An evaluation of the translation of the film “Rio” based on Newmark’s model

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ********************************* TRẦN THỊ NGÂN AN EVALUATION OF THE TRANSLATION OF THE FILM “RIO” BASED ON NEWMARK’S MODEL Đánh giá dịch phim “Rio” dựa mơ hình Newmark M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Linguistics Code : 60220201 HANOI – 2016 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ********************************* TRẦN THỊ NGÂN AN EVALUATION OF THE TRANSLATION OF THE FILM “RIO” BASED ON NEWMARK’S MODEL Đánh giá dịch phim “Rio” dựa mơ hình Newmark M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS Field : English Linguistics Code : 60220201 Supervisor : Assoc Prof Dr Lâm Quang Đông HANOI – 2016 DECLARATION I declare that the thesis entitled „An evaluation of the translation of the film “Rio”, based on Newmark‟s model‟ reflects the findings of the study conducted by myself The thesis is submitted to University of Languages and International Studies – Viet Nam National University, Ha Noi for the Degree of Master in English Linguistics It has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other tertiary institutions Hanoi, 2016 Trần Thị Ngân i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT This thesis would not exist without the immense encouragement which I received along the way from my supervisor, my family, my colleagues and my friends First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc.Prof Lam Quang Dong, who has lent his expertise to flesh my ideas and provide reference sources I am indebted to him for his enthusiasm, kindness and dedication during my course of study I also take this opportunity to thank all my lecturers and classmates at Faculty of Graduate Studies for their inspiration to me Besides, I am grateful to my friends and my colleagues for their valuable advice and great encouragement Last but not least, I would like to deliver special thanks to my husband for his kind support which helps me a lot in completion of this thesis ii ABSTRACT This thesis assesses the translation quality of the Vietnamese version of the film “Rio”, which was translated and dubbed in the project of MegaStar Media Ltd Company, Viet Nam in April 2011 To reach its aim, the study used four methods including analysis and comparison, which were based on Newmark‟s model In addition, statistical and observational methods were also applied to examine the synchronisation of each utterance and its translated version The research instrument was “Aegisub”, a free open-source cross-platform subtitle editing program designed for timing and styling of subtitles The researcher‟s purpose was to see how well utterances in both versions of the film are synchronised with each other The research findings show that in general, the film was well-translated in terms of structures, proper nouns, hierarchical pronouns, borrowed words and puns Weaknesses of the translation were found in the title and several mistranslations The study also reveals that the translated utterances were synchronised with the original ones quite well, especially in terms of duration iii TABLE OF CONTENTS DECLARATION i ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale Aims and objectives of the study Research questions Scope of the study Method of the study Significance of the study Organization of the thesis .3 PART 2: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Theoretical Background 1.1.1 Definitions of translation .5 1.1.2 Translation methods 1.1.3 Translation equivalence .8 1.1.4 Translation quality assessment 1.1.5 Synchronisation in dubbed films .14 1.2 An overview of previous studies .16 Chapter 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 18 2.1 The film 18 2.2 Restatement of research question 19 2.3 Research approaches .19 2.4 Research instrument .20 2.5 Data collection and analysis procedures .20 2.6 Summary 21 Chapter 3: ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION .22 iv 3.1.A brief analysis of the SL text 22 3.1.1 The author‟s purpose 22 3.1.2 Characteristic of the readership .23 3.1.3 The topic 23 3.2 The translator’s interpretation 23 3.2.1 Omission of the original text .24 3.2.2 The translator‟s method 26 3.2.3 The translator‟s prospective readership 27 3.3 Comparison of the translation with the original 27 3.3.1 The title .29 3.3.2 The structure 29 3.3.3 Proper names .32 3.3.4 Hierarchical pronouns as a cultural feature 33 3.3.5 Borrowed words 36 3.3.6 Puns 36 3.3.7 Some minor issues 37 3.4 Synchronisation of the translated film 38 3.4.1 Duration synchronisation 38 3.4.2 Lip synchronisation 41 3.5 Further discussion of the translation 432 3.6 Potential importance of the work within the target language culture…… .43 PART 3: CONCLUSION .45 Concluding remarks .45 Limitations of the study .47 Suggestions for further studies .47 REFERENCES .49 APPENDIX I v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS TQA: Translation Quality Assessment ST: Source Text TT: Target Text SL: Source Language TL: Target Language AVT: Audiovisual translation vi PART 1: INTRODUCTION Rationale It is said that translation has received a lot of attention from linguists, scholars and especially translators Typically, in the era of globalization and integration, interaction among nations and the need to exchange information and cultures have become greater Translation has been regarded as one of the most effective tools that satisfy people‟s need to entertain and enrich their knowledge about the world It is undeniable that translating a film from one language into another is really a challenging task because of its important role in bringing understanding of the texts to the “readers” with different knowledge backgrounds In fact, film translation is a widely discussed topic among linguists Adapting a film from the source language to the target language requires a lot of translators‟ efforts In film translation, not only is the translator dealing with basic issues of translation, such as linguistics, ideological and cultural barriers, but he or she is also facing with the multimedia constraints such as synchronisation in dubbing or the appropriateness of the characters‟ lip movements, the syllables or even the number of syllables In the field of film industry, “Rio” is the first Hoolywood 3D cartoon dubbed in Vietnamese under a project of MegaStar, one of the biggest film importers in Viet Nam, and the 20th Century Fox (Sai Gon Times Online Newspaper) Review from website Rottentomatoes.com, an 18-year-old American review aggregator website for film and television, and a variety of others, indicates that “Rio” is really highly appreciated by viewers and critics From the day of its release, “the film was also a box office success, grossing over $143 million in the United States and $484 million worldwide” (Wikipedia) The author of this study is impressed with the high elaborateness in the process of dubbing According to Vietnamnet Online Newspaper, Vietnamese voice actors, including actress Minh Hang, actors Minh Tiep and Dai Nghia, were selected by the film director himself Then the voice dubbing was carried out under the supervision of American experts Furthermore, the dialogues were translated in Viet Nam while songs were translated in the United States of America After that, Vietnamese musicians edited the songs Next, Vietnamese artists sang the songs and sent them back to the U.S for editing In fact, there are different ideas about how film translation should be defined and what should be the methods, as well as the criteria to assess its quality Therefore, conducting a research to examine the success and drawback of the translation of a film is expected to bring about benefits to language learners, translation assessors and especially to the film industry Aims and objectives of the study This study was conducted with the aim of applying Newmark‟s TQA model to evaluate the quality of the translated version of the film “Rio” With this aim, the objective of this study is to examine the success and the shortcomings of the translation of the film “Rio”, based on Newmark‟s model Research question The study addressed the following question: What are the strengths and weaknesses of the translation of the film “Rio”, according to Newmark’s model? Scope of the study As previously mentioned, this study was undertaken to assess the translation quality of the film namely “Rio” Both the original and translated film scripts were chosen for analysis based on Newmark‟s TQA model Additionally, the audio of the two versions of the film was also measured to see the duration, the starting time and ending time of each utterance Furthermore, articulatory movements and postures in the film were observed to examine the phonetic synchronisation between the original utterance and its translated version ... Target Language Emphasis Word-for-word translation Adaptation Literal translation Free translation Faithful translation Idiomatic translation Semantic translation Communicative translation These... features of each utterance in the two versions of the film In terms of implication for film translation, the thesis is expected to offer several useful lessons to the film industry Organization of the. .. Quang Đông HANOI – 2016 DECLARATION I declare that the thesis entitled ? ?An evaluation of the translation of the film “Rio”, based on Newmark‟s model? ?? reflects the findings of the study conducted