6.6.6 Go to DVD > Chapter 6 > Exercises > Exercise 6.6.6
You will nd in this document a compilation of subtitles in which line breaks could be done in a more appropriate way. Propose some alterna-tive solutions.
[Pathway to the key: DVD > Chapter 6 > Exercises > Exercise 6.6.6 >
Key to exercise 6.6.6]
WinCAPS
6.6.7 Go to DVD > Chapter 6 > Exercises > Exercise 6.6.7 > Cemetery It is the opening scene from the lm Night of the Living Dead, in which a brother (Johnny) and a sister (Barbara) are having a conversation inside their car. They have just arrived at a graveyard to pay their annual visit
to their father’s grave, in accordance with their mother’s wishes.
[Pathway to dialogue list: DVD > Chapter 6 > Exercises > Exercise 6.6.7 > Transcription of dialogue]
n Watch the clip and indicate on the script what you think is essential information.
o Mark on the script what you think might be the ideal segmentation.
Think about the following issues:
Should Johnny’s brief ‘what?’ at the beginning of the scene be translated?
If you decide to translate it, will you spot it together with Bar-bara’s rst intervention?
What would you do with the information coming from the radio?
p Using WinCAPS, spot the clip and type in a shorter English version or a translation, and evaluate the result. Use a reading speed of 160 words per minute.
7.0 Preliminary discussion
7.1 Translation challenges that are due to the different grammatical and lexical make up of languages are translators’ daily fare; however, they are also confronted with various types of culture-bound transla-tion issues that are not of a linguistic nature in the strict sense, but rooted in language all the same.
n Give a few examples of such culture-bound problems and discuss the dif culties.
o What kind of additional challenges might such culture-bound items hold for subtitlers? Why?
7.2 One of the advantages generally attributed to subtitling is that it re-spects the original soundtrack, encouraging the learning of foreign languages, particularly English. Given that most audiovisual pro-grammes are shot in English and that people are increasingly familiar with this language, what do you think of the following quote from Gottlieb (2001:258):
For future subtitling, the consequences […] could be that in several minor speech communities, we would not have to waste time subtitling from English. Most viewers would simply argue: “All the people who can read subtitles know English anyway, and besides, our language is not that different from English anymore, so why bother?”
7.1 Linguistic variation
Language, and spoken language especially, is as changeable as human beings and their surroundings, whereas writing is traditionally connected with the preservation of knowledge and with prestigious verbal art forms that appear to have more permanent and worthy functions than speech.
However, the changeability of speech is also one of its riches and, volatile as it may be, it is anchored in the community that it produces it. This makes it all the more interesting for lms, especially those aiming to offer a realistic view of society. As a result, lm language in its narrowly linguistic sense, often re ects this changeability. In other words, even though both ctional and
non- ctional non- lm dialogue are also shaped by non- lm’s other semiotic systems, they remain a re ection of society – if only a ctional one – since ction is based
on representations or interpretations of reality. And each society has not just one, but many ‘languages’.
As a result, linguistic choices are never random in lm. The way charac-ters speak tells us something about their personality and background, through idiosyncrasies and through the socio-cultural and geographic markers in their speech, which affect grammar, syntax, lexicon, pronunciation, and intonation.
Since linguistic variants are rooted in the communities that produce them, they are often used as a kind of typology in lm, carrying a connotative meaning over and above their denotative functions. Sometimes, regional linguistic fea-tures are merely hinted at, but the current trend is for lm language to exhibit more rather than less variation. In fact, such linguistic variants and the way they are introduced can also be indicators of the linguistic attitudes of the lm-makers. Consider, for instance, the works of British lmmakers such as Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, or recent blockbusters like Brokeback Mountain.
Subtitling, being a hybrid language form with its own limitations, is therefore faced with a formidable challenge: how does one translate the sophistication of spoken language variants into a regimented written form?
The following discussion offers a survey of the dif culties and pitfalls, the partially resolvable or seemingly irresolvable challenges, and the aptitudes and creativity required to tackle them.
7.2 Denotative versus connotative meaning
Most subtitles display a preference for conventional, neutral word order, and simple well-formed stereotypical sentences (§6). Such sentences are the result of the various kinds of linguistic processing and rewriting discussed in previous pages, as well as subtitling’s concern with clarity, readability, and transparent references. Indeed, the best subtitle is the one the viewer reads unknowingly.
This is one of the reasons why many of the interpersonal functions of dialogue get lost in the subtitles: they are perceived to relate to form rather than content. The same concern with denotative meaning underlies the rule, contained in most instructions and guidelines, that subtitling must use standard language. Besides, many people consciously or unconsciously improve their linguistic skills thanks to intralingual and interlingual subtitling, which also plays a part here.
And yet any translation student or scholar, any translator, any linguist, indeed any writer knows that the distinction between content and form is ac-tually untenable. This is also why subtitling instructions are bound to contain contradictions. Ivarsson and Carroll (1998:157) state in their Code of Good Subtitling Practice:
8. The language register must be appropriate and correspond with the spoken word.
9. The language should be (grammatically) “correct” since subtitles serve as a model for literacy.
True, a linguistic register that corresponds with ‘the spoken word’ is not neces-sarily incorrect, but rule 9 above implies that subtitlers should correct grammar as well as other mistakes, if they do occur. In the following example, from a documentary about Robben Island, an ANC member is being interviewed. He mixes present and past tenses, whereas the Dutch subtitle does not: the turn has been rewritten in the simple past.
Example 7.1
We knew that that is where our
leaders were kept. Æ We wisten dat daar onze helden zaten [We knew that our leaders were there.]
Here, the minor correction does no harm and helps improve the readability of the sentence. However, major rewriting, including the correction of mistakes, is quite common in the subtitles of interviews with non-native speakers, as well as in any other lm featuring linguistic variation. In the example below regionally coloured vocabulary and grammar have been neutralized. The subtitle only indicates this is spoken language by using the single negative j’étais pas rather than the standard je n’étais pas.
Example 7.2
I’d’av walked if my dogs wasn’t pooped out.
Æ J’aurais marché si j’étais pas crevé.
[I’d have walked if I wasn’t exhausted.]
The question is: how important are such variants? Are they typical of the population group this person represents? And where does the borderline lie between correcting grammatical mistakes and interfering in the way a person speaks? The far-reaching effect such forms of rewriting can have on a lm belonging to the documentary genre is discussed by Kaufmann (2004) in her study into the colourful and meaningful variation in the Hebrew spoken by immigrant interviewees in Israel. ARTE, the TV channel broadcasting the lm, insisted that they should be subtitled in standard French. The scholar clearly demonstrates that part of the denotative meaning of the lm was lost in the translation because of its homogenizing effect. Simply dismissing such features as either unwanted or untranslatable will not do. If all characters speak the same linguistic variant, not that much may be lost, but if one or a few stand out because of the type of language they speak, this should somehow be re ected in the dialogue exchanges. In such cases connotative meaning contributes to denotative meaning.
7.3 The translation of marked speech
Marked speech is broadly de ned here as speech that is characterized by non-standard language features or features that are not ‘neutral’, even though they do belong to the standard language, and may therefore have more or less speci c connotations. Speech can be marked by style or register, and it can also be either idiosyncratic or bound to socially and/or geographically de ned population groups. Besides, marked speech includes taboo words, swearwords, and emotionally charged utterances such as interjections and exclamations.
In the best of worlds, the production company or customer commis-sioning the subtitles will supply a dialogue list that also contains a glossary, explaining all such instances of marked language, and a host of other linguistic and cultural particularities (§4.3). All the same, it remains up to the subtitler to determine how to translate a given term or expression. If no professional dialogue list is at hand, some Internet slang dictionaries and other websites, such as screenplay sites, can come in handy.
7.3.1 Style
Speaking is a social activity, i.e. when people speak, they address someone and they do so in a particular context. Speakers usually make their conversational contributions as adequate to the purpose and the situation as possible (Grice 1975), even if that purpose is no more than ‘being sociable’ or trying to avoid uneasy silences (Weigand 1992). Conversation analysis devotes much attention to locally generated phenomena in speech, and the impact of the immediate institutional setting or context on language use (Psathas 1995). In other words, people’s background will have an in uence on how they speak, but also the situation in which they nd themselves. Film makes good use of this, carefully manipulating linguistic styles and register to narrative ends.
Following Wales’s de nition (1989:435-6), we understand style as
“the manner of EXPRESSION in speaking or writing […] We might talk of someone writing in an ‘ornate style’, or speaking in a ‘comic style’ […] So style can be seen as variation in language use, whether LITERARY or non-literary”. It depends on the choice of words, grammatical structures, use of literary devices, etc.
Ideally subtitlers should respect characters’ manner of speaking, not only the content of their interventions. Still, the relevance of such stylistic features varies. Some lms are so replete with them that they become an integral part of the story. Heritage lms or literary lms such as Shakespeare in Love are a case in point. In this particular lm different literary and non-literary would-be Elizabethan styles are mixed.
Non- ctional literary programmes (e.g. a documentary about a poet), or