries, the name of the wastes near Owen’s farm was pronounced with the initial /j/ both in 1991 and 1995 version, and the pronunciation was corrected in the latest redub.
Wookiee /ˈwukiː/
6 www.youtu.be/-wA6ZXbMuC4?t=87
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Wookiee is the name of Chewbacca’s species. In the first dubbing, the name is adapted as ‘Wook’ and completely omitted in the 1995 version, presumably because the director did not understand the reference. This CSI was corrected in the 2011 redub.
Yavin /ˈjævɪn/
Yavin is the planet where the Rebel base is located. Although this CSI was mentioned in the film only once, an issue arose in the 1995 version, where the name of the planet is pronounced as /ˈd͡ ʒavɪn/. It is possible that during the revision of all pronunciations, the initial /j/ was mistakenly modified together with the previously mentioned corrections.
6.3.3 The analysis of the pronunciation table
The table found in the Appendix 1 contains all 32 borrowed CSIs, their English pronunciation and the Czech pronunciation in each dubbing version. The following charts represent the successful rate of the Czech pronunciation in terms of phonetic similarity to the original, and the consistency of pronunciation of each reference.
The first set of pie charts shows the percentage of mispronounced words
(marked in red) and properly pronounced words (marked in green). References that included wrong phonetic equivalent (e.g. /ˈjɛdɪ/) or a redundant phoneme (e.g. /ˈbrɪks/) were considered mispronounced, whereas words that included logical Czech phonetic equivalent (e.g. /ˈdaːrs/) were not.
CZ – 1991 CZ – 1995 CZ – 2011
34 34 % % 100 66 70 % % %
41 78 Total: 119 33 76 Total: 109 127 Total: 127
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Figure 6. Pronunciation of the CSIs
The second pie chart shows the percentage of pronunciation consistency. Only those references that included two or more pronunciations (e.g. /ˈjaba/ + /ˈd͡ ʒaba/) were considered inconsistent. Although the total number of the analysed CSIs was 32, some of the items were missing in each dubbing version.
CZ – 1991 CZ – 1995 CZ – 2011
13 35 32 % % % 65 68 % % 87 %
9 17 Total: 26 8 17 Total: 25 4 27 Total: 31
Figure 7. Pronunciation consistency
The analysed data comprise the references that were not localised but transferred into the TL by the strategy of borrowing. As they remained in their original form, the resulting data reflect the successfulness of the transfer in accordance with pronunciation. The first dubbing version was the least successful: Of all references, one third was mispronounced. Eight CSIs were translated as calques (e.g. Chewie), by the strategy of limited or absolute universalization (e.g. blaster), or completely omitted (e.g.
Tosche). The first redub, a revision of the 1991 version, corrected some of the mispronounced words, but the improvement was only partial. In addition, another CSI was deleted (Wookiee). Both versions have shown a marked lack of consistency, caused by either wrong phonetic transcription, or inadequate direction. The second redub
(2011) was a complete success since all of the CSIs were pronounced accurately.
However, in terms of consistency, four CSIs were pronounced differently. Three instances concerned only the length of a monophthong, and one instance contained a
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sound from the English phonetic system (/ˈobɪwan/). Of all CSIs, ‘speeder’ was translated to Czech (‘vznášedlo’).
6.3.4 T–V distinction
The Czech language, amongst the other Indo-European languages, distinguishes between two forms when addressing somebody: A second-person plural pronoun ‘vy’
(similar to English ‘you’), which is considered a polite form, and a second-person singular pronoun ‘ty’ (similar to English ‘thou’), considered an informal form. This convention helps to distinct the relationship between the addresser and the addressee, the mutual level of respect, and the formality of the conversation.
This practice also helps the viewers to ascertain the relationship between individual characters quickly. However, this convention was broken in nine instances, and in three cases, the pronoun was misunderstood. The following example shows the shift in addressing in the 2011 redub in comparison with the preceding dubbings:
164, 167, 177, 371 Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope. 1991 1995 2011 Pomoz mi, Obi-Wan Pomoz mi, Obi-Wan Pomozte mi, Obi-Wane Kenobi. Jsi moje jediná Kenobi. Jsi má jediná Kenobi. Jste má jediná naděje. naděje. naděje. Table 9. Shift in addressing
The major change of meaning consists in the relationship between the characters. The first two dubbing versions implicitly suggest that the princess who sent this message already knows Obi-Wan Kenobi and consider him a close person that might be willing to help. However, as the third dubbing version correctly implies, she asks a respectable former general for help, as she trusts his skills.
Except for one scene that is described in one of the following paragraphs, every character in the first and second dubbing version is addressed informally, although the
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communication between the members of the Empire is highly formal. For example, governor Tarkin, Darth Vader, and the senior staff of the Death Star talk about the situation around the stolen plans of the station in a scene where the Death Star is presented for the first time. As the participants of the conference are of the highest management, resolving a serious problem that may have a direct impact on the Empire, the communication between them is very official; such communication, according to rules of the Czech system of honorific speech, should use the polite form of addressing.
The first two dubbing versions imply by using the informal T-form that the characters know each other for a long time and share the same social status, which gives the viewer the wrong idea.
Motti: Don't try to frighten us with your sorcerer's ways, Lord Vader. Your sad devotion to that ancient religion has not helped you conjure up the stolen data tapes or given you 412- clairvoyance enough to find the rebels' hidden fortress— 418 Vader: I find your lack of faith disturbing. Tarkin: Enough of this. Vader, release him. Vader: As you wish. 1991 1995 2011 Motti: Nepokoušej se nás zastrašit Motti: Proč se mezi nás snažíš Motti: Nesnažte se nás vystrašit svým pesimismem, lorde Vadere. vnést svůj věčný pesimismus, černokněžnictvím, lorde Tvé trapné lpění na starém Vadere? Tvé trapné lpění na Vadere. náboženství ti nepomohlo získat starém náboženství ti Ta Vaše dojemná oddanost zpět ukradené pásky s nepomohlo získat zpět prastarým vírám informacemi, ani ti nedodalo tolik ukradené pásky s nám nepomohla získat zpět schopností, abys našel tajnou informacemi. Ani se ti ještě ukradené plány, pevnost povstalců-- nepovedlo najít pevnost, ani jasnozřivost k nalezení kterou si povstalci-- povstalecké základny-- Vader: Tvá ztráta víry v mou Vader: Tvá ztráta víry v mou Vader: Vaše nedůvěra se mi jasnozřivost mne znepokojuje. jasnozřivost mne znepokojuje. nelíbí. Tarkin: To by stačilo. Vadere, Tarkin: To by stačilo. Vadere, Tarkin: To stačí. Vadere, pusťte pusť ho. pusť ho. ho. Vader: Jak si přeješ. Vader: Jak si přeješ. Vader: Jak si přejete. Table 10. T-V distinction 1
The only instance where Tarkin briefly addresses Vader formally in the first two dubbing versions occurs when they talk in private; however, only two sentences are uttered formally, the rest of the conversation continues informally, which was a baffling decision, corrected in the 1995 redub. On the other hand, all of the aforementioned scenes are conducted in a formal manner in the 2011 redub, which put the scenes in the
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correct perspective: not only the scenes became deeper, darker, and more tremendous, but they also sound more natural in the given context.
The scene where Vader meets Kenobi was conceived conversely by the individual translators. Whereas this scene was considered as highly formal in the first two dubbing versions, the interaction in the 2011 redub is opposite. Nevertheless, the level of formality was again inconsistent in the first dubbing version:
Vader: I've been waiting for you, Obi-Wan. We meet again at last. The circle is now complete. When I left you, I was but the learner. Now I am the master. Kenobi: Only a master of evil, Darth. 997-1005 Vader: Your powers are weak, old man. Kenobi: You can't win, Darth. If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine. Vader: You should not have come back. 1991 1995 2011 Vader: Čekám na Vás, Vader: Čekám na Vás, Vader: Čekal jsem na tebe, Obi- Obi-Wane. Konečně jsme se Obi-Wane. Konečně jsme se Wane. Konečně se zase setkali. Kruh se uzavřel. Když setkali. Kruh se uzavřel. Když setkáváme. Kruh se nyní uzavřel. jsem Vás opouštěl, byl jsem jsem Vás opouštěl, byl jsem Když jsem tě opustil, byl jsem učedník. Nyní jsem mistr. učedník. Nyní jsem mistr. tvůj žák. Teď jsem mistr. Kenobi: Jen mistr zla, Vadere. Kenobi: Jen mistr zla, Vadere. Kenobi: Jenom mistr zla, Darthe. Vader: Máš málo sil, starče. Vader: Už nemáte tolik síly, Vader: Zeslábl jsi, starče. starče. Kenobi: Když mě porazíš, Kenobi: Neporazíš mě. A i Kenobi: Nemůžeš vyhrát, Darthe. stanu se mocnějším, než si kdyby, stanu se mnohem Pokud mě porazíš, stanu se vůbec dokážeš představit. silnějším, než si sám dovedeš silnějším, než si dovedeš představit. představit. Vader: Neměl jste se vracet. Vader: Neměl jste se vracet. Vader: Neměl ses vracet. Table 11. T-V distinction 2
The solution of the 2011 redub was optimal. As both Vader and Kenobi mention earlier in the story, Vader was Kenobi’s apprentice years ago, which means that they knew each other for a long time. Thereunto, as Vader is no longer his pupil and despises him, he holds no level of respect towards Kenobi; hence, the decision not to address him formally was logical.
In conclusion, the first two dubbings were quite unsuccessful in terms of portraying relationships between the characters and the degree of formality. This claim is intensified by the fact that lines 13-14, 49-50, and 1125 in the Czech script of the
1991 and 1995 versions were misunderstood in regard to formality and addressing:
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instead of using plural reference to a group of people, the singular form referring to one character was used, and vice versa.
6.3.5 Register
Register is a variety of lexical and grammatical choices used in particular situations by individual speakers. In dubbing, register is often interconnected to sociolect. To present the character’s social status as simply as possible, each character uses their own preferred vocabulary, phrases, and specific grammatical structures and modifies the grammar and pronunciation according to the status on a dialectic level. This distinction is also intertwined with the degree of formality analysed in the previous chapter.
The register of each character is allocated appropriately. Whereas Luke or Solo use vernacular language in accordance with their origin, the officials of the Empire mostly use received pronunciation. The formal, bureaucratic settings of the Death Star are a direct opposite to the chaotic world of the Rebels whose main goal is to defy the
Empire. The resemblance of the relationship between the British Empire and the United
States makes the distinction of the sides quite simple. Regrettably, Czech does not hold such possibilities of distinction based on the various registers as English does, therefore the distinction had to be conducted in a different manner: In terms of addressing, formality, and use of colloquialisms.
In the 1991 and 1995 version, all characters use standard Czech except for Solo and the Rebels, who use common Czech. Other characters sometimes condescend to the use of common Czech, but only in cases of exasperation (e.g. Luke being trapped in the garbage chute). In the 2011 version, all characters retained their register consistently without exception. The Imperials and other officials speak standard Czech, almost
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academic; the main characters also spoke standard Czech using colloquial expressions, and the rest of the characters spoke common Czech using colloquial expressions.
Luke: He says he belongs to someone called Obi-Wan Kenobi. I thought he might have 209- meant old Ben. Do you know what he's talking about? I wonder if he's related to Ben. 214 Owen: That wizard's just a crazy old man. Tomorrow, take that R2 unit to Anchorhead and have its memory erased. That'll be the end of it. It belongs to us now. 1991 1995 2011 Luke: Říká, že patří Obi-Wan Luke: Je určena pro Obi-Wan Luke: Říká, že patří nějakému Kenobimu. Třeba tím myslí Kenobiho. Není to starý Ben? Obi-Wan Kenobimu. Možná tím starého Bena. Ty tomu rozumíš? Ty tomu rozumíš? Možná, že myslí starého Bena. Nevíš, o co Co když to souvisí s Benem? jde o Bena. mu jde? Možná, že Benovi patří. Owen: Ten čaroděj je starý Owen: Ten čaroděj je starý Owen: Ten čaroděj je starej blázen. Zítra zavez robota do blázen. Zítra zavez robota do blázen. Zejtra toho droida vezmeš Anchorheadu a nech mu Anchorheadu a nech mu do Anchorhead a necháš mu vymazat paměť. Pak dá pokoj. vymazat paměť. Ať dá pokoj. vymazat paměť. Tím to bude Teď patří nám. Teď patří nám. vyřízený. Teď patří nám. Table 12. Register 1
The most noticeable shifts of register that occurred in the compared translations were those of Uncle Owen and Han Solo. Whereas Owen’s register does not differ from the register of other characters in the 1991 and 1995 versions, in the 2011 redub Owen solely uses full-featured common Czech and colloquial expressions. On the other hand,
Solo speaks standard Czech with slight divergence in instances where the character wants to sound rough and disinterested. The latest redub therewithal displays adequate translation strategies and solutions as the registers are distributed correctly and delivered consistently. The following example shows paraverbal speech style of Solo, where he does not change the register when he moves from the story to presenting his own opinion in the first two dubbing versions, but he does so in the third version.
Kid, I've flown from one side of this galaxy to the other. I've seen a lot of strange stuff, but 667- I've never seen anything to make me believe there's one all-powerful force controlling 672 everything. There's no mystical energy field controls my destiny. It's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense. 1991 1995 2011 Chlapče, proletěl jsem tuhle Chlapče, znám už tuhle galaxii Hochu, proletěl jsem celou galaxii z jedný strany na druhou. z jedný strany na druhou. galaxii tam a zpátky. Viděl Viděl jsem spoustu divnejch věcí, Viděl jsem hodně divnejch jsem hodně zvláštních věcí, ale ale nic mě nepřesvědčilo, že věcí, ale nic mě nepřesvědčilo, nic mě nepřesvědčilo, že existuje nějaká všemocná síla, že existuje nějaká neuvěřitelná existuje nějaká tajuplná která všechno řídí. Můj osud síla, která všechno řídí. Můj všeovládající síla. Můj osud neřídí žádná mystická síla. Jsou to osud neřídí žádná mystická neovládá žádný tajemný zdroj všechno jenom žvásty a nesmysly síla. Jsou to všechno žvásty a energie. Jsou to všechno laciný a pár lacinejch triků. laciný triky. triky a nesmysly. Table 13. Register 2
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7 THE ANALYSIS OF THE CULTURE-SPECIFIC ITEMS
The following section presents the quantitative analysis and evaluation of the translation strategies activated while translating CSIs within each dubbing. The chapter is divided in two parts: In the first part, the individual references are categorized in accordance with the taxonomy of strategies, and the considerably different translations, which had been selected using fuzzy match, are evaluated accordingly. In the second part, the translators’ consistency regarding individual CSIs is analysed within each of the translations and then the consistency of terms between the dubbing versions is compared.
7.1 The selected CSIs
The references marked as CSIs were chosen in virtue of the cultural factors specific to the universe of the film. The selected items include denomination of creatures, places, objects and subjects, and beliefs. A closer look will be taken at translators’ strategies used while dealing with the CSIs to determine the overall translators’ style and the endeavour to bring the universe to the target culture.
The number of the CSIs relevant to the analysis is 35; the names of the main characters were not included in the analysed CSIs as it is not common to translate character’s names in the Czech Republic. General toponyms, such as the name of the planet
Tatooine or the name of the city of Mos Eisley, were also excluded from the list; however, specific toponyms used by the characters when talking about objects they are familiar with, such as Beggar’s Canyon or Millennium Falcon, were included.
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40 35 30 25 20 15 10 5
0
Kid
Jawa
Droid Rebel
Master
Blaster Bantha
Tosche
Kessel
Empire Cruiser
Wookie
Speeder
Old man Old
Dark Dark side
Motivator
Womp rat Womp
The Force The
Gaffi stick Gaffi
Condenser Lightsaber
Mind probeMind
Hyperspace
Sand people Sand
Exhaust port Exhaust
Tractor beamTractor
Sublight engine Sublight
Beggar’s canyon Beggar’s
Jundland Jundland Wastes
Deflector (shields) Deflector
Moisture vaporator Moisture
Millennium Falcon Millennium
Chewbacca/Chewie
Your Worshipfulness Your Imperial Imperial Stormtrooper
Figure 8. List of CSIs
The chart above shows the complete list of the relevant CSIs and their frequency in the film. It should be added that the frequency of the references does not necessarily determine their importance; the chart primarily lists the chosen CSIs.
7.2 Translation strategies
The data in the following subchapter were analysed and evaluated according to the taxonomy of strategies to demonstrate the different approach of each translator towards the selected CSIs.
7.2.1 Individual references
The CSIs were chosen using the following methodology: First, all relevant CSIs and their translations were located in the transcription of the soundtracks, and every single translation was assigned to each reference in the related dubbing version. Then, the individual strategies were assigned to each translation in accordance to the chosen
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taxonomy; in case the original reference had been translated using two or more different strategies, each translation was assigned to its strategy. The label literal translation also included those words that exist in the TL, but may have a different meaning (e.g. motivator/motivátor), in comparison with equivalence. The strategy labelled as adaption also includes mistranslations, since the meaning of these words was comprehended incorrectly (e.g. deflector/převaděč – ‘converter’). The charts comprising the analysed data are to be found on the following page.
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1991 dubbing
5% 5% 7% 26% 7%
7%
10% 19%
14%
1995 dubbing ■ Literal translation
■ Adaptation
4% 5% ■ Borrowing 7% 27% ■ Calque 7% ■ Deletion 9% ■ Limited universalization 18% 9% ■ Absolute universalization
14% ■ Autonomous creation
■ Synonymy 2011 dubbing
3% 5% 7%
7% 39%
10%
29%
Figure 9. Strategies in each translation
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Evidently, the most frequently used strategy was the literal translation, since a lot of references, although specific for the universe, have their equivalent translation in the TL. The reason is that such references were based on already existing words. The first and second dubbing share a similar distribution of solutions on account of the second version being the revision of the first one. Only seven specific references between the first dubbing and its revision involved a different translation strategy, indicating that the revision did not concern only the modification of dialogues in terms of lip sync, but also a minor update of the references has been conducted. The specific items were directly transferred to the TT with the strategy of borrowing in only 14% of instances. In the remaining instances, besides literal translation, the translator resorted to strategies of adaptation, deletion, and universalization. In only 5% of the instances the translator resorted to more creative strategy of autonomous creation. The translation of the CSIs in both the first and the second dubbing was considerably adapted to match the expectations of the target audience. The chosen strategies of the third dubbing version differ significantly. In comparison with the previous translations that used adaptation, deletion and calque as the preferred method of translation, almost one third of the CSIs were transferred using the strategy of borrowing in the third dubbing version. Also, no instance of deletion or autonomous creation had been noted during the analysis. The high number of borrowings, followed by the strategy of universalization, indicate the tendency to stay as close to the original text as possible.
According to the collected data, the CSIs in the first dubbing and its revision were more adapted to the norms and conventions of the target audience, whereas the second redub turned out to be closer to the SL by keeping the references as close to the original as possible.
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7.2.2 The analysis of the most diverging translations
The following dialogues were chosen on the basis of the fuzzy matches between the dubbings. Of all examined scenes, the following three excerpts returned the lowest percentage of matching words in each line.
➢ Explaining the concept of the Force
Luke and Obi-Wan engage in conversation about Luke’s father, who used to be a Jedi knight. As Obi-Wan describes the destiny of Luke’s father, he mentions the concept and briefly explains it to Luke:
Obi-Wan: Vader was seduced by the dark side of the Force. Luke: The Force? 351-356 Obi-Wan: The Force is what gives a Jedi his power. It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together. 1991 1995 2011 Obi-Wan: Vader se nechal svést Obi-Wan: Vader se nechal svést Obi-Wan: Vader podlehl temné Temnou stranou vesmírné Síly. Temnou stranou síly vesmíru. stránce Síly. Luke: Prosím? Luke: Vesmíru? Luke: Síly? Obi-Wan: Vesmírná Síla je Obi-Wan: Vesmír dodává Obi-Wan: Síla je to, co dává podstatou rytířů Jedi. Je to pole rytířům sílu. Pole energie, Jediovi jeho moc. Je to energie energie tvořené všemi živými které tvoří všechno, co je živé. vytvořená vším živým. Je kolem bytostmi. Obklopuje nás, Je okolo nás, uvnitř nás. nás a proniká i do nás. Drží proniká námi a udržuje Prochází celou naší galaxií. galaxii pohromadě. celistvost galaxie. Table 14. Explaining the concept of the Force
The importance of this scene consists in the explanation of the concept to the viewer for the first time. The Force is an omnipresent metaphysical power that affects all living beings. To understand this concept, the information has to be presented as accurately as possible since the concept is explained very briefly in the film. The first dubbing includes substitution of the ‘the Force’ (‘Prosím?’ → ‘Excuse me?’) using the strategy of modulation to make the dialogue sound more natural, and the overall explicitation, using autonomous creation (Jedi → Jedi knight, ‘rytíř Jedi’). Anyway, the overall concept of the Force is comprehensible. On the other hand, the second dubbing version is rather an adaptation of the whole concept. The power of ‘the Force’ became
‘síla vesmíru’ (→ the power of the universe), thus the whole concept of the Force as an
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omnipresent power that binds the galaxy together was abandoned. In the third dubbing, the concept is delivered perfectly – an equivalent message is rendered, the translation of the CSI is consistent, and no autonomous creation is present.
➢ The Assault on the Death Star
When the Rebels had finally obtained the plans of the Death Star, they decided to destroy the station. The following excerpt contains the communication between the pilots while they are approaching the battle station:
- Hold tight. Switch your deflectors on. Double front. - Look at the size of that thing. - Cut the chatter, Red Two. Accelerate to attack speed. - This is it, boys. - Red Leader, this is Gold Leader. - I copy, Gold Leader. 1148-1156 - We're starting for the target shaft. - We're in position. I'm going to cut across the axis and draw their fire. - Heavy fire, boss, 23 degrees. - I see it. Stay low. - This is Red Five. I'm going in. 1991 1995 2011 - Držte se. Zapnout deflektory. - Držte se. Zapnout deflektory. - Držte se. Zapněte čelní štíty. Posilte první vzlet. Posilte první letku. Včetně těch předních. - Páni, to je ale macek. - Sakra, to je macek. - Ta věc je obrovská. - Zkrať tu zábavu. Šlápněte - Šlápněte do toho. - Tak je to - Šetři dechem, Rudý 2. do toho, mládenci. správné, mládenci. - Akcelerovat. Útočíme. - Tak je to správně. - - Jaká je pozice? - Budu za - Jdeme na to, hoši. - Rudý Červený veliteli, tady Zlatý. chvíli na dostřel. veliteli, tady Zlatý velitel. - Rozjeď tu svou popelnici. - Těžká palba, 23 stupňů. - Slyším, Zlatý veliteli. - Letíme k - Pronikáme do šachty. - Jdu na to, kryjte mi křídla. cíli, tedy k té šachtě. - Dobrá pozice. Vybočíme z - Dobrá, drž se. Vybočíme z - Budeme vás krýt. Poletíme osy a zkusíme na sebe přilákat osy a přilákáme jejich palbu. napříč osou a odvedeme jejich palbu. pozornost. - Těžká palba, 23 stupňů. - Ztrácíme kurs. Obrat o 60 - Jsme pod silnou palbou, 20 - Vidím. Drž se nízko. stupňů, teď. stupňů. - Vidím je. Zůstaňte dole. - Tady pětka, vlétám dovnitř. - Tady pětka, průlet. - Rudý 5. Jdu na to. Table 15. The Assault on the Death Star
It is unclear why the individual translators or proofreaders changed the various details in this scene. The meaning of ‘double front’ in the SW universe indicates redirecting the power that operates the deflectors to the front shield. The third dubbing delivered this message to a certain degree using the strategy of modulation; however, the utterance was modified to ‘reinforce the first squadron’ in the 1991 and 1995 version. The subsequent sentence was reformulated to sound more natural in the TL using the strategy of modulation (‘wow, what a whopper’ in the first two dubbings, ‘that
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thing is huge’ in the third one). The dialogues that follow differ considerably: In the first and second dubbing, the sentences ‘Cut the chatter’, ‘This is it’ are mistranslated as
‘Stop fooling around’ and ‘That’s right’, probably due to misunderstanding the vernacular of the ST. Moreover, the first dubbing contains a sentence ‘Rozjeď tu svou popelnici’ (→ ‘Get that piece of junk moving’), which was not present in the original script at all. The remaining variations include substitution of the verb ‘start for’ with
‘penetrate’ and insertion of an adjective ‘good’ when the pilot reports the position of his squad. The second dubbing is modified even more. The sentences ‘Cut the chatter’ and the invented ‘Get that piece of junk moving’ were left out after the revision, and the majority of the remaining dialogues were adapted and disarranged. The resulting backtranslation follows:
- What’s the position? - I’ll be within range soon.
- Heavy fire, 23 degrees. - I’m on it, cover me.
- Okay, take care. We are going to pull out of the axis and draw their fire
- We’re off the course. Turn 60 degrees now. - This is Five, fly-by.
I believe that the reason why the dialogues were altered so drastically might be that the original script was simply not available to the translator and the director. Hence, the transcription perhaps had to be done manually, and since some of the dialogues are unintelligible due to the transmitter effect, the translator had decided for a more drastic solution. Since the director of the second dubbing probably has not seen the original script either, she had reformulated the dialogues (of the first dubbing) that sounded obscure using the strategies of adaptation and autonomous creation to match the on- screen action.
None of the original dialogues in the third dubbing version were left out or completely modified. Using the strategy of modulation, ‘We’re in position’ was
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translated as ‘Budeme vás krýt’ (‘We’ll cover you’). However, the number 23 was changed to number 20; the reasons of this modification are unknown. Nonetheless, this small change does not distort the meaning of the message.
➢ The conflict in the Cantina
Luke sits at the bar and orders a drink while Obi-Wan talks to Chewbacca about the ship. Suddenly, a pair of mobsters start to harass Luke:
Evazan: He doesn't like you. Luke: I'm sorry. Evazan: I don't like you either. You just watch yourself. We're wanted men. I have the death sentence on 12 systems. 1148-1156 Luke: I'll be careful then. Evazan: You'll be dead! Obi-Wan: This little one's not worth the effort. Come, let me get you something. Luke: I'm all right. 1991 1995 2011 Evazan: Nelíbíte se mu. Evazan: Radši odejdi. Evazan: Nelíbíš se mu. Luke: Škoda. Luke: Nepudu. Luke: Škoda. Evazan: Ani mně se nelíbíte. Evazan: Nelíbíš se nám Evazan: Mně se taky nelíbíš. Dej Dejte si pozor. Prcháme před oběma. Ani to, jak vypadáš. si pozor. Jsme psanci. Jsem zákonem. Já mám trest smrti ve Radši jdi. Já umím zabít víc odsouzenej k smrti ve 12 12 soustavách. než na 12 způsobů. soustavách. Luke: Hleďte si svýho. Luke: Nebojím se. Luke: Budu opatrný. Evazan: Opakuj to! Evazan: Zabiju tě! Evazan: Budeš mrtvej. Obi-Wan: Tenhle gauner ti Obi-Wan: Pusť ho. Je pod Obi-Wan: Ten chudák Vám za to nestojí za námahu. Pojď, něco ti mojí přímou ochranou. Nebo nestojí. Na co Vás můžu pozvat? ukážu. se chceš prát? Obi-Wan: Jsi v pořádku? Luke: Jsem v pořádku. Luke: Nic mi není. Table 16. The conflict in the Cantina
Each translation in the excerpt delivers a different message. In the first translation both Luke and Evazan are using the polite form of addressing, which is quite odd under the circumstances. Moreover, instead of avoiding the conflict, Luke decides to take an aggressive attitude by replying ‘mind your own business’, which results in the conflict. This solution implies that Luke replied to the mobster’s story in an impolite manner which initiated the conflict. In this dubbing version, Obi-Wan intervenes by telling Luke that ‘this mobster is not worth the effort’ and the next dialogue was uttered by Obi-Wan instead of Luke. I suppose the reason for this shift might have been caused by the novelized script; In case the director read the novelized script while preparing the
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text for the recording, he may have stumbled upon a comment, present in the script, which says “Old Ben moves in behind Luke”. The comment briefly describes what happens on screen, but does not precisely inform the reader whether the sentence ‘This little one's not worth the effort’ is addressed to Luke or to Evazan. For an unknown reason, the last sentence is uttered by Obi-Wan, not by Luke. The second translation is an absolute adaptation. The dialogues diverge significantly: only 25% of the original message remained in the final translation. The following backtranslation demonstrates how much the translation differs:
Evazan: You’d better leave. Luke: I won’t.
Evazan: We don’t like you. And the way you look. You’d better leave. I know
more than 12 ways to kill a person. Luke: I’m not afraid.
Evazan: I’ll kill you! Obi-Wan: Let him go. He’s under my
close protection. Are you looking for fight?
In the second dubbing version, the conflict starts almost immediately. Instead of backing off, Luke and Obi-Wan defy the mobster. Moreover, the mobster claims to know more than 12 ways to kill a person instead of having a death sentence in 12 systems. It is not clear what the reasons for using the strategies of autonomous creation and adaptation were in this case, but the resulting translation depicts the characters’ personalities as more aggressive. Compared to the first two, the third dubbing version was translated very accurately: the register, addressing, and the overall message were delivered in a similar way as in the original.
To sum up, of all analysed problematic parts of the three translations, these scenes were the most different. The greatest loss of information concerned the second dubbing, a revision of the first translation, which was the farthest from the original interpretation of message. This was mostly caused by using the strategy of deletion,
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adaptation and overall, by autonomous creation. The key information was deleted and the interaction between the characters and the faithfulness to the ST were sorely modified. Not only did the characters react in a different manner than in the original script, they also generally react very similarly throughout the film despite their social status or personality; in the revision, the proofreader had eliminated the differences between the characters by using the same register and behavioural patterns for each one of them.
7.3 Consistency of the CSIs
To determine the consistency of the CSIs in each dubbing version, the following methodology was used: First, every single original reference had been localised and each translation was assigned to the related reference. Then, all translations of the individual CSIs were counted and written down next to the CSI in the table in
Appendix 1. The single or multiple translations of the individual CSIs were added up, followed by calculating the ratio of consistency and inconsistency of the individual
CSIs. I considered the first translation of a single CSI as the correct one in terms of consistency – in case the CSI was translated differently later in the film, the second translation was considered inconsistent. For example, when Han refers to Chewie
(‘Žvejk’) as ‘Žvejkal’ (‘Chewbacca’), the translation is considered inconsistent – even though the translation is not incorrect, the first translation of this CSI was ‘Žvejk‘.
The aim of this examination was to find out how consistent each translation is and whether the translators of the redubs used any distinct term coined by the predecessor. The following pie chart shows the ratio of consistency and inconsistency in each dubbing version:
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CZ – 1991 CZ – 1995 CZ – 2011
16 14 2% % %
84 86 98 % % %
26 134 Total: 160 21 113 Total: 134 4 182 Total: 186
Figure 10. Consistency of the CSIs
The first dubbing version was the most inconsistent. However, a similar ratio is to be found in the second dubbing version; in spite of being a revision, the references remained inconsistent. Also, 26 references were completely omitted in the revision. The third dubbing displays a great consistency ratio: only minor inconsistencies were found
(e.g. povstalec → rebel, pán → mistr).
As for the consistency and taking over the translations of the predecessor, by comparison of the CSIs that were translated using similar strategy I came to conclusion that, except for one reference, the similar references could not have been translated in a different manner. The one exception was the CSI ‘Your Worshipfulness’ (‘Vaše
Vysokoblahorodí’ → ‘Your High Well Birth’) was translated using a form of addressing rank holders of the higher white clergy in Imperial Russia. The pseudo-title
Your Worshipfulness is mostly connected to SW as there such rank is not used in
English. Nevertheless, the Czech translation is practically unknown to the general public as this form of addressing has only been used in a specific era.
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7.3.1 Significant quotes and their consistency
I consider following three well-known phrases CSIs as they are amongst the most quoted and the most famous references7.
Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope. Line 1991 1995 2011 164, Pomoz mi, Obi-Wan Pomoz mi, Obi-Wan Pomozte mi, Obi-Wane 167, Kenobi. Jsi moje jediná Kenobi. Jsi má jediná Kenobi. Jste má jediná 371 naděje. naděje. naděje. Table 17. Quote 1
The first quote is significant, because it is repeated several times during the first thirty minutes of the films. Since the message is pre-recorded and repeated in form of a holograph, the translation does not change throughout the film. The only major differences between the third dubbing version and the previous ones are the declension of Obi-Wan’s name and the updated formal addressing towards the character.
I have a bad feeling about this. Line 1991 1995 2011 Mám takovej strašně Jsme jenom zvědaví, na Tohle se mi vůbec nelíbí. 720 divnej pocit. mou duši. Mám takový divný Mám divný tušení a Tohle se mi vůbec nelíbí. 911 tušení, nevím proč. nevím proč. Table 18. Quote 2
Although this quote may seem rather general, it is still a “running gag throughout the saga, as well as several other Lucasfilm (…) properties” (Wookieepedia, n.d.). It is understandable that the significance was unknown by the time the first two dubbing versions were produced, on the other hand, by that time the consecutives volumes of the trilogy, which also contain this running gag, were already filmed and distributed. Although the translations in the 1991 and 1995 dubbings are not consistent, the meaning of the message is clear. Nevertheless, both translations of the lines number
911 were modified by the strategy of autonomous creation. Also, the translation of the
7 Based on the entries found on official and unofficial fansites (Baver, 2017; Harris, 2018; Kane, 2017; Moviequotesandmore; Pella, 2016; Shortlist; Wookiepedia)
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line number 720 in the second dubbing version was entirely changed using the strategy of adaptation. The translator of the third version was familiar with the quote and chose a strategy of modulation, thanks to which the message can be used in various situations and subsequently remain consistent throughout the anthology.
May the Force be with you. Line 1991 1995 2011 1091 Síla vás bude provázet. Síla vás bude provázet. Ať vás provází Síla. 1112 Provázej tě Síla. Provázej tě Síla. Ať tě provází Síla. Table 19. Quote 3
This is a characteristic quote of the SW universe. The phrase may be used various instances when an individual wants to wish a good will to the other individual or a group, usually when the characters part (line number 1112) or face a challenge (line number 1091). In the first two dubbing versions, the concept of the Force was incomprehensible to the translator and director; therefore they used the strategy of modulation to deliver the message. On the other hand, the translator of the third version was familiar with the phrase and kept the according consistence in both cases.
In conclusion, the main aim of the first and second dubbing version was only to translate the lines with no further intention. Either it did not seem important for the director to keep consistent form of repeated sentences or the repetition was overlooked.
The translator of the third dubbing was familiar with the multiple occurrences of each quote and chose translations applicable in various situations; therefore, the consistency could have been kept without any difficulty.
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8 CONCLUSION
This thesis was dedicated to the analysis of three different Czech dubbings of George
Lucas’ film Star Wars: A New Hope (1977), produced in 1991 (for cinema), 1995 (for
VHS), and 2011 (for Blu-ray). The theoretical part was based on articles, books, and websites that deal with audiovisual translation, dubbing, translation strategies, culture- specific items, and retranslation, providing a theoretical background related to the analysis. The practical part comprises of qualitative and quantitative comparison, analysis, and evaluation of the dubbings, including linguistic and sociolinguistic features, pronunciation, T-V distinction, and register. The analysis deals with the translation strategies of the culture-specific items and their consistency.
The first goal was to quantitatively compare the corpus data to find out how much the individual translations differ from each other. The comparison of the subcorpora containing Czech dubbings using fuzzy match revealed that 71% of the first and second dubbing version is identical, confirming that the second version was not a retranslation, but a revision. Moreover, though some of the lines and characters were revoiced in the first redub, the original dubbing is still present in most of the scenes.
Since the first redub was based on the previous dubbing version, it cannot be considered a retranslation, thus whether the redub was or was not based on the previous translation cannot be asserted. The second was a retranslation, and it was not based on the first dubbing version. The matching lines included only 80 entries, which mostly consisted of simple sentences.
To investigate the validity of the retranslation hypothesis, the translation strategies based on the proposed taxonomy were analysed, along with the consistency of the culture-specific items, and linguistic and sociolinguistic features, which helped to establish the translation quality of each dubbing. In conclusion, I decided to leave out
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the revision as it is not a retranslation of the original. The comparison of the strategies confirmed the retranslation hypothesis: whereas the first translation was more adapted to the conventions of the target language, the retranslation was closer to the source culture in all respects. Despite the main motivation being a technical update, the distributors required a new translation to be made since the status of the film has prompted a further translation, a fact that also supports the retranslation hypothesis.
As for consistency, the analysed data revealed that although the consistency of the revised version was slightly better, the intelligibility of the storyline was not improved, whereas the 2011 redub kept a great consistency concerning both the pronunciation and the translation of the individual culture-specific items. The analysis of the consistency between the individual versions has also revealed that the second redubs was not inspired nor influenced by the previous dubbing, except for the translation of one culture-specific item (Your Worshipfulness → Vaše
Vysokoblahorodí).
In conclusion, the most recent redub has shown much better results than the original dubbing and the revision of the first dubbing. The translator was focused on delivering the individual references in an appropriate manner, kept his consistency and brought the source culture closer to the target audience using the strategies of literal translation, borrowing, and universalization, instead of omitting, deleting and rewriting the dialogues as in the previous two versions. Despite this fact, the revised dubbing version of 1995 is the most famous one, even though the quality of translation was low since the basic information that help the viewer understand the storyline and culture- specific items were left out. For example, a viewer who is not familiar with the universe and the story would not understand the concept of the Force and its usage in various scenes as all occurrences of this culture-specific item were sorely omitted and modified
74
The unceasing popularity of this version probably originated thanks to the easier accessibility to VHS at the time. This version was the most recent and official one for
16 years until the production of the second redub. Surprisingly, the third dubbing is condemned by the viewers – probably due to the issue already mentioned in the chapter on retranslation hypothesis: redubbing is often subjected to a negative judgement as it is more distinct from the other dubbing versions than in case of subtitling.
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9 WORKS CITED
9.1 Primary sources
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Epizoda IV – Nová naděje [Motion picture on Blu-ray]. Czech Republic: Studio
Budíkov ve spolupráci s S Pro Alfa.
Lucas, George (Director), & Kurtz, Gary (Producer). (1977). Star Wars: Episode IV – A
New Hope [Motion picture on Blu-ray]. United States: 20th Century Fox.
Sirový, Zdenek (Director, translator). (1991). Hvězdné války [Motion picture on
Blu-ray]. Czech and Slovak Federative Republic: Filmové studio Barrandov
dabing.
Sitár, Petr (Director), & Fuka, František (Translator). (2011). Star Wars: Epizoda IV –
Nová naděje [Motion picture on Blu-ray]. Czech Republic: LS Productions
dabing.
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(In)famous Examples. Italian Americana, 30(1), 22-32.
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Bartolomé, Ana Isabel, & Cabrera, Gustavo Mendiluce (2005). New Trends in
Audiovisual Translation: The Latest Challenging Modes. Miscelánea: A Journal
of English and American Studies, 31, 89-104.
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Danan, Martine (1991). Dubbing as an Expression of Nationalism. Meta: Journal Des
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10 LIST OF TABLES
Table 1. Audiovisual modes ...... 4
Table 2. Vinay and Darbelnet's taxonomy ...... 20
Table 3. Strategies proposed for the analysis ...... 24
Table 4. The creators of each dubbing version ...... 40
Table 5. Line 322, appendix ...... 42
Table 6. Pronunciations, appendix ...... 42
Table 7. Corpus data ...... 43
Table 8. An example of dialogue adjustment ...... 44
Table 9. Shift in addressing ...... 54
Table 10. T-V distinction 1 ...... 55
Table 11. T-V distinction 2 ...... 56
Table 12. Register 1 ...... 58
Table 13. Register 2 ...... 58
Table 14. Explaining the concept of the Force ...... 64
Table 15. The Assault on the Death Star ...... 65
Table 16. The conflict in the Cantina ...... 67
Table 17. Quote 1 ...... 71
Table 18. Quote 2 ...... 71
Table 19. Quote 3 ...... 72
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11 LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Distribution of AVT modes in Europe ...... 9
Figure 2. The genre of the redubbed films ...... 31
Figure 3. User ratings of the redubbed films ...... 31
Figure 4. Matching lines ...... 44
Figure 5. Fuzzy matches ...... 45
Figure 6. Pronunciation of the CSIs ...... 53
Figure 7. Pronunciation consistency ...... 53
Figure 8. List of CSIs ...... 60
Figure 9. Strategies in each translation ...... 62
Figure 10. Consistency of the CSIs ...... 70
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12 LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendix 1. Culture-specific items
1.1 The table of pronunciations
1.2 The list of the CSIs with assigned strategies
1.3 Consistency of the CSIs
Appendix 2. Transcription
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13 RESUMÉ
Cílem této diplomové práce bylo analyzovat tři dabingové verse filmu Star
Wars: Epizoda IV – Nová naděje. Teoretická část se zabývá popisem audiovizuálního překladu, dále popisuje dabing, proces jeho tvorby a jeho historii, definuje kulturně specifické prvky a strategie jejich překládání a vysvětluje fenomén znovupřekládání.
Praktická část diplomové práce se zaměřuje na kvalitativní i kvantitativní porovnání subkorpusů skládajících se z přepisu všech tří dabingů. Dále jsou zkoumány lingvistické a sociolingvistické rysy – výslovnost, tykání a vykání, registr, spolu se strategiemi, které se používají při překladu kulturně specifických prvků. Také je zkoumána důslednost překladu těchto prvků. Pro porovnání výše zmíněných kvalit byly jednotlivé prvky vyhledány v textu a vybrány na základě jejich významu ve filmu. Následně byly kvality každého prvku analyzovány v různých kapitolách praktické části, aby bylo možné vyhodnotit rozdíly mezi překlady.
Výsledky této diplomové práce zahrnují verifikaci teorie znovupřekládání v oboru audiovizuálního překladu a vyhodnocují problémy, rozdíly a důslednost mezi jednotlivými dabingovými verzemi. Výsledky analýzy korpusu prozradily, že druhá dabingová verze byla revize verze předchozí, nikoliv znovupřeklad. Porovnání překladatelských strategií, kvality a důslednost jednotlivých překladů potvrdilo teorii znovupřekládání v oboru audiovizuálního překladu. Také prozradily, že znovupřeložený text nebyl založený na žádném z předchozích.
Na základě této studie by mohl být proveden podobný výzkum, který by porovnal všechny tři dabingové verze v každém ze dvou zbývajících dílů trilogie s touto diplomovou prací, neboť oba druhé dabingy byly revidovány stejnou režisérkou jako v této práci.
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14 SUMMARY
The goal of this diploma thesis was to analyse three dubbing versions of the film Star
Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope. The theoretical part deals with the specification of audiovisual translation, describes dubbing, its history, and processes, defines culture- specific items and strategies of their translation, and explains the phenomenon of retranslation. The practical part of this thesis focuses on qualitative and quantitative comparison of the subcorpora which consist of three transcriptions of the dubbing.
Linguistic and sociolinguistic features, such as pronunciation, T-V distinction, and register are analysed along with the strategies used for translating culture-specific items, and the consistency of translations. To compare all the aforementioned qualities, the individual items were located in the text and chosen based on their importance in the film. Subsequently, each quality of the item was analysed in the different chapters of the practical part to interpret the differences between each translation.
The results of this thesis encompass the verification of the retranslation hypothesis in the field of audiovisual translation and evaluate the issues, differences, and consistency between the dubbing versions. The outcome of the analysis of the corpus revealed that the second dubbing version was a revision of the previous one rather than being a retranslation. The comparison of the translation strategies, the quality, and consistency of each translation confirmed the retranslation hypothesis in the field of audiovisual translation. It has also been revealed that the retranslated text was not based on the previous ones.
A similar follow-up study could be conducted, which would compare all three dubbing versions of each of the remaining two volumes of the trilogy in comparison with this thesis, as both second dubbings were revised by the same director as in this thesis.
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APPENDIX 1: CULTURE-SPECIFIC ITEMS
1.1 The table of pronunciations
CSI CZ – 1991 CZ – 1995 CZ – 2011 Alderaan /ˈaldɛraːn/ 15× /ˈaldɛraːn/ 17× /ˈaldɛraːn/ 17× /ɔːldəˈraːn/ /ˈaldɛran/ 1× /ˈaldɛran/ 2× Anchorhead /ˈan͡tʃɛrhɛd/ 1× /ˈan͡tʃɛrhɛd/ 1× /ˈɛnkr hɛd/ 2× /ˈænkəhɛd/ /ˈaːn͡tʃr hɛd/ 1× /ˈaːn͡tʃr hɛd/ 1× Antilles /ˈantɪlɪɛːs/ 1× /ˈantɪlɪɛːs/ 1× /antɪlɛs/ 1× /ˈæntəˈliːz/ Bantha /ˈbanta/ 2× /ˈbanta/ 2× /ˈbanta/ 2× /ˈbænθə/ Biggs /ˈbɪks/ 3× /ˈbɪks/ 3× /ˈbɪks/ 6× /ˈbɪgz/ /ˈbrɪks/ 2× /ˈbrɪks/ 2× Blaster — — /ˈblaːstr / 3× /ˈblaːstə/ Bocce /ˈbo͡tʃɛ/ 2× /ˈbo͡tʃɛ/ 2× /ˈbo͡tʃɛ/ 2× /ˈbɒ͡tʃi/ /ˈsriːpɪjo/ 11× C-3PO /ˈsriːpɪjo/ 15× /ˈtsɛː ˈtr ̝̊ ɪ ˈpɛː /ˈsriːpiːjoʊ/ 3× 13× /ˈsiːˈθriːˈpiːˈəʊ/ ˈoː/ /ˈsriːpiːoʊ/ 2× /ˈsriːpiːjo/ 1× Corellian /ˈkorɛlɪanskiː/ 1× /ˈkorɛlɪanskiː/ 1× /ˈkorɛlɪanskiː/ 1× /kəˈrelɪən/ Dantooine /ˈdantʊjiːn/ 4× /ˈdantʊjiːn/ 4× /ˈdantʊiːn/ 4× /ˈdæntʊiːn/ Darth /ˈdaːrs/ 1× /ˈdaːrt/ 1× /ˈdaːrt/ 3× /ˈdaːθ/ /ˈdaːrth/ 1× /ˈdaːrth/ 1× /ˈdaːrs/ 1× Greedo /ˈgriːdo/ 1× /ˈgriːdo/ 1× /ˈgriːdo/ 1× /ˈgriːdəʊ/ /ˈhan ˈsolo/ 7× Han Solo /ˈsoːlo/ 1× /ˈhan ˈsolo/ 6× /ˈhan ˈsolo/ 5× /ˈhaːn 'səʊləʊ/ /ˈhɛn/ 1× Chewbacca — — /ˈ͡tʃuːbaka/ 1× /͡tʃuˈbaːkə/ Chewie — — /ˈ͡tʃuːiː/ 7× /ˈ͡tʃuːwiː/ Jabba /ˈjaba/ 5× /ˈd͡ ʒaba/ 6× /ˈd͡ ʒaba/ 6× /ˈd͡ ʒaːbə/ /ˈd͡ ʒaba/ 4× Jawa /ˈd͡ ʒava/ 1× /ˈjaːva/ 2× /ˈd͡ ʒava/ 3× /ˈd͡ ʒaːwə/ /ˈd͡ ʒaːva/ 1× Jedi /ˈjɛdɪ/ 9× /ˈd͡ ʒɛdɪ/ 9× /ˈd͡ ʒɛdaːj/ 10× /ˈd͡ ʒɛdaɪ/ Jundland /ˈjʊndland/ 1× /ˈjʊndland/ 1× /ˈd͡ ʒandlɛnd/ 1× /ˈd͡ ʒandlənd/ Kessel /ˈkɛsɛl/ 1× /ˈkɛsl̩ / 1× /ˈkɛsɛl/ 1× /ˈkɛsɫ/
Millenium Falcon /ˈmɪlɛːnɪʊm — — /mɪˈlenɪəm ˈfalkon/ ˈfælkn̩ / /ˈmos ˈaːjzlɪ/ 1× /ˈmos ˈaːjzlɪ/ 1× Mos Eisley /ˈmos ˈajslɪ/ 2× /ˈmos ˈajzlɪ/ 1× /ˈmos ˈaːjslɪ/ 1× /ˈmɒs ˈɑɪsli/ /ˈmos ˈajsliː/ 1× /ˈmos ˈajslɪ/ 1× /ˈmos ˈaːjslɪ/ 1× Obi-Wan /ˈobɪvan /ˈobɪvan /ˈobɪvan 17× Kenobi 18× 18× ˈkɛnobɪ/ ˈkɛnobɪ/ ˈkɛnobɪ/ /ˈəʊbi ˈwʌn/ /ˈobɪwan/ 1× Owen /ˈovɛn/ 3× /ˈoʊvɛn/ 5× /ˈoʊvn̩ / 5× /ˈəʊwn̩ / /ˈoʊvɛn/ 1× Skywalker /ˈskaːjvolkr / 1× /ˈskaːjvolkr / 1× /ˈskaːjvolkr / 2× /ˈskɑɪwɔːkə/ /ˈskaːjvoːlkr / 1× /ˈskaːjvoːlkr / 1× Speeder /ˈspiːdr / 2× /ˈspiːdr / 1× — /ˈspiːdə/ Tank /ˈtɛnk/ 1× /ˈtɛnk/ 1× /ˈtank/ 1× /ˈtænk/ Tiree /ˈtɪrɪ/ 1× /ˈtiːrɪ/ 1× /ˈtajriː/ 1× /ˈtɑɪriː/ Tosche — — /ˈtoʃɪ/ 1× /ˈtoʃi/ Womp rat — — /ˈvomprat/ 1× /ˈwɒmp ˈræt/ Wookie /ˈvʊk/ 3× — /ˈvuːkiː/ 2× /ˈwukiː/ Yavin /ˈjavɪn/ 1× /ˈd͡ ʒavɪn/ 1× /ˈjavɪn/ 1× /ˈjævɪn/
1.2 The list of the CSIs with assigned strategies
CSI 1991 Strategy Bantha Bantha Borrowing Beggar’s canyon — Deletion Blaster Laser / Bouchačka Limited universalization / Absolute universalization Condenser Kondenzátor Literal translation Cruiser Křižník Literal translation Dark side Temná strana Literal translation Deflector (shields) Převaděč / Převáděcí štít / Adaptation / Adaptation / Deflektor Borrowing Droid Robot Limited universalization Empire Říše Limited universalization Exhaust port Tepelná šachta / Tepelný Literal translation / Synonymy průduch Gaffi stick — Deletion Hyperspace Hyperprostor Calque Chewbacca Žvejkal Calque Chewie Žvejk Calque Imperial Voják Říše Absolute universalization Stormtrooper Jawa Jawa Borrowing Jundland Wastes Jundlandské pustiny Literal translation Kessel Kessel Borrowing Kid Chlapec / Luke Literal translation / Synonymy Lightsaber Světelný meč Literal translation Master Pán Literal translation Millennium Falcon Malý Sokol Adaptation Mind probe Detektor mysli Adaptation Moisture vaporator Odpařovací zvlhčovač Adaptation Motivator Motivátor Borrowing Old man Děda / Stařec Literal translation Rebel Povstalec Literal translation Sand people Píseční lidé / písáci Literal translation / Autonomous creation Speeder Speeder Borrowing Sublight engine Subsvětelný motor Calque The Force Vesmírná Síla / Síla Autonomous creation / Literal translation Tosche — Deletion Tractor beam Magnetické pole Adaptation Womp rat Krysa Absolute universalization Wookie Wook Adaptation Your Vaše vysokoblahorodí Adaptation Worshipfulness
CSI 1995 Strategy Bantha Bantha Borrowing Beggar’s canyon — Deletion Blaster Laser / Bouchačka Limited universalization / Absolute universalization Condenser Kondenzátor Literal translation Cruiser Loď Absolute universalization Dark side Temná strana Literal translation Deflector (shields) Převaděč / Převáděcí štít / Adaptation / Adaptation / Deflektor Borrowing Droid Robot Limited universalization Empire Říše / Impérium Limited universalization / Literal translation Exhaust port Tepelná šachta / Tepelný Literal translation / Synonymy průduch Gaffi stick — Deletion Hyperspace Hyperprostor Calque Chewbacca Žvejkal Calque Chewie Žvejk Calque Imperial Voják Říše Absolute universalization Stormtrooper Jawa Jawa Borrowing Jundland Wastes Jundlandská poušť Literal translation Kessel Kessel Borrowing Kid Hoch / Chlapec / Luke Literal translation / Synonymy / Synonymy Lightsaber Světelný meč Literal translation Master Pán Literal translation Millennium Falcon Malý Sokol Adaptation Mind probe Detektor mysli Adaptation Moisture vaporator Odpařovací zvlhčovač Adaptation Motivator Motivátor Borrowing Old man Děda / Stařec Literal translation / Literal translation Rebel Povstalec Literal translation Sand people Píseční lidé Literal translation Speeder Speeder Borrowing Sublight engine Submotor Adaptation The Force Síla Vesmíru / Vesmír / Autonomous creation / Literal Vesmírná Síla translation / Autonomous creation Tosche — Deletion Tractor beam Magnetické pole Adaptation Womp rat Krysa Absolute universalization Wookie — Deletion Your Vysokoblahorodí Adaptation Worshipfulness
CSI 2011 Strategy Bantha Bantha Borrowing Beggar’s canyon Žebrácký kaňon Literal translation Blaster Blaster Borrowing Condenser Kondenzátor Literal translation Cruiser Křižník Literal translation Dark side Temná stránka Literal translation Deflector (shields) Štít / Ochranný štít Absolute universalization / Limited universalization Droid Droid Borrowing Empire Impérium Literal translation Exhaust port Tepelná šachta Literal translation Gaffi stick Hůl Absolute universalization Hyperspace Hyperprostor Calque Chewbacca Chewbacca Borrowing Chewie Chewie Borrowing Imperial Voják Impéria Absolute universalization Stormtrooper Jawa Jawa Borrowing Jundland Wastes Jundlandské pustiny Literal translation Kessel Kessel Borrowing Kid Hoch / Luke Literal translation / synonymy Lightsaber Světelný meč Literal translation Master Pán / Mistr Literal translation / Adaptation Millennium Falcon Millenium Falcon Borrowing Mind probe Detekce myšlenek Adaptation Moisture vaporator Vypařovač Literal translation Motivator Pohon Absolute universalization Old man Starouš / Stařec Literal translation / literal translation Rebel Povstalec / Rebel Literal translation / borrowing Sand people Píseční lidé Literal translation Speeder Vznášedlo Limited universalization Sublight engine Podsvětelný motor Calque The Force Síla Literal translation Tosche Tosche Borrowing Tractor beam Transportní paprsek Limited universalization Womp rat Womprat Borrowing Wookie Wookie Borrowing Your Vaše vysokoblahorodí Adaptation Worshipfulness
1.3 Consistency of the CSIs
CSI 1991 1995 2011 Lines Bantha Bantha 2 // 2 Bantha 2 // 2 Bantha 2 // 2 278, 424 Beggar’s canyon — — Žebrácký kaňon 1 // 1 1249 Blaster Laser 2 / Bouchačka 1 // 3 Laser 2 / Bouchačka 1 // 3 Blaster 3 // 3 339, 666, 822 Condenser Kondenzátor 1 // 1 Kondenzátor 1 // 1 Kondenzátor 1 // 1 221 Cruiser Křižník 3 // 3 Loď 1 // 1 Křižník 2 // 2 163, 490, 531, 596 Dark side Temná strana 1 // 1 Temná strana 1 // 1 Temná stránka 1 // 1 352 Deflector (shields) Převaděč 1 / Převáděcí štít 1 Převaděč 1 / Převáděcí štít 1 Štít 7 / Ochranný štít 1 // 8 597, 611, 1019, 1149, 1203, 1163, 1196 / Deflektor 4 // 6 / Deflektor 4 // 6 89, 104, 106, 140, 214, 220, 223, 226, 228, 237, 248, 257, Droid Robot 27 // 27 Robot 29 // 29 Droid 34 // 34 262, 265, 290, 292, 306, 307, 366, 369, 429, 443, 450, 455, 456, 470, 494, 658, 659, 744, 777, 798, 850, 1133 Empire Říše 13 // 13 Říše 10 / Impérium 3 // 13 Impérium 20 // 20 155, 345, 349, 362, 379, 443, 704, 1075 Exhaust port Tepelná šachta 4 / Tepelný Tepelná šachta 3 / Tepelný Tepelná šachta 6 // 6 1083, 1195, 1251 průduch 2 // 6 průduch 2 // 5 Gaffi stick — — Hůl 1 // 1 424 Hyperspace Hyperprostor 4 // 4 Hyperprostor 4 // 4 Hyperprostor 4 // 4 602, 608, 698, 1034 Chewbacca Žvejkal 1 // 1 Žvejkal 1 // 1 Chewbacca 1 // 1 481 Chewie Žvejk 6 / 3 // 9 Žvejk 4 / 6 // 4 Chewie 8 // 8 484, 594, 696, 712, 724, 783, 819, 959, 1017 Imperial Stormtrooper Voják Říše 1 // 1 Voják Říše 1 // 1 Voják Impéria 1 // 1 431, 847 Jawa Jawa 2 // 2 Jawa 2 // 2 Jawa 3 // 3 429, 432, 460 Jundland Wastes Jundlandské pustiny 1 // 1 Jundlandská poušť 1 // 1 Jundlandské pustiny 1 // 1 288 Kessel Kessel 1 // 1 Kessel 1 // 1 Kessel 2 // 2 11, 488 503, 581, 666, 668, 813, 905, 1015, 1023, 1029, 1058, Kid Chlapec 4 / Luke 2 // 6 Hoch 1 / Chlapec 3 / Luke Hoch 6 / Luke 1 // 7 1283, 1285 2 // 6 Lightsaber Světelný meč 1 // 1 Světelný meč 1 // 1 Světelný meč 1 // 1 337 Master Pán 4 // 4 Pán 4 // 4 Pán 2 / Mistr 1 // 3 176, 181, 268, 291, 315, 550, 820, 950 Millennium Falcon Malý Sokol 2 // 2 Malý Sokol 2 // 2 Millenium Falcon 2 // 2 483, 486 Mind probe Detektor mysli 1 // 1 Detektor mysli 1 // 1 Detekce myšlenek 1 // 1 539
Moisture vaporator Odpařovací zvlhčovač 1 // 1 Odpařovací zvlhčovač 1 // 1 Vypařovač 3 // 3 106, 107, 108 Motivator Motivátor 1 // 1 Motivátor 1 // 1 Pohon 1 // 1 120 Old man Děda 3 // 3 Děda 3 // 3 Starouš 3 // 3 492, 800, 1003, 1010, 1017 39, 43, 46, 47, 154, 155, 366, 388, 392, 401, 402, 406, Rebel Povstalec 19 // 19 Povstalec 18 // 18 Povstalec 24 / Rebel 1 // 25 416, 421, 423, 440, 629, 636, 643, 690, 694, 1068, 1094, 1097, 1160, 1169, 1216, 1244, 1265, 1277 Sand people Píseční lidé 7 / písáci 1 // 8 Píseční lidé 6 // 6 Píseční lidé 8 // 8 253, 275, 280, 310, 314, 424, 428, 430 Speeder Speeder 2 // 2 Speeder 1 // 1 Vznášedlo 2 // 2 471, 516 Sublight engine Subsvětelný motor 1 // 1 Submotor 1 // 1 Podsvětelný motor 1 // 1 696 352, 353, 354, 372, 383, 412, 446, 463, 646, 663, 667, The Force Vesmírná Síla 7 / Síla 12 // Síla Vesmíru 2 / Vesmír 1 / Síla 21 // 21 781, 854, 857, 863, 1092, 1113, 1139, 1268, 1270, 1286 19 Vesmírná Síla 4 // 7 Tosche — — Tosche 1 // 1 113 Tractor beam Magnetické pole 6 // 6 Magnetické pole 5 // 5 Transportní paprsek 4 // 4 726, 755, 773, 1010, 1017 Womp rat Krysa 1 // 1 Krysa 1 // 1 Womprat 1 // 1 1090 Wookie Wook 3 // 3 — Wookie 2 // 2 657, 660, 662 Your Worshipfulness Vaše vysokoblahorodí 1 // 1 Vysokoblahorodí 1 // 1 Vaše vysokoblahorodí 1 // 1 962 Score: 134/160 113/134 182/186
APPENDIX 2: TRANSCRIPTION