Film in translation. Film translation in the framework of linguistics, film and culture
Table of contents – Winter 2015
Károly Polcz: An Overview of Research into Film Translation in the Framework of Linguistics Translation Studies and Pragmatics
Zsuzsanna Lakatos-Báldy: Characteristics of audiovisual translation and film translation as intercultural communication
Péter Zolczer: Hungarian and Slovak translations of English movie titles
Gergely Ádám Sáfár: Luck or challenge? Dubbing multi-lingual movies
Mónika Fodor: Self-portrait in translation. Questions of ethno-cultural identity in the autobiographical documentary Incubator by Réka Pigniczky
Ágnes Laszkács: Film translation – linguistic, artistic and cultural mediation
Cathy Caruth: Literature and the Enactment of Memory
Student’s work
Linda Nyilas: “It is not merely translating, but writing a Hungarian text, that’s the key” – Interview with dubbing dramaturge Mariann Varga about the challenges and the beauties of translation
Katalin Szeghő: The voice behind the microphone, Interview with dubbing actor Soma Zámbori about the tasks of in his profession and the state of dubbing in Hungary
Abstracts
Károly Polcz: An Overview of Research into Film Translation in the Framework of Linguistics Translation Studies and Pragmatics
This paper aims to provide an overview of studies on film translation that were written in the paradigm of linguistics translation studies and linguistics pragmatics. First, the basic concepts of translation studies and pragmatics will be clarified. Then the concept of audiovisual translation will be examined along with the terminological diversity related to this concept. This is followed by a brief overview of the history of research into film translation. The fifth part will critically examine studies that investigate translated film scripts in the framework of descriptive translation studies and pragmatics. At the end of the paper, some research questions will be pointed out which future research into film translation needs to address. The answers to these questions may provide a better understanding of translated film texts and the way they affect the viewers.
Zsuzsanna Lakatos-Báldy: Characteristics of audiovisual translation and film translation as intercultural communication
In my essay I describe film translation as a specific type of audiovisual translation. The need for film translation was born together with the sound film (talking picture) and it meant the beginning of intercultural communication too – without being denominated as such. Although it is a characteristic of all audiovisual translations to have an oral code (the sounds we hear), a written code (the scripts) and a visual code (the pictures we see), it is also their characteristic that they do not have a unique type of translation.
Dubbing presents even more difficulties than artistic literature translation because it is intersemiotic. That means that dubbing has to consider the relation between iconic and verbal codes; it is a kind of translation which involves a rather articulated transformation of the text and a complex linguistic transfer, as the transfer from one language to the other has to be in harmony with the belonging pictures and sounds.
Film translation as subtitles was born as a new type of translations which differs from the original (source language) both in its form and content. The text type is also changed, the oral message of the source language is transformed in a reduced written message, which has to reflect the original message respecting the conventions and structure of the written language. The translator has to be able to transfer the communicative intentions of the source language to the target language, and also has to do the transfer of the same intentions from an oral to a written code. The latter has to consider the entire paralinguistic reality that is seen in the film and the position and moving of the actors, which belong to the field of proxemics and kinesis.
Summarizing, film translation is a special type of translation which I consider applied artistic translation from the formal point of view; and according to its content I define it as a translation where culture has to be transferred, where the characteristics of the type of translations play a decisive role, but they cannot diminish the presence and transfer of cultural realia, therefore I call the process intercultural communication.
Péter Zolczer: Hungarian and Slovak translations of English movie titles
Typing the phrase movie titles in Hungarian into any of the online search engines reveals a considerable amount of negative opinion about the translation of movie titles. Internet users many times find the Hungarian movie titles so incorrect that they feel they would have accepted the original title instead, even if they hadn’t understood it. The situation with the Slovak titles is the same; the correspondence between the Slovak negative criticism and the Hungarian opinions sometimes might even feel as if one was the translation of the other. The paper deals with the analysis of 379 English movie titles and their Hungarian and Slovak translations, assembled into a corpus. As a theoretical framework it uses the relevance theory which offers four main translation procedures (transfer, translation, substitution, modification) together with six of their combinations. The results provided an answer for the following research questions: (1) Which translation procedures have been used in the negatively criticized Hungarian and Slovak translations of English movie titles? (2) Is it possible to detect any kind of difference in translating the titles of successful and less successful movies? (3) What are the features of translating English movie titles into Hungarian and Slovak? The analysis of the movie titles enabled the application of further theoretical frameworks (e.g. lexical translational procedures, some of the seven standards of textuality) which provided new perspectives of explaining movie title translations.
Gergely Ádám Sáfár: Luck or challenge? Dubbing multi-lingual movies
The topic of this article is the dubbed version of originally multi-lingual movies. After summarizing the types of multiculturalism and the typical problems faced by the dubbing staff, the paper analyzes the solutions used through several examples. These solutions are more or less adequate, but there are some cases where they are not, causing unwelcome comedic effects or estranging the audience. The article reveals that in specific cases dubbing is not the appropriate strategy to translate a movie.
Mónika Fodor: Self-portrait in translation. Questions of ethno-cultural identity in the autobiographical documentary Incubator by Réka Pigniczky
This essay deals with translation, language use and the generic specificities in Incubator, an autobiographical documentary directed by Réka Pigniczky. Incubator tells the story of a scout reunion and re-performance of a Hungarian rock musical, István, a király, 25 years after the original scout theater. In its parallel use of two autobiographical documentary subgenres, the portrait and the journal entry, the documentary evolves as the interplay of film, performance, narrative identity construction as well as translation and designates unique management of space and time. Presenting a chronology of events, the journal entry mode captures staging the rock musical for the second time in the Sierras in California and provides the backdrop for the evolving personal stories of second generation American Hungarianness. Personal interviews, family recordings and footage, voice-over narration, and still photographs compose the portrait of growing up Hungarian in the USA, which is less defined by plot and organized synchronically. When discourses in the two modes are translated, the translation also adds to the story of identity construction. The documentary presents an uncommon case of film translation as the producer and main character also does the translation, transforming translation into a unique liminal space of stepping in and out of ethnically marked zones. Using the film’s dialogs and narration in English and translated Hungarian, I cite and explain a few examples of implication and explicitation, two key features of translation universals. I argue that these translational tools result in the interpretation of particular cultural content and incorporate translated texts into the ethnocultural identity narrative.
Ágnes Laszkács: Film translation – linguistic, artistic and cultural mediation
The study shortly describes the complex structure of film, the grammar of film language and the elements which transfer the cultural background. It also examines the personal, linguistic, artistic and cultural levels of translation. Following a brief overview of common approaches to translation, the paper pays special attention to film translation, which is one of the specific phenomena of translation. The study aims to investigate what components ensure or endanger the transmission of the original linguistic, cultural and artistic contents in films. Finally, it illustrates the problems of film translation under discussion by analyzing the translation of some selected scenes.
Cathy Caruth: Literature and the Enactment of Memory
In her study Caruth examines the innovative methods personal traumas are represented by in Hiroshima mon amour, a film by Alain Resnais and Marguerite Duras, which tells a story of a love affair between a Japanese architect whose family has been decimated by the bomb at Hiroshima and a French actress who is visiting Hiroshima to make a film about peace. Caruth explores the possibility of communicating traumatic history, the relation between remembering and forgetting, and the complex ways that knowing and not knowing are entangled in the language of trauma and in the stories that are associated with it.
Linda Nyilas: “It is not merely translating, but writing a Hungarian text, that’s the key” – Interview with dubbing dramaturge Mariann Varga about the challenges and the beauties of translation
Dubbing dramaturge Mariann Varga, who translates popular TV series and movies from English to Hungarian, is introduced in the article. She reveals how she became a dubbing dramaturge and what problems she has to get over while translating film texts to make an understandable and enjoyable movie. Mariann Varga talks about the beauty and monotony of her work and she gives inside information on the first phase of dubbing.
Katalin Szeghő: The voice behind the microphone, Interview with dubbing actor Soma Zámbori about the tasks of in his profession and the state of dubbing in Hungary
In the interview Soma Zámbori, a well-known actor and voice artist shares his experiences of the actualities of dubbing in Hungary. The article gives us opportunity to delve into the process of dubbing, preparing for the parts and the challenges the dubbing actor faces behind the microphone.
