The Subtitling of Sexual Taboo from English to Chinese
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TRANSLATION STUDIES UNIT THE SUBTITLING OF SEXUAL TABOO FROM ENGLISH TO CHINESE A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Imperial College London Long Yuan 2016 Supervisor: Professor Jorge Díaz Cintas CANDIDATE’S STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY The work presented in the thesis is, to the best of the candidate’s knowledge and belief, original and the candidate’s own work, except as acknowledged in the text, and the material has not been submitted, either in whole or in part, for a degree at this or any other university. Long Yuan 1 COPYRIGHT DECLARATION The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and is made available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives licence. Researchers are free to copy, distribute or transmit the thesis on the condition that they attribute it, that they do not use it for commercial purposes and that they do not alter, transform or build upon it. For any reuse or redistribution, researchers must make clear to others the licence terms of this work. 2 Abstract This research project sets out to analyse the subtitling of sexual taboo from English to Chinese with particular reference to the TV series Sex and the City, created by Darren Star and broadcast between 1998 and 2004. It commences with an introduction in which the theoretical and methodological scaffolding of the whole project is outlined, with a discussion taking place in the second chapter concerning one of the key concepts in this research, namely sexually taboo words and expressions. After approaching this concept as a subcategory within the wider subject of taboo and taboo language, a taxonomy of various sexually charged taboo categories is then put forward and used later on in the analysis of the case study of this research. The third chapter focuses on previous literature written on the translation of this kind of language and highlights two important cultural dimensions of sexually taboo language: its (im)polite nature and its potential to contribute to the formation of gender identity. Special emphasis is also paid to the intersection between translation and gender, to the potential interference of self-censorship in the translation of sexual references and to the specific case of translating sex-related language in China. The theoretical backbone of this project is refined in chapter four by focusing on the main challenges involved in the actual subtitling of sexual taboo. After a brief incursion into the technical particularities of subtitling, the attention is then shifted to the potential role played by ideology in linguistic transfer. Chapter five explores the various strategies that can be activated by translators when dealing with the subtitling into Chinese of sexually taboo language. This taxonomy is then exploited in chapter six, where an in-depth analysis of the data extracted from season one of Sex and the City is carried out. To finish with, chapter seven contains a summary of the most important findings yielded by this research with suggestions of avenues for further study related to the subtitling of taboo language. 3 THE SUBTITLING OF SEXUAL TABOO FROM ENGLISH TO CHINESE TABLE OF CONTENTS List of figures 6 Abbreviations 7 Acknowledgements 8 Chapter 1: Introduction 9 1.1. Audiovisual Translation in China 10 1.2. Aims and structure of this work 11 1.2.1. Aims 11 1.2.2. Structure 12 1.3. Corpus 17 Chapter 2: Sexual Taboos in English and Chinese 19 2.1. Introduction 19 2.2.The concept of taboo 20 2.3.Taboo and language: taboo words 25 2.3.1. Studies on taboo words 27 2.4.Sexually taboo words 28 2.4.1. Classifications of sexually taboo words 32 2.4.2. Additional categories of sexually taboo words 39 2.5. Summary 44 Chapter 3: Sexually Taboo Language and its Translation 46 3.1. Introduction 46 3.2. Gender identity and the (im)politeness of sexually taboo language 48 3.3. The name and nature of Translation Studies 53 3.4. Skopos theory 54 3.5. Polysystem theory 55 3.6. The Manipulation School and the ‘cultural turn’ 57 3.7. The translation of sex-related language 58 3.7.1. Translation and gender 58 3.7.2. Translation of sex and self-censorship 65 3.7.3 Translating sex-related language in China 67 3.8. Summary 70 Chapter 4: The Subtitling of Sexual Taboos 73 4.1. Introduction 73 4.2. A brief history of Audiovisual Translation 75 4.3. Subtitling from a technical perspective 76 4.4. Subtitling from an ideological perspective 80 4.4.1. Subtitling and Gender Studies 84 4.5. Subtitling sexual taboos in China 91 4.6. Summary 97 4 Chapter 5: Methodology and Translation Strategies 99 for Subtitling Sexual Taboos 5.1. Introduction 99 5.2. Research methodology 101 5.3. Translation strategies 106 5.3.1. Translation strategies for cultural references 112 5.3.2. Translation strategies for subtitling sexually taboo language 121 5.4. Summary 127 Chapter 6: Case Study: Sex and the City, season 1 130 6.1. Sex and the City 130 6.2. Data analysis 132 6.2.1. Masturbation 137 6.2.2 Oral sex 143 6.2.3. Orgasm 148 6.2.4. Homosexuality 153 6.2.5. Rape 158 6.2.6. Incest and paedophilia 158 6.2.7. Menstruation 159 6.2.8. Genital organs 161 6.2.9. Prostitution 165 6.2.10. Copulation 168 6.3. Summary 171 Chapter 7: Conclusion 178 7.1. Research findings 178 7.2. Further research 189 Bibliography 191 Appendix 202 Masturbation 202 Oral sex 204 Orgasm 207 Homosexuality 209 Rape 211 Incest and paedophilia 211 Menstruation 212 Genital organs 213 Prostitution 219 Copulation 221 5 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Holmes’s map of the Translation Studies discipline 57 Figure 2: Categories of sexually taboo language in Sex and the City 142 Figure 3: Number of sexually taboo expressions in each category 143 Figure 4: Overall percentages of each translation strategy used in Sex and the City 144 Figure 5: Number of activations of each translation strategy in the whole corpus 144 Figure 6: Percentage of each translation strategy used in Sex and the City – masturbation 152 Figure 7: Number that each translation strategy is used in the category of masturbation 153 Figure 8: Percentage of each translation strategy in Sex and the City – oral sex 157 Figure 9: Number that each translation strategy is used in the category of oral sex 158 Figure 10: Percentages of each translation strategy used in Sex and the City – orgasm 162 Figure 11: Number that each translation strategy is used in the category of orgasm 163 Figure 12: Percentages of each translation strategy used in Sex and the City – homosexuality 168 Figure 13: Number of each translation strategy used in the category of homosexuality 168 Figure 14: Percentages of each translation strategy used in Sex and the City – genital organs 175 Figure 15: Number that each translation strategy is used in the category of genital organs 176 Figure 16: Percentages of each translation strategy used in Sex and the City – prostitution 179 Figure 17: Numbers of translation strategies used in the category of prostitution 179 Figure 18: Percentages of each translation strategy used in Sex and the City – copulation 182 Figure 19: Number that each translation strategy is used in the category of copulation 183 Figure 20: Percentages of target and source-oriented translation strategies in Sex and the City – masturbation 184 Figure 21: Percentages of target and source-oriented translation strategies in Sex and the City – oral sex 185 Figure 22: Percentages of target and source-oriented translation strategies in Sex and the City – orgasm 185 Figure 23: Percentages of target and source-oriented translation strategies in Sex and the City – homosexuality 186 Figure 24: Percentages of target and source-oriented translation strategies in Sex and the City – genital organs 187 Figure 25: Percentages of target and source-oriented translation strategies in Sex and the City – prostitution 187 Figure 26: Percentages of target and source-oriented translation strategies in Sex and the City – copulation 188 Figure 27: Percentages of target and source-oriented translation strategies per category in Sex and the City 189 Figure 28: Percentages of target and source-oriented translation strategies deployed in Sex and the City 189 6 ABBREVIATIONS AV Audiovisual AVT Audiovisual Translation DTS Descriptive Translation Studies GS Gender Studies SL Source Language ST Source Text TS Translation Studies TL Target Language TT Target Text 7 Acknowledgements PhD research not only strives to discover and explore new territories of a certain kind of academic field and to make a contribution to the knowledge of that field, for me, it has also been a life-changing opportunity which has shaped the trajectory of my life. Hence, here is the chance for me to express my deepest gratitude to the people whom I have been fortunately enough to encounter in my life. First of all, I would like to take this opportunity to say a huge thank you to Professor Jorge Díaz Cintas, who, as my supervisor, has guided my research with his profound knowledge and thought-provoking insights. I thank him for sharing this with me that has inevitably broadened my horizons, both intellectually and professionally. I also thank him for being a kind and caring supervisor who is always there for his students, which has made the journey of this PhD research much easier. Finally, I would like to thank him for this opportunity to fulfill my childhood dream of pursuing PhD research. I would also like to express my deepest gratitude to my parents, who have been supporting me financially and emotionally and have always encourage me throughout my studies.