Translation Strategies in Polish Dubbed and Subtitled Versions of "Winnie the Pooh: Seasons of Giving"

Table of Contents

Introduction

CHAPTER 1 Audiovisual Translation (AVT)
1.1. The Concept of Translation
1.2. Subdivision of Audiovisual Translation
1.3. Modes of AVT
1.4. Intralingual Audiovisual Translation
1.4.1. Live Subtitling
1.4.2. Subtitling for the Deaf and the Hard-of-Hearing
1.4.3. Audio Description for the Blind
1.5. Interlingual Audiovisual Translation
1.5.1. History of Subtitling
1.5.2. History of Dubbing
1.5.3. Subtitling vs. Dubbing
1.6. Subtitling
1.6.1. The Process of Subtitling
1.6.2. Restrictions
1.6.3. Strategies in Subtitling
1.7. Dubbing
1.7.1. The Process of Dubbing
1.7.2. Synchronism
1.7.3. Strategies in Dubbing

CHAPTER II ''Winnie the Pooh: Seasons of Giving''
1.8. Summary and Conclusions
2.1. Language of Characters
2.2. Comparison of Polish Subtitles and Dubbing in the Film
2.3. Summary and Conclusions

References

Introduction

This thesis is focused on the subject of translation strategies in Polish dubbed and subtitled versions of Winnie the Pooh: Seasons of Giving. It is divided into two chapters, each of them presents another point of the issue.

In the first chapter a general idea of an audiovisual translation is described. It is explained what is hidden in this process and in what ways can the transmission be proceeded. Next, there is an answer to a question what is translation exactly. AVT is represented by three different categories: intralingual, interlingual and intersemiotic; each category has its own modes. Intralingual Audiovisual Translation is represented by live subtitling (in broadcast, programmes, interviews), subtitling for the deaf and the hard-of-hearing (more punctuations on screen, precise descriptions in a form of subtitles), audio description for the blind (explanations and descriptions in a form of sound). Interlingual Audiovisual Translation is connected with a huge process that consists in analysing a message in a first language and its generation in another language. This kind of translation is divided into two groups: revoicing and subtitling that are clarified. A significant is the beginning of both subtitling and dubbing, how they came into being and in what way their later development influenced on technology. Next point of the thesis is a brief comparison of subtitling and dubbing by presenting their translation elements. This differentiation leads to show main advantages and disadvantages of those two types of audiovisual translation. This brings us to a description of subtitling which has several stages to be proceeded. This process is limited by some restrictions such as an exposition time or a subtitle's general appearance. The most culminating point in this chapter is an enumeration of, firstly, strategies in subtitling, secondly, in dubbing. There are ten main subtitling procedures: extension, paraphrase, transfer, imitation, transcription, dislocation, condensation, decimation, deletion and finally, resignation - all described in detail along with three extra examples of the strategies. It is said how the whole process of dubbing step by step looks like, what a synchronism is and what types of the synchronism are distinguished. There is a variety of dubbing strategies; in this thesis seven of them are presented.

The second chapter of the thesis begins with a short introduction about the film in general - distribution's time and company along with authors of the story, its characters and a piece of extra information about an amount of languages that the film was translated into. Next point is a language of the film - easy and directed not only to children. The animated story consists of songs, rhymes and other additional elements that make the film more friendly to an audience. The final point of this chapter is a detailed comparison of Polish subtitles and dubbing in the film. All the examples are presented in tables and represent chosen translation strategies.

The aim of choosing my thesis's subject is to get an idea how our technology functions and how we function in the technology. I am interested in written translation and I decided to try my hand in it as a volunteer in some Polish foundations, organizations and association. I have translated various types of documents such as stories, projects and scenarios of specific events. It gives me a lot of pleasure and much experience. In the future I would like to focus on professional translation. Working on the thesis will surely help me in my self-development.

CHAPTER I Audiovisual Translation (AVT)

As stated by Gambier (2013: 45), audiovisual translation (AVT) has become a form of translation itself and an academic branch of a research. It is connected with a conveying of multimodal and multimedia speech into a different language or culture. By dint of this process, two to four years can be essential to produce a film and time for translation of its text can be limited even to a few days. Even though, AVT is often considered to be a 'problem', or a 'loss', rather than a solution to some distributional difficulties.

Diaz-Cintas [2008: 1] claims that audiovisual translation pertains to the translation of products; it is a process in which a verbal language is augmented by components in other media. He suggests also three possibilities of transmission:

1) the message is transmitted only auditory (radio programmes and songs);
2) the only channel is the visual one (comic strips and published advertisements);
3) both auditory and visual channels to transmit the message (products such as films, CD-ROMs or documentaries).

There is a variety of communication systems like images, sound (music, noise) and a verbal component (oral production, written text), therefore, the translator's task is rather limited.

1.1. The Concept of Translation

To begin with the essence of translation and therefore to understand the idea of the translation theory and translation studies, it is worth, firstly, to find an answer to a question "what is translation?" and explain its concept.

For instance, Newmark (1988: 5) defines translation as: "rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the way that the author intended the text". This definition emphasises interpreting of a source language text into a target one. According to Hatim and Munday (2004: 6), translation is “the process of transferring a written text from source language (SL) to target language (TL)”. They claim that translation is rather a process; the definition does not stress on a transferred object as a meaning.

Moreover, Bell (1991: 13) carries on and creates three different senses of the noun 'translation':

"(1) translating: the process (to translate; the activity rather than the tangible object); (2) a translation: the product of the process of translating (i.e. the translated text); (3) translation: the abstract concept which encompasses both the process of translating and the product of that process".

Translation can be described either as a rendering process or as a complex one including both translation and its product.

1.2. Subdivision of Audiovisual Translation

AVT has its own structure and, as Jakobson (1959/2000: 114) states, it represents three categories:

1) intralingual translation, or 'rewording': 'an interpretation of verbal signs by means of other signs of the same language';
2) interlingual translation, or 'translation proper': 'an interpretation of verbal signs by means of some other language';
3) intersemiotic translation, or 'transmutation': 'an interpretation of verbal signs by means of signs of non-verbal sign systems'.

Intralingual translation would take place, for instance, when we reword an expression or a text in the same language to give an explanation of something we might have said or written. Intersemiotic translation would happen if a written text was translated, for instance, into music, film or painting. The most traditional translation is the interlingual one.

1.3. Modes of AVT

Diaz-Cintas (2009: 4) claims that there are two primary ways of dealing with the transfer into a different language of an original spoken dialogue. Oral output does not change, it remains as in the original version, or it is changed into a written output. If the first way is preferred, the original soundtrack is transformed into a new one in a target language. This process is called 'revoicing'. The replacement might be entire and a target viewer does not hear the original exchanges, as in dubbing (also known as lip sync), or partial process called 'voice-over', whereby the target viewer hears both the transformed version of the dialogue and the original spoken language in the background.

The most common among different AVT modes are: dubbing, voice-over and subtitling. Tomaszkiewicz (2006: 101) asserts that other modes are just optional and derived from those three basic ones.

1.4. Intralingual Audiovisual Translation

According to Jakobson (1959: 233), intralingual translation means paraphrasing a text using the same language. It consists in a selection of words that have similar explications to the words used in a target text. Some phrases are exchanged into some other without a change of their metalinguistic function.

1.4.1. Live Subtitling

Campbell claims in his article¹ that live subtitling is often used while news broadcasts, for instance, programmes, interviews, sporting events, or live talk shows.

The voice you hear in a target language has to be subtitled promptly into another language, which stands for 're-speaking'.

Each of them needs a translation to be known worldwide. It is an expensive and complex process of translation; moreover, it requires a stenographer and is perceived as a 'dark art'. Despite the price, it has become popular, as the number of live subtitled broadcasts increased.

Before a stenographer begins their work, they have to become acquainted with a specific programme, then, they create an account and own 'key' of words, some kind of a voice profile. The software gives a possibility to make a keyboard they are going to use in the future translation. The collection of words depends on what kind of broadcast is going to be subtitled.

1.4.2. Subtitling for the Deaf and the Hard-of-Hearing

Ivarsson and Carroll (1998: 129-133) assert that subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing are created with a view to people with hearing problems, however, other people can also benefit from them. They are usually conveyed via teletext.

Both Ivarsson and Carroll also claim that there are special restrictions while making such subtitles, for instance, colours are used to emphasise who is speaking in a specific scene at a specific moment.

There are used much more punctuation marks than in usual subtitles. Thanks to this fact, a deaf or hard-of-hearing person can easily understand a message. An appropriate example is while a character is shouting - an exclamation mark appears on the screen; or when there is music - a deaf person sees a description what kind of music, especially song, it is, e.g. slow or rather fast, happy or sad etc.

1.4.3. Audio Description for the Blind

Audio description is for the blind, for whom the only way to get a message of e.g. a film is to hear it. Ivarsson and Carroll suggest that everything what is going on in the scene is described and explained to blind people. Every single action of a character, clothing, facial expressions, gestures and scenery are reported. Even though it is so advantageous for the blind, it is known and used only in bigger countries, still apart from Poland.

1.5. Interlingual Audiovisual Translation

This kind of translation is the second one pointing out by Jakobson (1959: 233), who gives the information that it means the interpretation of linguistic signs of one language with the aid of corresponding linguistic signs to another. Interlingual translation is also known as a 'translation proper'.

According to Hutchins and Somers (1992: 73-74), the aim of the interlingual translation is making a text understandable to people for whom the target source is not easy to convey. The target language is then converted into another one, or other ones as shown in figure 1.

illustration not visible in this excerpt

Figure 1.: Interlingua machine translation (from: Hutchins, W. J., Somers, H. L. 1992. pp. 73-74.)

Interlingual translation can be divided into two categories: 1) revoicing, which consists of voice-overs and narration or lip-sync dubbing and 2) subtitling. Revoicing is defined by Diaz-Cintas (2009: 5) as a reduction of a volume of a target soundtrack to a minimal auditory level to make a translation audible to the audience, whereas the voice of a translator overlapped on to an original soundtrack. The scholar claims that subtitling includes a presentation of a written text at the bottom of the screen, which gives the message of the original language text. It creates part of a visual image (inserts, letters) or of a soundtrack (songs, voices off).

Both dubbing and subtitling make the text more 'comfortable' to be received and understandable in a proper way by viewers. Mix of these two AVTs gives a full product, ready to be absorbed.

1.5.1. History of Subtitling

Ivarsson² described that there were intertitles from which subtitles derived. It was rather a complicated method of translation: an original text was removed, translated, filmed and then re-inserted, or a speaker gave a simultaneous interpretation of the intertitles. The first subtitles appeared during the silent film era. When the sound film was invented, intertitles became needless, and production of a film with dubbed versions was too expensive. Norway, Sweden, Hungary and France began to put subtitles into film pictures and led in developing subtitling techniques. There were some other transmission techniques of the translated subtitles into the film, for instance, optical, mechanical and thermal, laser and photochemical. The breakthrough in the development of technology was an appearance of the subtitles on TV. The first subtitled film was Arthur Robinson's Der Student von Prag, broadcast by the BBC in 1938. However, subtitles made for cinema were not appropriate for television. It was necessary to create another form of subtitling, destined for the TV only.

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¹ http://www.csimagazine.com/csi/The-key-to-live-broadcast-subtitling.php, accessed on April 17, 2014.

² http://www.transedit.se/history.htm, accessed on April 18, 2014