Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Subtitles and Dubbing: Translation in the TV Series
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Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Eliška Kratochvílová Subtitles and Dubbing: Translation in the TV Series “The Big Bang Theory” Bachelor‟s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: Ing. Mgr. Jiří Rambousek 2014 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Author‟s signature Acknowledgement I would like to thank the supervisor of my thesis, Ing. Mgr. Jiří Rambousek, for his valuable advice and guidance. I would also like to thank Mgr. Martin Němec, Ph.D., Kristýna Routnerová, and MartyCZ for providing information necessary for this research. Contents 1. Introduction ................................................................................................................... 6 2. Translation in general ................................................................................................... 7 3. History of subtitling and dubbing ............................................................................... 10 3.1. The history of subtitling ....................................................................................... 10 3.2. The history of dubbing ......................................................................................... 12 3.3. Subtitling and dubbing in European countries and the Czech Republic .............. 13 4. Subtitling ..................................................................................................................... 16 4.1. Types of subtitles ................................................................................................. 17 4.2. The subtitling process .......................................................................................... 20 4.3. Code of good subtitling ........................................................................................ 21 5. Dubbing ...................................................................................................................... 25 5.1. The dubbing process ............................................................................................ 26 5.2. Translation for dubbing ........................................................................................ 27 6. Subtitling vs. dubbing ................................................................................................. 29 7. Amateur subtitling ...................................................................................................... 30 8. The Big Bang Theory ................................................................................................. 31 9. Why The Big Bang Theory, and methods used ........................................................... 32 9.1. Methods ................................................................................................................ 32 10. The processes of creating official subtitles, dubbing and amateur subtitles ............. 34 10.1. Official subtitles and dubbing ............................................................................ 34 10.2. Amateur subtitles ............................................................................................... 35 11. Linguistic issues of the subtitles and dubbing .......................................................... 39 11.1. Omissions in the translation ............................................................................... 39 11.2. Different expressions for the same thing ........................................................... 42 11.3. Changes in syntax and sentence divisions ......................................................... 45 11.4. Colloquial language ........................................................................................... 51 11.5. Different accents ................................................................................................ 53 11.6. American culture in the Czech translations ....................................................... 53 11.7. Songs in The Big Bang Theory .......................................................................... 57 11.7.1. Theme song ................................................................................................. 58 11.7.2. Other songs .................................................................................................. 59 11.8. Mistakes ............................................................................................................. 60 12. Conclusion ................................................................................................................ 63 13. Bibliography ............................................................................................................. 65 14. Résumé ...................................................................................................................... 70 15. Appendix ................................................................................................................... 72 1. Introduction Compared to literary works, movies and TV series are quite new within the world‟s culture. Therefore, there are not as many scholarly works focusing on movies and TV series as those dedicated to books. In the same way, subtitles and dubbing can also be considered new, because they originated from the need to translate the films and TV shows. This Bachelor‟s diploma thesis will discuss the differences in translating from English into Czech for dubbing, official subtitles and amateur subtitles. This will be shown on the contemporary American TV series “The Big Bang Theory”. When translating movies or TV series, several different versions come to being. This depends on who does the translation and for what purpose, i.e. whether he/she translates in order to create a script for official dubbing, or subtitles. Subtitling may be further divided into official and amateur one. When dubbing and official subtitles are to be created, proffesional translators participate in it. Amateur subtitles, on the other hand, are made unprofitably by amateur translators, who may be less skilled than the professionals. This is where a number of differences originate. This thesis will attempt to do a research into official subtitles, dubbing and amateur subtitles of the TV series, and the differences among them and their possible reasons. Certain attention will be paid to the process of creating amateur subtitles, since there is not much research done in this particular field. It will try to discover whether it is possible for the amateur subtitles to be better than the official ones in certain respects. 6 2. Translation in general This period has become characteristic for its tendency that the ultimate majority of affairs in the world are shared by the whole population. Thanks to significant advance in science and technology in recent centuries, which resulted in a large number of possibilities in trav societies, people are now able to get in touch with each other over any distance. In this period, it is possible for a person to get or connect with almost any place on this planet. These new opportunities led to a mass development of international relations and trade. For this reason, translating and interpreting have gradually become needed more and more. There are several types of translations, each of them fulfilling a different purpose. A basic difference could be made between literary and technical translations, the latter being used, for example, in international politics. Mona Baker for instance describes the role of translation and interpreting when there appears to be a political conflict. She argues they “play a major role in the management of [the] conflict.” (Baker, 2006, p.2) She explains that translation and interpreting are used for various purposes during such conflicts. These may be, for example, the actual declaring of war, mobilizing armies, which often tend to be formed of smaller armies from different countries, keeping the ordinary people informed, and finally holding talks, meetings and conferences leading to peace treaties. All these events require participation of professional translators and interpreters. (Baker, 2006, p.2) This type of translation will naturally require different translation strategy than a literary text. As Baker mentions in another of her works, the purpose of translation, besides other things, determines the strategy of coping with non- equivalence of the source and target language. (Baker, 2011, p.18) These translations will have to be as accurate and faithful to the source text as possible. 7 Apart from this type of translation, there is a second extensive branch, literary translation. This field has also a very long tradition since books were widely translated also in the past, not only at present. There have been many studies written and much research done on the types and ways of literary translating. Experts and professionals all over the world try to contribute to the knowledge and advancement in this field. Probably the best-known Czech translation theorist, Jiří Levý, is an author of a large number of writings dedicated to the translation skills. He is generally considered to be the founder of Czech translation theory. One of his works called “The Art of Translation” deals with this subject. In this book Levý addresses himself particularly to the literary translation. He describes the process of creative translating. He lists three phases – the comprehension of the source text, the interpretation