scholarly journals The Untranslatability of Dialects in Subtitling. An Analysis of Translation Techniques Used in the English Subtitles to The Peasants

2018 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 295-307
Author(s):  
Anna Dudek

The aim of this research is to estimate the degree of dialect untranslatability in audiovisual translation AVT. Polish regiolects may constitute a significant barrier to interlingual transfer. The problems with non-standard varieties of a language, which are frequently incomprehensible even to native speakers of their standard counterparts, can be overcome by means of, inter alia, explanatory periphrastic substitution added to the translated text. In the method of subtitling examined in this research, however, a translation of this kind is nearly impossible due to the broadly defined aesthetics of film e.g. time and space constraints frequently applied to the mode of AVT. Therefore, this article examines the hypothesis of dual constraint, which assumes a two-fold hindrance to a successful AV dialect transfer i.e. the lack of equivalents in the target language and the aforementioned aesthetic requirements of film. The corpus of the material researched here is based on the English subtitles for the screen adaptation of Chłopi — a Nobel Prize-winning novel written by Władysław Stanisław Reymont The Peasants; PolArt Video 2006. This article provides the theoretical background for the subsequent study as well as introduces its own classification of the translation techniques applicable to this particular piece of research as well as to other AV dialect transfers. The research part focuses on the research proper. The findings are briefly summarised and conclusions are drawn.

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (44) ◽  
pp. 99-116
Author(s):  
Roman Lewicki

What can Make Translations Appear Older: Changes in Language or in Translation Norms? The article attempts to address the phenomenon of aging translations, especially literary ones, which has not been sufficiently analysed in translation research. The description is based on the framework of double dependence of a translation: dependence on the original on the one hand, and on the communicative requirements of reception on the other. Based on the classification of texts according to the diachronic aspect (Jäger), one can attribute translation aging to two reasons: to the evolution of the target language together with the changes in the adopted way of constructing literary narration, which is influenced by changes of literary epochs, and to the change in translation norms. These two factors are illustrated with the materials drawn from early translations of Russian literary works into Polish, especially those by Anton Chekhov. As it turns out, even though translation units can be archaic on all levels of language, the process of translation aging is determined to the greatest extent by semantic factors. The analysis of changes in old translation norms shows a high degree of variability in translation techniques used in early translations. The classification of the types of translation norms by Komissarov was applied in the analysis to prove that translation aging is mainly due to changes in the target language norms of formulating translations, especially the pragmatic norm.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 119-140
Author(s):  
Syukril Khair ◽  
Bambang Suwarno ◽  
Arono Arono

The literary translation still becomes such of debating among several experts and researchers, especially at translation studies. The aim of this study was to find out what kinds of techniques of translation were applied in translating the poems of Maya Angelou, and how the appropriateness of techniques were applied by the students. Mollina & Albir’s classification of translation techniqueswas used as the primary theory in the analysis of the translation texts.This study was descriptive qualitaive and content analysis. The data were taken from text translations of two poems which consist of 550 data from 10 students as translators. The research findings revealed that14 techniques were used by students. The result showed that there were 14 translation techniques which were used, compensation, literal translation, modulation, linguistic amplification, discursive creation, linguistic compression, reduction, amplification, adaptation, transposition, borrowing, established equivalent, particularization, and description. The next finding showed that the appropriate techniques wereapplied at 69.3%. Meanwhile, inappropriate techniques were at 30.7%. The conclusion of this study was that students used the most at compensation and the lowest was description. The students mostly successful in applying appropriate technique at delivering messages, but were flub in recreating thepoetical aspect in Target Language. In some cases, this indicated deficiency in determining the equivalent expression in the target text. The suggestion for further researchers is to explore a similar study by investigating on figurative speech and poetical aspect at poetry translation.


Fachsprache ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 63-78
Author(s):  
Margarete Flöter-Durr ◽  
Thierry Grass

Despite the work of Dan Sperber and Deirdre Wilson (1989), the concept of relevance has not enjoyed the popularity it deserved among translators as it appears to be more productive in information science and sociology than in translation studies. The theory of relevance provides underpinnings of a unified account of translation proposed by Ernst-August Gutt. However, if the concept of relevance should take into account all parameters of legal translation, the approach should be pragmatic and not cognitive: The aim of a relevant translation is to produce a legal text in the target language which appears relevant to the lawyer in the target legal system, namely a text that can be used in the same way as the original source text. The legal translator works as a facilitator from one legal system into another and relevance is the core of this pragmatic approach which requires translation techniques like adaptation rather than through-translation or calque (in the terminology of Delisle/Lee-Jahnk/Cormier 1999). This contribution tries to show that relevance theory, which was developed in the field of sociology by Alfred Schütz, could also be applied to translation theory with the aim of producing a correct translation in a concrete situation. Some examples extracted from one year of the practice of an expert law translator (German-French) at the Court of Appeal in the Alsace region illustrate our claim and underpin an approach of legal translation and its heuristics that is both pragmatic and reflexive.


2012 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Post Silveira

This is a preliminary study in which we investigate the acquisition of English as second language (L2[1]) word stress by native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese (BP, L1[2]). In this paper, we show results of a multiple choice forced choice perception test in which native speakers of American English and native speakers of Dutch judged the production of English words bearing pre-final stress that were both cognates and non-cognates with BP words. The tokens were produced by native speakers of American English and by Brazilians that speak English as a second language. The results have shown that American and Dutch listeners were consistent in their judgments on native and non-native stress productions and both speakers' groups produced variation in stress in relation to the canonical pattern. However, the variability found in American English points to the prosodic patterns of English and the variability found in Brazilian English points to the stress patterns of Portuguese. It occurs especially in words whose forms activate neighboring similar words in the L1. Transfer from the L1 appears both at segmental and prosodic levels in BP English. [1] L2 stands for second language, foreign language, target language. [2] L1 stands for first language, mother tongue, source language.


2021 ◽  
pp. 026765832110158
Author(s):  
Radek Skarnitzl ◽  
Petr Čermák ◽  
Pavel Šturm ◽  
Zora Obstová ◽  
Jan Hricsina

The use of linking or glottalization contributes to the characteristic sound pattern of a language, and the use of one in place of the other may affect a speaker’s comprehensibility and fluency in certain contexts. In this study, native speakers of Czech, a language that is associated with a frequent use of glottalization in vowel-initial word onsets, are examined in the second language (L2) context of three Romance languages that predominantly employ linking between words (Spanish, Italian and Portuguese). In total, 29 native speakers and 51 non-native learners were asked to read a short text in the respective language. The learners were divided into two groups based on their experience with the target language. A number of other factors were examined in a mixed-effects logistic regression model (segmental context, lexical stress, prosodic breaks, and the semantic status of the words). The main results show that, regardless of the target language, the more experienced (ME) learners displayed significantly lower rates of glottalization than the less experienced (LE) learners, but significantly higher rates than native speakers. The pedagogical implications of the results are discussed.


2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 417-443
Author(s):  
Yang Pang

AbstractBuilding on the theoretical insights into the socio-cognitive approach to the study of interactions in which English is used as a lingua franca (ELF)), this paper reports on the idiosyncratic phenomenon that ELF speakers do not adhere to the norms of native speakers, but instead create their own particular word associations during the course of the interaction. Taking the verbs of speech talk, say, speak, and tell as examples, this study compares word associations from three corpora of native and non-native speakers. The findings of this study reveal that similar word associative patterns are produced and shared by ELF speech communities from different sociocultural backgrounds, and these differ substantially from those used by native English speakers. Idiom-like constructions such as say like, how to say, and speakin are developed and utilized by Asian and European ELF speakers. Based on these findings, this paper concludes that ELF speakers use the prefabricated expressions in the target language system only as references, and try to develop their own word associative patterns in ELF interactions. Moreover, the analysis of the non-literalness/metaphorical word associations of the verbs of speech in the Asian ELF corpus suggests that ELF speakers dynamically co-construct their shared common ground to derive non-literal/metaphorical meaning in actual situational context.


Author(s):  
Filiz Rızaoğlu ◽  
Ayşe Gürel

AbstractThis study examines, via a masked priming task, the processing of English regular and irregular past tense morphology in proficient second language (L2) learners and native speakers in relation to working memory capacity (WMC), as measured by the Automated Reading Span (ARSPAN) and Operation Span (AOSPAN) tasks. The findings revealed quantitative group differences in the form of slower reaction times (RTs) in the L2-English group. While no correlation was found between the morphological processing patterns and WMC in either group, there was a negative relationship between English and Turkish ARSPAN scores and the speed of word recognition in the L2 group. Overall, comparable decompositional processing patterns found in both groups suggest that, like native speakers, high-proficiency L2 learners are sensitive to the morphological structure of the target language.


Target ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
María Sandra Peña-Cervel ◽  
Carla Ovejas-Ramírez

Abstract This article provides a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the translation of English drama film titles into Peninsular Spanish, drawing on cognitive modelling and following preliminary findings in Peña-Cervel (2016). Our study is consistent with the epistemological and ontological grounding of Cognitive Linguistics (Samaniego-Fernández 2007) and contributes to satisfying one of the major challenges Rojo-López and Ibarretxe-Antuñano (2013a, 10) identify for present-day Translation Studies: To reveal the conceptual substratum that guides the translation process. Our approach does not rely on an exhaustive classification of clear-cut and well-defined translation techniques, but rather on a broad distinction between direct and oblique strategies. We demonstrate how the notion of cognitive operation, as proposed by Ruiz de Mendoza-Ibáñez and Galera-Masegosa (2014), can help elucidate the sometimes seemingly arbitrary relationship between original English titles and their counterparts in Spanish, especially in cases of traditionally so-called free translations. Stands-for relations, such as expansion and reduction, are shown to play a fundamental role in the translation process and the fruitful combination of cognitive operations into conceptual complexes is explored. Our study attempts to go beyond descriptive adequacy in order to achieve explanatory adequacy.


Author(s):  
Antonio Jesús Martínez Pleguezuelos

Abstract In this study we analyse different linguistic elements in the TV series Will & Grace that shape the gay identity of the main characters of the show. We will base the analysis on the inclusion of the cultural turn into the field of audiovisual translation studies and on the technical time and space constraints that may emerge when conveying the message in this type of texts. Therefore, we will focus on the treatment of cultural references associated to the LGBTQI community that are shown on the series, as well as the linguistic variant of gayspeak and the comic elements included in the dialogues in order to observe whether the information that viewers of the Spanish dubbed version receive regarding gay identity is the same that is portrayed in the original version in English.


CNS Spectrums ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 349-354 ◽  
Author(s):  
Falko Biedermann ◽  
W. Wolfgang Fleischhacker

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) was published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) in 2013, and the Work Group on the Classification of Psychotic disorders (WGPD), installed by the World Health Organization (WHO), is expected to publish the new chapter about schizophrenia and other primary psychotic disorders in 2017. We reviewed the available literature to summarize the major changes, innovations, and developments of both manuals. If available and possible, we outline the theoretical background behind these changes. Due to the fact that the development of ICD-11 has not yet been completed, the details about ICD-11 are still proposals under ongoing revision. In this ongoing process, they may be revised and therefore have to be seen as proposals. DSM-5 has eliminated schizophrenia subtypes and replaced them with a dimensional approach based on symptom assessments. ICD-11 will most likely go in a similar direction, as both manuals are planned to be more harmonized, although some differences will remain in details and the conceptual orientation. Next to these modifications, ICD-11 will provide a transsectional diagnostic criterion for schizoaffective disorders and a reorganization of acute and transient psychotic and delusional disorders. In this manuscript, we will compare the 2 classification systems.


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