Translating film titles

Babel ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 60 (2) ◽  
pp. 193-215
Author(s):  
José Santaemilia Ruiz ◽  
Betlem Soler Pardo
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Western World ◽  
European Languages ◽  
Cultural Texts ◽  
The Media ◽  
Marketing Tool ◽  
World English ◽  
The One

In Spain, as in the rest of the non-Anglophone Western world, English-language film titles have become texts (or paratexts) of great cultural importance. The titles of the films that one may encounter in Western cinema can be considered, on the one hand ephemeral, elusive, and inconsequential. However, on the other hand, despite their clear irrelevance, film titles are considered to be the genuine contemporary cultural texts, for their continued presence in the media and for their evocative nature: an important marketing tool. Moreover, the result of what happens when film titles are translated into other languages and cultures has always intrigued the audience: this is perhaps indicative of the vast universe of translation studies. The differences between languages are palpable, not only from a linguistic point of view but also from a pragmatic, historical or cultural standpoint. In this paper, we deal with the translation of Quentin Tarantino’s film titles into a number of European languages, including Spanish, Catalan, French and German. Quentin Tarantino’s films are controversial, self-reflexive and have acquired a significant recognition within popular culture. Most of the typologies employed so far have revolved around the notion of ‘fidelity” in the translation of film titles, and involving such strategies as literal translation, transposition, addition, etc. We wish to propose here another avenue for investigation: that of film-title translation as a complex (and globalised) rewriting phenomenon that benefits the commercial and ideological interests of the film industry.

Die Macht der Bilder und Bilder der Macht: die sprachliche Konstruktion von Nationalismus und Konservatismus in der strategischen politischen Kommunikation von Vox España

2020 ◽  
Vol 136 (2) ◽  
pp. 538-566
Author(s):  
Sandra Issel-Dombert
Keyword(s):  
Language Use ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Multimodal Discourse ◽  
The Social ◽  
Core Elements ◽  
The Media ◽  
Right Wing Populism ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractFrom a theoretical and empirical linguistic point of view, this paper emphasizes the importance of the relationship between populism and the media. The aim of this article is to explore the language use of the Spanish right wing populism party Vox on the basis of its multimodal postings on the social network Instagram. For the analysis of their Instagram account, a suitable multimodal discourse analysis (MDA) provides a variety of methods and allows a theoretical integration into constructivism. A hashtag-analysis reveals that Vox’s ideology consists of a nativist and ethnocentric nationalism on the one hand and conservatism on the other. With a topos analysis, the linguistic realisations of these core elements are illustrated with two case studies.

scholarly journals Graffiti as a sign: the semiotic approach to the study of the phenomenon

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (18) ◽  
pp. 92-98
Author(s):  
Maria Chikarkova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Context ◽  
Single Point ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Street Art ◽  
The Media ◽  
Cultural Code ◽  
The One ◽  
Different Characteristics

Although graffiti is a well-known phenomenon of street art, there is still no single point of view on this phenomenon (even if it is considered art at all). Both the essence and the manifestations of graffiti remain a matter of debate - there are dozens of different classifications, that they are based on different characteristics. However, the phenomenon has rarely attracted attention from the point of view of semiotics, though it is the semiotic reading of graffiti that makes it possible to understand its nature more deeply. Due to semiotics we could create an integrative classification, which would combine stylistics and subject matter into one system. The article made exactly such an attempt –providing of the semiotic classification of graffiti, based on Ch. Peirce’s classification of semiotic signs. Graffiti is a sign, because it has a material shell of the latter, a marked object and rules of interpretation. It functions within the subculture and signifies the individual's desire to escape from the deterministic nature of urban life (J. Baudrillard). It is a culture of the semiosphere, which continuously gives rise to new connotations and, accordingly, generates new receptions. An important component of graffiti interpretation is the cultural code; it is not read outside the field of conventionality, cultural context. Decoding of graffiti can occur in three ways. From our point of view, it is appropriate to use S. Hall’sclassification. He suggested a scheme for "decrypting" messages in the media, however, in our opinion, his scheme works for any communicative act (including graffiti). He distinguished dominant ("dominant-hegemonic"), oppositional ("oppositional") and negotiated ("negotiated") decoding. In the graffiti situation, oppositional decoding prevails among ordinary recipients (passers-by). U. Eco called this type aberrant, because it provides "decryption" of text with a different code than the one it was created for. Authors of graffiti themselves are often not fully aware of what they createalso. Modern writers use techniques of op-art, Dadaism, surrealism, etc., without being very oriented in all these directions. When graffiti combines different types of art (for example, the combination of painting with literature), it takes into account the features of inter-semiotic translation, which makes the decoding situation even more complicated. We offercreating a semioticclassificationofgraffiti, that might be based on Ch. Peirce’s classification of semiotic signs, whichdistinguishthesigns-copies, signs-indexes, signs-symbols. It could help the essence of graffiti and decode them.

scholarly journals Wstrząsająca treść jako manipulacyjny element dyskursu konfliktu

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 135-143
Author(s):  
Anna Hłuszko
Keyword(s):  
Hate Speech ◽  
Traditional Approach ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Media Discourse ◽  
Visual Content ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Common ◽  
The One ◽  
Web News

Shock content as a manipulative component of conflict discourseDifficult socio-political situation in Ukraine creates specific media discourse, which in turn gives rise to a number of phenomena, connected to information war categories, war of meanings, hate speech etc. Active entry of military issues into web news content affects traditional approach to the media-text drafting. The report examines the trends of shock visual content and its announcement in the web headlines. The influence of the content emotionalization, which is one of the common features for conflict discourse, not only on text style, but also on features of page making, selection and use of photo illustrations, headline creation, is studied. The material covering military developments usually involve deaths, injuries, loss, destruction of settlements as a result of hostilities, that is, they focus on information on suffering of both military and civilians. This results in stronger integration of shock visual content into the news, which in turn may be used as manipulation and propaganda tool. On the one hand it is used to demonstrate crimes of the enemy, on the other — as an evidence of Ukrainian military success. From the point of view of ethic and humanism the justification of such tactic is doubtful in both cases. However, the study shows that open image of death, blood, injuries in the materials and the announcement of such content in headlines are the cause of high popularity of such publications, and this mainstreams the problem of dehumanizing impact both on material’s subjects and on media audience.

Soccer Players and Their Media-Related Behavior

2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 367-384 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Birkner ◽  
Daniel Nölleke
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
The Other ◽  
Soccer Players ◽  
Sport Communication ◽  
The Media ◽  
The One ◽  
Tabloid Press ◽  
The Relationship

Using the concept of mediatization, in this article, we analyze the relationship between sport and media from a sport-centered perspective. Examining the autobiographies of 14 German and English soccer players, we investigate how athletes use media outlets, what they perceive as the media’s influence and its logic, and—crucially—how this usage and these perceptions affect their own media-related behavior. Our findings demonstrate the important role of the media for the sports systems from the athlete’s point of view and demonstrate the research potential of mediatization as a fruitful concept in studies on sport communication. On the one hand, the sport stars reflect in their autobiographies that their status and income depend on media coverage; and on the other hand, they complain about the omnipresence of the media, especially offside the pitch and feel unfairly treated by the tabloid press, both in England and in Germany.

scholarly journals Lexical Variants of Fixed Word Combinations in Political-Social Press Releases

2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (26) ◽  
pp. 34-43
Author(s):  
Joanna Bryła-Lech
Keyword(s):  
Source Material ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Press Releases ◽  
Proper Understanding ◽  
Base Form ◽  
Polish Language ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The One

Fixed word combinations and their modifications are frequently used by journalists in press releases of a political and/or social profile. Analyzing the source material gathered from “Gazeta Wyborcza” in 2001, I found many lexical variants of phrasemes and proverbs.The most interesting modifications appeared in the headlines. This article describes a few such examples.Fixed word combinations make it easier for senders of political-social announcements to express their thoughts indirectly. They can be used to convey irony, mockery, or aversion towards a person or the subject of the statement in a veiled way. The proper understanding (i.e., in accordance with the sender’s intentions) of such a constructed announcement often requires some intellectual effort from the reader. It is a kind of game. Interpreting the metaphorical sense causes a relationship to form between the participants of the communicative process.Changeable modifications appear as a result of the replacement of one component by a different word, which from the sender’s point of view is more attractive than the one in the base form (Bąba 1989, p. 54). This leads to the appearance of so-called lexical variants. Most frequently, these units are not fixed in the Polish language, but are created especially for the needs of a certain text. They enable the meaning of a phraseme or proverb to be matched to the content of the article, which constitutes the context of its usage. They usually narrow the meaning.The modified phrasemes and proverbs attract the reader’s attention, convincing him of the sender’s views. The language of politics and the media is the language of manipulation and persuasion. Fixed word combinations are very important language devices that facilitate an effective influence on the reader/receiver.

scholarly journals Product placement as an efficient marketing tool within the media mix

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 224-238
Author(s):  
Alicia Martín García
Keyword(s):  
Film Industry ◽  
Historical Review ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Product Placement ◽  
General Motors ◽  
Primitive Form ◽  
Product Placements ◽  
The Media ◽  
Marketing Tool ◽  
Media Mix

Product placement has existed in its most primitive form since the dawn of cinema. Now, due to the saturation of conventional advertising, this technique has reached its zenith, with brands appearing in an environment without competition, as a natural element of the plot. The automotive sector has been present from the beginning and soon understood the expressive possibilities that were offered. General Motors began its journey in the film industry in 1933 following an agreement with Warner. Since then, the General Motors group has had a growing presence in the film industry, which reached its peak in Transformers (2007), an unprecedented type of product placement. It is possible to identify a clear cause-effect relationship in the company’s sales, with product placement being an efficient marketing tool within the media mix, as we will show throughout this investigation. The study begins with a historical review of brand placement in North American cinema (1933-2014), then proceeds with a content analysis, following the methodology proposed by Méndiz (2001), of advertising placement in film and a structured interview with Norm Marshall, the director and founding partner of Norm Marshall & Associates, responsible for GM’s product placements.

scholarly journals The True Face of Pre-Colonial Africa in “Things Fall Apart”

2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (30) ◽  
pp. 96-104
Author(s):  
Ecevit Bekler
Keyword(s):  
Postcolonial Studies ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Western World ◽  
Chinua Achebe ◽  
Important Place ◽  
History Of ◽  
Things Fall Apart ◽  
Authentic Environment ◽  
African Writers ◽  
The One

The Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe is known to be one of the most influential African writers and holds an important place in postcolonial studies. His main aim was to reconstructthe wrongly established beliefs, ideas, and thoughts of the Western world regarding Africa. To realize his aim, he made careful selections in his choice of language, which contributed greatly to sharing his observations, ideas, and beliefs with the rest of the world. He wrote his novels in English, believing that doing so would be more powerful in conveying the true face of pre-colonial Africa, rather than in Nigerian, which could not be as effective as the language of the colonizers. Achebe’s complaint was that the history of Africa had mainly been written by white men who did not belong to his continent and who would not judge life there fairly. With his novels, he changed the prejudices of those who had never been to Africa, and he managed to convert the negative ideas and feelings caused by the portrayal of his continent to positive ones. Things Fall Apart is a novel whose mission is to portray Africa in a very realistic and authentic environment, contrary to the one-sided point of view of the colonizers. The novel presents us, in very authentic language, with many details about the customs, rituals, daily life practices, ceremonies, beliefs, and even jokes of the African Igbos. Chinua Achebe thus realizes his aim in revealing that African tribes, although regarded as having a primitive life and being very far from civilization, in fact had their own life with traditions and a culture specific to themselves.

scholarly journals A Typology of Media Innovations: Insights from an Exploratory Study

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valérie-Anne Bleyen ◽  
Sven Lindmark ◽  
Heritiana Ranaivoson ◽  
Pieter Ballon
Keyword(s):  
Innovation Policy ◽  
Academic Community ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Media Industries ◽  
Media Economics ◽  
Media Management ◽  
The Media ◽  
Tv Shows ◽  
The One ◽  
Statistical Indicators

The concept and phenomenon of media innovation is gaining some attention in the academic community, policy circles and among practitioners. However, the phenomenon is still poorly defined and not well understood. This paper therefore first analyses how media innovation is framed in the literature on media economics and media management. Then it considers to what extent the standard analysis of innovation could be applied to the media field, considering, on the one hand, the traditional view on innovation policy and, on the other hand, some of the most common indicators of innovation. Based on this information, the paper suggests a novel conceptualisation of media innovation. Furthermore, an analysis of statistical indicators on R&D expenditure leads to three assumptions related to media innovation, namely (1) that the Media and Content Industries (MCIs) are much less innovative than the ICT industries, or/and (2) that R&D statistics do not properly capture the innovativeness of the MCIs, or/and (3) that the innovative activities in media and content are largely taking place elsewhere (for instance in the ICT sector). Whereas the statistical indicators point towards the second explanation, a small round of expert interviews in Flanders revealed that there is a case for assumptions (1) and (3) as well. First of all, it was shown that all forms of innovation defined in our typology exist in the media field, but not with the same importance. The most important ones from the media industries’ point of view seems to be the innovation related to the product, notably concerning the core (e.g. creation of new types of TV shows) and business model innovation. There is also technological innovation taking place in the media industries, for instance concerning new ways to access and interact with the content but this innovation comes from out the media sector (e.g. HD-TV, search engines) and at best the media industries try to adapt to this rapidly changing technological context.

Translanguaging: the concept origin and meaning

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 147-155
Author(s):  
Aliya Iskakova ◽  
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Linguistic Diversity ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Foreign Languages ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Pedagogical Tool ◽  
The Status ◽  
The One ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Linguistic Approach

The status of English language as a lingua franca and the steady expansion of its influence in many areas of human activity cause an ambiguous reaction in the modern world and is accompanied by the emergence of relevant trends in linguistic science and real practice of foreign languages training. In the world linguodidactics, there is a constant search for effective ways of teaching foreign languages, which is inevitably accompanied by a search for solutions to acute problems associated with the English language diversification from the one hand and the preservation of linguistic diversity and cultural identity from the other hand. Analysing the scholars and educators works the author traces the emergence and meaning of the concepts of “translingualism” as a linguistic approach and “translanguaging” as a didactic method. The paper is of great interest from the point of view of acquiring new knowledge and expanding the existing linguodidactic experience. In foreign linguistics, there is a lively discussion about the essence of this phenomenon, which arose as a pedagogical tool in the UK and later took shape in the pedagogical system by the efforts of many scientists and received full theoretical justification in the works written by American scientist Ophelia Garcia and British linguist Lee Wei. Translingualism is considered not only as a powerful pedagogical tool of foreign language training, one the ways to diversify and develop English language, but also as a way to solve accumulated problems in the social sphere, including those the speakers from different linguistic cultures have while communicating.

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