University of Gothenburg, Sweden
6. The translation of the two main functions of you know
As indicated in Table 2 below, there are more tokens of you know in the STs exhibiting an interpersonal function (144 instances) than a textual function (121 instances). The interpersonal function of you know, exemplified by the appeal for solidarity in Example 6 above, is thus more common in the films than the textual function, exemplified by the clarification marker in Example 5. If, however, we consider the translations of these two functions, a different
Jenny Mattsson
pattern emerges. On the whole, a larger number of translated instances of you
know have a textual function (75 tokens) than an interpersonal function (55
tokens). In order to give a more accurate picture of the translations, the average number has been calculated. Table 2 thus illustrates whether the 265 occurrences of you know in the ST have a textual or an interpersonal function, and how many instances of you know with either function have been translated. The functions of the Swedish translations of you know are not included in the table. However, there seems to be a tendency for both textual and interpersonal occurrences of you know to be translated into a Swedish textual feature more often than a Swedish interpersonal feature.
Table 2 – Function of you know in the STs and number of translations STs Number of translations in all four TTs Average number of translations in each TT Average % translated into each TT Interpersonal function 144 55 13.8 9.6% Textual function 121 75 18.8 15.5% Total 265 130
As can be seen in Table 2, an average of 9.6% of the instances of you know with an interpersonal function, and an average of 15.5% of the instances with a textual function are translated into each TT, pointing to the fact that most translated tokens of you know have a textual function, although the majority of the ST tokens fulfil an interpersonal function in the original film.
7. Conclusion
The main objective of this paper was to observe the subtitling in Swedish of the DP you know in order to discern what type of meaning is most often omitted and what effect this omission may have on the TT. Two main pragmatic functions of you know have been analysed, i.e. the textual and the interpersonal functions.
The study shows that the majority of the translated tokens of you know have a textual function, even though the majority of the ST tokens of you
know carry an interpersonal function. A discrepancy is thus found between
the subtitling of the two main functions of you know and the advice given by professional subtitling guidelines. What these guidelines define as ‘fillers’, and consider safe to omit from the subtitles, are in fact DPs with a textual function. Similarly, lexical items defined by the guidelines as adding nuances to discourse and facilitating the description of characters, and for these
The Swedish subtitling of discourse particle You Know in ten US films
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reasons considered important to retain in the subtitles, are in fact DPs with an interpersonal function.
Translating all the instances of you know or other DPs is not possible in view of the time and space constraints of subtitling, nor is it always desirable given the differences between spoken and written language. It is, however, important to bear in mind that DPs often mean more than they seem to at first glance. When subtitling, it is therefore important to be aware of whether or not the most relevant functions of DPs are in fact translated and to consider the effects that omissions of DPs may have in the final text.
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