View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Siberian Federal University Digital Repository Journal of Siberian Federal University. Humanities & Social Sciences 12 (2015 8) 2891-2900 ~ ~ ~ УДК 81.33 Translating Subtitles – Translating Cultures Evgeniya D. Malenova* Omsk State University n.a. F.M. Dostoyevsky 55a Mira, Omsk, 644077, Russia Received 05.10.2015, received in revised form 29.10.2015, accepted 18.11.2015 The paper focuses upon the problem of trans-cultural transfer in subtitling as a type of audiovisual translation. The methodology of the research involves analysis of the key procedures used for translating culture-specific concepts taking into consideration the principles of dynamic equivalence and the restrictions, applied to the text and the translator in the course of subtitling. The author defines these restrictions and argues their nature. Special attention is payed to the challenges of the audiovisual translation determined by specificity of trans-cultural transfer. As the result, the author brings to light the key strategies of subtitling audiovisual products containing culture-specific concepts and historically marked culture-specific slang Considering that audiovisual content is a polycode text. The results can be used in applied and theoretical translation practice, as a guide in subtitling practice, as a tool for teaching audiovisual translation. Keywords: AV-translation, subtitling, culture-specific concept, source language, target language, trans-cultural transfer, dynamic equivalence. DOI: 10.17516/1997-1370-2015-8-12-2891-2900. Research area: philology. Introduction coding was considered a part of a literary or Translation studies has been a major issue simultaneous translation (Козуляев, 2014). for the last two decades; now we face a dramatic Thus, the strategies of literary translation were increase of the amount of research connected with unsuccessfully applied to an audiovisual content; different issues of translation. What has triggered that resulted in major quality deterioration. Now such an upsurge? Here is a simple explanation – most foreign and some Russian linguists argue it has actually been an upswing of demand for that AVT is a separate type of translation with its translation services, accompanied with a decrease own rules, peculiarities and restrictions. in the overall quality of translation. The area of AVT is usually divided into two major translation suffering the most is an Audiovisual fields: dubbing and subtitling. Dubbing is an Translation (AVT). According to Alexei oral presentation of the translated script, though Kozulyaev, for a long time translation of films, subtitling involves superimposing of the translated TV-programs and computer games being blends text onto the screen. Both types of AVT are very of verbal and non-verbal systems of information interesting and having their own issues, although © Siberian Federal University. All rights reserved * Corresponding author E-mail address: [email protected] – 2891 – Evgeniya D. Malenova. Translating Subtitles – Translating Cultures in the auspices of the present research I would restrictions connected with AVT overall and like to focus on subtitling. subtitling in particular. Jorge Diaz Cintas and Aline Remael define subtitling as “a translation practice that Basic restrictions of subtitling consists of presenting a written text, generally We have already mentioned that the AVT on the lower part of the screen, that endeavors imposes on a translator certain restrictions, to recount the original dialogue of the speakers, which are not typical for other fields of translation as well as the discursive elements that appear in practice. The list of restrictions may differ the image (letters, inserts, graffiti, inscriptions, according to different kinds of AVT; here we will placards, and the like), and the information that focus upon the restrictions to be considered in the is contained on the soundtrack (songs, voices off) subtitling process. There are four main types of (Diaz Cintas, Remael, 2007). Such a complicity above said restrictions: of subtitles imposes a lot of restrictions upon 1. Normative restrictions; a translator; on the other hand subtitles should 2. Social restrictions; trigger a target audience’s reaction similar to 3. Personality restrictions; the one of the source audience. That is why the 4. Physiological restrictions problem of subtitling is a vexed one; besides Normative restrictions are based upon there is a great amount of the so-called «fan determining the type of equivalence to be subtitling», which jeopardizes the quality of achieved during translation. In case of AVT, subtitling on a global scale. That is why there it will be useful to take into consideration the is quite a number of works discussing different classification of equivalence types determined issues of subtitling. Translation of subtitles is by Nida and Taber. They define two major types researched in different aspects. Some works of equivalence as follows: formal equivalence focus upon perception of the subtitles and (formal correspondence) and dynamic tracking the eyes movement during watching an equivalence. Formal equivalence is understood AV-content with subtitles (Schotter & Rayner, as a formal correspondence between an item in 2012), (Dwyer, 2015), other researchers highlight the target language and definite word or phrase in the problems of AVT connected with conveying the source language. In the auspices of the formal the meaning of the culture-specific concepts and equivalence, a translator tends to preserve fidelity peculiarities of trans-cultural transfer during of separate words or even phrases, grammatical the process of translating subtitles (Gottlieb, and syntactical structures trying to convey the 1997; Tailor, 2000), a lot of attention is payed to meaning of the source text words by means of the the didactic of AVT and teaching the essential target text resources. In other words, we can say techniques of subtitling process (Sponholz, that the formal equivalence is a kind of “word-to- 2003; Diaz Cintas, Remael, 2008). Finnish word” translation or “text-oriented translation”. researcher Tiina Holopainen from University Dynamic equivalence can be reached by of Turku presents her own model of subtitles providing the definite influence upon the target translation strategy (Holopainen, 2010). The text addressee and getting the definite response, present research will focus upon the problems which will tend to be the same as the response of translation of culture-specific concepts and of the source text addressee. The translated text tools of trans-cultural transfer in the process of should trigger the same impact upon the target subtitling. First, it is crucial to mention major text audience as the source text was meant to. This – 2892 – Evgeniya D. Malenova. Translating Subtitles – Translating Cultures type of equivalence is culture-oriented and can of the world. These ideas became very popular provide an adequate response of the addressees. in the XX century and effected a lot of research In can be called a “sense-to-sense” translation or concerning linguistic identity of a nation. There “meaning-oriented” one. Dynamic equivalence is is no doubt that AVT is an act of individual an extremely important concept for AVT, because creativity, so the translator’s personal picture of our main goal is to provoke a reaction, a response the world overlaps the national-specific picture of to the translated AV-product, which will correlate the world of the nation he belongs to. This may with the response to the source AV-product. lead to both choosing some unique variants of We need to perform the so-called user-oriented translation, and to making crucial mistakes. translation whereas “the message is preserved The last, but not the least group of restrictions and the translation is faithful” (Nida and Taber, is connected with the form of subtitles presentation. 1982). On the other hand, many AV-products tend These restrictions sometimes become major to be not only emotionally oriented, they often ones and oppress the process of translation and include a lot of cognitive information, which decision-making. They root in the physiology should be translated without any omissions or of human perception and peculiarities of mental distortions, so this is where formal equivalence cognitive processes connected with reception and comes in handy. comprehension of different types of information. Social restrictions underline the necessity Some of these restrictions have been defined to take into consideration cultural, moral, ethic, by experiment, others result from subtitling religious and other values of a society in question. practice. Some of these restrictions emerge from During translation of AV-products we also have the code of subtitling, endorsed by the European to consider culture-specific concepts, which Association for Studies in Screen Translation. can be difficult for target language audience to According to their requirements, in the course understand, so there should be developed an of subtitling, we should use simple syntactic appropriate approach towards translating such units, each subtitle should be syntactically self- phenomena. Sometimes these restrictions compel contained, and we do need to subtitle repeated or the translator to transform the original text obvious names, common comprehensible phrases dramatically, especially when the differences in (Carrol and Ivarisson, 1998).