Subtitling the Films of Volker Schlöndorff in English
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University College London Centre for Translation Studies Subtitling the films of Volker Schlöndorff in English Lindsay Ann Bywood A thesis submitted for the award of Doctor of Philosophy July 2016 Supervisors: Prof. Jorge Díaz Cintas Dr Rocío Baños Piñero 1 Declaration of originality ‘I, Lindsay Ann Bywood, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. 2 Abstract Volker Schlöndorff is one of Germany’s foremost directors, and a prominent member of the group who formed the New German Cinema in the 1960s, a movement which rejected the ‘old film-making’ in Germany and embraced a new way of working whose main thrust was artistic, rather than commercial. This thesis seeks to use the Descriptive Translation Studies framework to examine the English subtitles for two of Schlöndorff’s best known films: Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum [The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum], directed in 1975, and Die Blechtrommel [The Tin Drum], from 1979. Using the concept of translational norms as one of its main heuristic tools, this research examines an audiovisual corpus consisting of five different sets of DVD subtitles from the two films: three from Die Blechtrommel, dating from 1995, 2002 and 2010, and two from Katharina Blum, dated 2003 and 2009, thus spanning the era from the advent of digitisation and the beginning of DVD to the rise of TV and film streaming services. The data is analysed to investigate the translation strategies that have been activated by the subtitlers when encountering culture-specific references, and then to pinpoint any diachronic trends that come to the fore, with a view to testing the earliest concept of the retranslation hypothesis (Bensimon, 1990; Berman, 1990). 3 Acknowledgements Firstly, I would like to thank the Arts and Humanities Research Council in the UK (AHRC), who generously funded the majority of the study leading to this thesis. Secondly, and arguably most importantly, I wish to express heartfelt thanks to my supervisors, Professor Jorge Díaz Cintas, and Dr Rocío Baños Piñero, whose approaches are as different as they are complementary. Sincere gratitude is due to Jorge for supporting and encouraging me initially, for his boundless patience and detailed comments, and for his generosity with his time and energy, not to mention the selfless introductions to global professional networks and his promotion of research within our small but important field. I’m extremely grateful, also, to Rocío for targeted and constructive feedback and unfailing moral support. Many colleagues and friends have contributed in various ways to the genesis of this work, and my appreciation is owed to each and every one of them, in particular Norman Dawood, Christophe Declercq, Lucile Desblache, Mateo Donoghue, Thierry Etchegoyhen, Yota Georgakopoulou, Andy Hollis, Katy Kennedy, Andrew Lambourne, Kristijan Nikolić, Emmanouela Patiniotaki and Martin Volk. I am indebted also to my colleagues at the University of Westminster for their positive support through this final year, in particular Alexa Alfer and Elsa Huertas Barros. My thanks are due in addition to Ruth Shackleton and Ray Ockenden, without whom I would never have made German my career. Finally, none of this would have been possible without the unfailing support of my family and the love of my husband Tom. 4 Table of Contents Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................. 4 List of figures ............................................................................................................................ 8 Chapter 1 Introduction .......................................................................................................... 10 1.1 Aims of the study ................................................................................................... 16 1.2 Structure of the thesis ................................................................................................. 19 Chapter 2 Research background ............................................................................................ 22 2.1 Subtitling: a mode of audiovisual translation ........................................................ 22 2.1.1 Subtitling – a definition .................................................................................. 26 2.1.2 Translation factors specific to subtitling ........................................................ 28 2.2 Subtitling: technical issues ..................................................................................... 34 2.2.1 Synchrony ....................................................................................................... 35 2.2.2 Legibility, readability and related spatial issues ............................................ 37 2.2.3 Reading speed ................................................................................................ 40 2.3 The history of subtitling and the evolution of the subtitler’s role ......................... 47 2.3.1 The role of the subtitler ................................................................................. 49 2.4 DVD subtitling ........................................................................................................ 51 2.4.1 Challenges and opportunities ........................................................................ 52 2.4.2 The template method .................................................................................... 54 2.4.3 The template method and the current corpus .............................................. 59 2.5 The reception of English-language subtitles in the UK .......................................... 64 2.6 Subtitling in English ................................................................................................ 73 Chapter 3 Volker Schlöndorff and his films ........................................................................... 77 3.1 Biography ............................................................................................................... 77 3.2 Volker Schlöndorff in a historical context – New German Cinema ....................... 81 3.3 The films of Volker Schlöndorff .............................................................................. 83 3.3.1 The early Schlöndorff ..................................................................................... 85 3.3.2 Brechtian and post-feminist Schlöndorff ....................................................... 87 3.3.3 The international Schlöndorff ........................................................................ 88 3.3.4 The American Schlöndorff ............................................................................. 90 3.3.5 The post-wall Schlöndorff .............................................................................. 92 3.4 Themes and issues in the films .............................................................................. 94 3.5 Defining the corpus ................................................................................................ 99 5 3.5.1 Die Blechtrommel ......................................................................................... 102 3.5.2 Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum ........................................................ 105 Chapter 4 Methodology ....................................................................................................... 113 4.1 Introduction ......................................................................................................... 113 4.2 Theoretical framework: Descriptive Translation Studies ..................................... 114 4.2.1 Toury's taxonomy of norms ......................................................................... 115 4.2.2 Chesterman’s norms .................................................................................... 119 4.2.3 Norms applied to AVT .................................................................................. 122 4.3 Prescription in subtitling ...................................................................................... 127 4.4 The subtitlers’ tasks ............................................................................................. 130 4.5 Retranslation ........................................................................................................ 138 4.6 Methodological approach .................................................................................... 142 4.6.1 Orientation norms ........................................................................................ 143 Chapter 5 Culture-specific references (CSRs) ...................................................................... 147 5.1 Defining CSRs ....................................................................................................... 147 5.2 Taxonomies of translation strategies for CSRs .................................................... 153 5.3 CSR translation strategies and the initial norm ................................................... 170 5.4 Taxonomies of culture-specific references .......................................................... 173 5.4.1 Allusion ......................................................................................................... 178 5.4.2 Places ........................................................................................................... 185 5.4.3 People .........................................................................................................