Audiovisual translation problems of culture bound elements a study of the american film pirates of the caribbean at world’s end

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN DUY ANH AUDIOVISUAL TRANSLATION PROBLEMS OF CULTURE-BOUND ELEMENTS: A STUDY OF THE AMERICAN FILM PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD’S END Những khó khăn việc dịch thành tố văn hoá tài liệu âm-hình, nghiên cứu qua phim Mỹ: Cướp biển vùng Caribê: Nơi tận giới M.A COMBINED PROGRAM THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 Hanoi, 2016 VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN DUY ANH AUDIOVISUAL TRANSLATION PROBLEMS OF CULTURE-BOUND ELEMENTS: A STUDY OF THE AMERICAN FILM PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD’S END Những khó khăn việc dịch thành tố văn hố tài liệu âm-hình, nghiên cứu qua phim Mỹ: Cướp biển vùng Caribê: Nơi tận giới M.A COMBINED PROGRAM THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 Supervisor: Prof Dr Hoàng Văn Vân Hanoi, 2016 RESEARCHER’S STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY The work presented in this thesis is, to the researcher‟s knowledge and belief, is original and done by the researcher‟s own effort, besides, all sources of the materials quoted in the thesis are also acknowledged adequately Finally, the current thesis has not been submitted for any degree at this university and others and also has not been published Hanoi, 2016 Nguyễn Duy Anh i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This MA thesis was successfully completed with the supports of many people to whom I want to express my gratitude Firstly, I want to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Professor Hoàng Văn Vân for his valuable instruction, aids and encouragement throughout my research process Secondly, I want to express my thanks to the professors, doctors, lecturers and all other people at the Post-graduate Faculty of ULIS for their lessons and supports during my MA course Last but not least, I want to express my gratitude to my beloved family and friends whose supports and understanding contributed a lot in the success of my MA thesis Hanoi, 2016 Nguyễn Duy Anh ii ABSTRACT In translation studies, the term audiovisual is not so strange to scholars and researchers With the development of the film industry around the world, the field of AVT study plays the role of an effective tool which facilitates the directors and producers‟ need of bringing film products across the country borderline As discussed by many scholars, the notion of culture plays an essential role in translation In AVT where the verbal text is supported by the other media, the cultural elements become a challenge Thus, this study aims at investigating the issue of culture-bound elements in audiovisual translation Analysing the selected American film entitled Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, the study seeks to (1) identify the culture-bound elements in the film, (2) find the translation problems of these elements and (3) suggest some strategies to improve the translation of these elements The study is hoped to bring some helpful insights to the translation of films iii TABLE OF CONTENTS RESEARCHER’S STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY i ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii ABSTRACT iii TABLE OF CONTENTS iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi PART A: INTRODUCTION 1 Rationale Aim, Objectives and Research Questions 3 Corpus and Methodology 4 Scope of the Study 5 Design of the Study PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 1.1 The Theories of Translation 1.1.1 Definitions of Translation 1.1.2 Audiovisual Translation 1.2 Culture Bound Elements in Translation 10 1.2.1 The Issues of Equivalence 10 1.2.2 Culture and Translation 13 1.2.3 Culture-bound Elements in Translation 14 1.2.3.1 Definitions Culture-bound Elements (CBEs) 14 1.2.3.2 Classification of CBEs 17 1.2.3.3 Classification Suggested for the Present Study 23 1.2.3.4 Translation Strategies for CBEs 26 1.3 Concluding Remarks 30 iv CHAPTER 2: THE TRANSLATION OF CULTURE-BOUND ELEMENTS IN PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD’S END 31 2.1 A Brief Introduction to Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End .31 2.2 Data and Examples Format 32 2.3 Culture-bound Elements in the Original Version 34 2.3.1 The Main CBEs throughout the Corpus 36 2.3.1.1 Talking Like Pirates: The Nautical Languages 36 2.3.1.2 The Elements from Third Cultures (E3Cs) 40 2.3.2 Other CBEs in the Film 44 2.3.2.1 The Verbal Elements 44 2.3.2.2 The Non-verbal Elements 47 2.4 Translation Problems of CBEs and Some Translation Strategies 50 2.4.1 Translation Problems of CBEs in the Current Film 50 2.4.2 Possible Strategies for CBEs 55 2.4.2.1 Loan 55 2.4.2.2 Calque or Literal Translation 57 2.4.2.3 Explicitation 59 2.4.2.4 Transposition 60 2.4.2.5 Addition 61 2.4.2.6 Compensation 62 2.4.2.7 Omission 63 2.5 Concluding Remarks 64 PART C: CONCLUSION 66 Summary 66 1.1 Theoretical Review 66 1.2 Study Results 67 Limitations and Suggestions for Further Research 68 2.1 Limitations 68 2.2 Suggestions for Further Research 69 REFERENCES 70 APPENDIX I v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 3C Third culture AVT Audiovisual translation AV Audiovisual CBEs Culture-bound elements CSRs Culture-specific references ECRs Extralinguistic culture-bound references E3C Elements from third cultures ESC Elements from source culture ETC Elements from target culture IC Intercultural ICE Intercultural elements ICRs Intralinguistic culture-bound references SA Source audience SC Source culture SL Source language ST Source text TA Target audience TC Target culture TL Target language TT Target text vi PART A: INTRODUCTION Rationale Presently, with the advance of science and technology, the film industry is also rapidly developing in both quantity and quality All nations across the world have developed for themselves different film culture and at different level of development A movie is not only a product of entertainment It shows the level of development of the country where it comes from, and re-animates the language, culture as well as the history, the society and the beauty of this country At the end of the era of the silent films, when the language was bought into the movies as an effective tool of expression, a new problem also rose, challenging film directors and producers all over the world: their audiovisual products must be translated in order to bring them across the boundaries of language and culture The term audiovisual translation (AVT) was born as a tool to facilitate the understanding and transferring of culture and ideas which are presented in film products and other audiovisual products such as TV show, TV dramas and video games AVT has become an important part of our daily life Many scholars and scientists have been investing their properties and intelligence into the subject As a result, many documents namely Topics in Audiovisual Translation by Pilar Orero (2004), Jorge Dìaz Cintas and Gunilla Anderman‟s Audiovisual Translation: Language Transfer on Screen (2009) were created The information for the field is also provided in many academic associations in the world, such as the European Association for Studies in Screen Translation (ESIST) A feature film, or a movie, is a complete product which consists of many features These features include the language of the film, presenting the verbal communication, and the non-verbal communication, namely the music, sounds, objects, gestures of the characters and other features Besides, the film contains the cultural characteristics of the country where it was produced and also the social characteristics of the historical periods that it presents These features of a feature film bring lots of challenges to translators Translators are the people who bring the understanding of the texts to the “readers” from different language communities and at different knowledge background When translating a movie, translators have a very important role of not only transferring the meaning of the language of the directors but also transferring the culture from the source to the target language In the translation of a movie, there are many difficulties for translators in terms of language and culture The audience‟s main need is to understand what the characters are talking about on the screen However, there is another issue that is not less important: it is that the translation must be acceptable in the receptive society This problem lies on the differences between the two communities with different cultures and civilizations Focusing on culture-bound elements, this thesis has the main aim of identifying the problems in terms of culture that occur during the English – Vietnamese translation of the American feature film entitled: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End directed by Gore Verbinski This is an American entertaining movie; however, it also contains many features for translators to concern The film was written based on a historical period in the past in the Caribbean area, when the pirates were a part of the society During that era, most of the countries were under the reign of feudalism, in which the social values, the culture background and also the language style were very different from present One of the film‟s appealing factors is that when watching it, the audience will come through many different tones of feeling, from horror to romance, from hatred to love, and from peace to war Telling the story of a golden reign of pirates of the Caribbean area, the film consists of elements from many cultural backgrounds, from the mysterious China to the wild Africa, thus, it is really a challenge for translators to transfer the culture-bound 2.5 Concluding Remarks In the chapter, an analysis on the translation of CBEs in the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End has been presented From the analysis, the following issues are directed: At first, answering the first research question, the CBEs in the movies have been recognized and arranged into four categories As has been seen, the SC elements dominate the others in their number occurrence while no element from the TC is detected The film is written in a nautical historical context with the main characters are the pirates, therefore, the majority of the CBEs found in the text belong to nautical and pirate languages (the pirate dialect, the nautical terms or slangs) Besides few elements shared by both SC and TC (the ICEs, for example: sail, colors, or the idiom to tame the sea), some elements from third cultures (Calypso, Kraken, Davy Jones’s Locker) are found and in fact they play an important role in the storyline In the film, there are also some non-verbal elements, for example the clothes of pirates and royal soldiers or the elements from the ride However, these elements not have many significant effects on the translation For the second question, there are some problems found from both the translators and the cultural aspects Sometimes, the translators fail to translate the cultural elements or even cannot recognize them which may lead to a low translation quality The reason lies on the translators‟ inappropriate choices of strategies as well as carelessness in context analysis From the cultural aspect, as stated by Bassnett (1980), it is dangerous to try to impose the values of the source culture onto the target culture (Bassnett, 1980: 23) In fact, the cultural elements are difficult to translate because they are culture-specific In some case, no equivalents or no exact equivalents of the elements can be found in the TL Besides, when there are several equivalents, there also exists a matter of choice in translation because each equivalent is only suitable for a particular situation (e.g.: captain or lord) 64 From the above discussion, it is important to note that context analysis plays an important role in choosing appropriate translation strategies for CBEs In the chapter, the model of context of situation by Halliday and Hasan (1990) is presented as a tool for context analysis Besides, it is also necessary for translators to study carefully the AV texts itself as well as the supports from the multimedia aspects in the text in order to locate and understand the cultural elements The chapter also suggests some suitable strategies for the translation of the CBEs in the analysed film The strategies are adopted from the taxonomy by Dias-Cintas and Remael (2007) with some slight adjustment 65 PART C: CONCLUSION Summary This study aims at investigating the audiovisual translation problems of Culturebound Elements (CBEs) in the selected film entitled Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End (2007) by the American producer Jerry Bruckheimer In the study, the following points have been discussed: 1.1 Theoretical Review At first, the study has discussed the definitions of translation and it has been seen that equivalence plays an important role of a central concept in translation It can also be seen that culture is an essential notion in translation and culture-specific concepts are considered one of the problems of non-equivalence in the translation process (Baker, 1994) Providing some general ideas around the notion of audiovisual translation, it can be inferred from the study that the translation of an AV text involves not only the transference of verbal code but also the supports from other media such as sounds or visual codes Particularly, in the translation of CBEs, beside the verbal text, the other codes are recognized to be also important Secondly, the study has discussed the definitions of CBEs and CSRs By combining the opinions from some notable authors such as Pedersen (2005), Dias-Cintas and Remael (2007) Chiaro (2009) and Ranzato (2013), the study gives a summary of the concept of CBEs as the extralinguistic and intralinguistic elements which are specific to particular cultures These elements are also categorized into main types which are (1) elements from source cultures, (2) elements from target culture, (3) intercultural elements and (4) elements from third cultures, based on the taxonomy by Ranzato (2013) with some slight changes Besides, the study has also used the 66 taxonomy of Dias-Cintas and Remael (2007) (also with some slight adjustment) as the main base for the discussion about translation strategies 1.2 Study Results Based on the CBEs categorisation built in the theoretical background and some other notable taxonomies (Chiaro, 2009 or Dias-Cintas and Remael, 2007), the current analysis has found a variety of cultural elements in the selected movie and it can be concluded that the elements in the movie not come only from the SC (Anglo-American culture) but also from the other cultures At first, the film is based on a nautical historical context from around 1650s to 1720s which is called the Golden Age of Piracy (Fiske, 1897), therefore, the main elements in the film belong to the nautical language The notable elements are the pirates and nautical dialect and slangs Besides, the idioms and slangs in English also have their occurrence As many other feature films made in the USA, the current selected film also borrow some elements from other cultures and most of these elements appear as the main elements of the storyline (e.g pieces of 8, Calypso, Davy Jones’s Locker) On the other hands, as an audiovisual product, the film also contains some non-verbal CBEs (clothes of pirates or the references to the Disney ride), though they not have many significant effects on the translation process The CBEs problems detected in the film lie in two aspects Firstly, from the translators, they sometimes fail to recognize or translate the elements and the reasons may be the lack of context analysis or the inappropriate choice of strategies From the cultural aspect, most of the problems lie in the matter of equivalence when there is no equivalent or no exact equivalent in the TL Meanwhile, when there are many equivalents, it turns into a matter of choice, based on the context Thus, it is found that context analysis and strategies play an important role in translating a text 67 from one language to another in general and in translating the CBEs in the film Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End in particular In terms of translation strategies, the study has based itself on the taxonomy by Dias-Cintas and Remael (2007) and has used possible strategies to discuss the translation of the CBEs in the film It is notable that some elements can be translated employing more than one strategies and the choice based mainly on the situation of the text It can also be seen that in the translation process, translators should learn about the text before translating in order to have a clearer view of it as well as to understand the important cultural elements Besides, it is necessary to analyse the context and consider the supports from other media (sounds, images, voice tones) to have suitable choice of strategies Limitations and Suggestions for Further Research 2.1 Limitations Beside the findings, due to the limitation of time and scale, the current study still reveals the following limitations:  Firstly, the analysis was conducted with a relatively thin corpus; therefore, it cannot convey all aspects of CBEs in Audiovisual translation Also due to this limitation, the strategies given in the study are not really adequate  Secondly, this is just a general study on the translation of CBEs in AV text and does not deal with any particular forms of audiovisual translation such as dubbing or subtitling, therefore, the problems may not be directed specifically for each form of AVT  Thirdly, the film has only focused on the verbal elements and the corpus is not large enough; thus, the non-verbal elements in AVT are not treated adequately 68  Fourthly, due to the limitation of the researcher‟s cultural and cross-cultural knowledge, some CBEs in the corpus might have not been found 2.2 Suggestions for Further Research To overcome the limitations above, further studies are expected to: increase the volume of the corpus so that a more comprehensive analysis can be made It is suggested that the corpus includes different genres of films with different contents so that a comparative analysis can be done conduct some analysis on the CBEs and translation strategies for a particular type of audiovisual translation such as dubbing, subtitling or interpreting analyse the effects of the non-verbal elements on the process of AVT Besides, researchers should enhance their own cultural and cross-cultural knowledge in order to adequately identify the CBEs contained in audiovisual texts and to be able to discuss the problems in translating CBEs from English to Vietnamese in a more significant way 69 REFERENCES Baker, M (1994) In Other Words A Coursebook on Translation London and New York: Routledge Baker M & Saldanha G (2009) Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies New York: Routledge Bassnet, S (1980) Translation Studies Reader London and New York: Routledge Bell, R T (1991) Translation and Translating London and New York: Routledge Cintas, J and Remael, A (2007) Audiovisual translation: Subtitling Manchester: St Jerome Publishing Chaume, V F (2004) Film Studies and Translation Studies: Two Discipline at Stake in Audiovisual Translation In Meta: Translators’ Journal, vol 49, n 1, from //www.erudit.org/revue/meta/2004/v49/n1/009016ar.pdf Chiaro, D (2009) Issues in audiovisual translation In Jeremy Munday (ed.) The Routledge Companion to Translation Studies London: Routledge Christiane, N (1997) Translating as a Purposeful Activity Functionalist Approaches Explained Manchester: St Jerome Fiske, J (1897) Old Virginia and Her Neighbors Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin &Company Halliday, M A K & Hasan, R (1990) Language, Context, and Text: Aspects of Language in a Social-semiotic Perspective Oxford: Oxford University Press Hervey, S & Higgins, I (1992) Thinking Translation London: Routledge 70 Koller, W (1989) Equivalence in translation theory In A Chesterman (ed.) Readings in Translation Theory Helsinki: Finn Lectura, pp 99–104 Leppihalme, R (1997) Culture Bumps An Empirical Approach to the Translation of Allusions Clevedon: Multilingual Matters Leppihalme, R (2011) Relia In Gambier, Y & Doorslaer, L (eds) Handbook of Translation Studies, Volume Amsterdam: John Benjamin Lotman, J (1978) "On the Semiotic Mechanism of Culture." 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In MuTra 2005 – Challenges of Multidimensional Translation: Conference Proceedings From www.euroconferences.info/proceedings/2005_Proceedings/ Pym, A (1992) Translation and Text Transfer: An Essay on the Principles of Intercultural Communication Frankfurt and Main: Peter Lang 71 Ranzato, I (2013) The Translation of Cultural References in Italian Dubbing of Television Series Unpublised PhD thesis London: Imperial College Ray, M K (2008) Studies in Translation Second Revised and Enlarged Edition Delhi: Atlantic Sacconi, S (2013) How The Nanny Has Become La Tata: Analysis of an Audiovisual Translation Product Unpublished Master Thesis Padova: Universita degli Studi di Padova Sofer, M (1999) The Translator’s Handbook Rockville, Maryland: Schreiber Publishing Tylor, E B (1871) Primitive Culture: Research into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art and Custom London: Bradbury, Evans and Co., Printers, Whitefriars Vinay, J.& Darbelnet, J (2004) A Methodology for Translation In Venutti, L (ed.) The Translation Studies Reader London & New York: Routledge, 84-112 Webber, W K (1968) Training Translators and Conference Interpreters London: Bridgeford Dictionaries Oxford Dictionaries, at: www.oxforddictionaries.com The Free Dictionary, at: idioms.thefreedictionary.com Online Sources www.dialectblog.com/2011/05/24/pirate-accent/ (Retrieved in 2015/06/30) 72 www.bbc.co.uk/ahistoryoftheworld/objects/JO391t6cRtGxstjbE4EEmg (Retrieved in 2015/10/12) Film and Script: Filmscript: www.script-o-rama.com/movie_scripts/a2/pirates of-the-caribbeanworlds-end-script.html (Retrieved in 2015/06/22) Film and Vietnamese subtitle: www.phimmoi.net/phim/cuop-bien-vung-caribbephan-3-noi-tan-cung-the-gioi-483 (Retrieved in 2015/06/22) 73 APPENDIX CULTURE-BOUND ELEMENTS IN THE ORIGINAL FILM CBEs in the Original Version The four main categories: ETCs 0% E3Cs 34.2% ICEs 8.1% ESCs 57.7% Elements from Source Culture Intercultural Elements Elements from Third Cultures Elements from Target Culture Total Extralinguistic references and intralinguistic elements: Intralinguistic Elements Extralinguistic References I Total Elements from Source Culture (ESCs) Verbal Elements (32 elements, 77 occurrences) All hands: RT, InL, Sync Admiral: RT, Int, Sync As content as a cucumber: RT, InL, Sync Aye (aye captain): RT, InL, Sync Bloody hell: RT, InL, Sync Bosun: RT, InL, Sync Captain: RT, InL, Sync Cast a slight pall: RT, InL, Sync Deckapes: RT, InL, Sync Feet: RT, InL, Sync Fiddler’s Green: Rt, InL, Sync Filthy toads: RT, InL, Sync Fire in the hole: RT, InL, Sync.nc Get my sea legs: RT, InL, Sync Handsomely: RT, InL, Sync Haul: RT, InL, Sync Heave-ho: RT, InL, Sync Hold your water: RT, InL, Sync Loose cannon: RT, InL, Sync.nc Lord: RT, InL, Sync.Me (Meself, me ship me crew): RT, InL, Sync Me hearties: RT, InL, Sync II Midshipcannoneers: RT, InL, Sync Shipwreck cove: RT, ExL, Sync Steady as she goes: RT, InL, Sync Sweat of a man’s brow: RT, InL, Sync Strength of his back: RT, InL, Sync To broadside: RT, InL, Sync Be (That be true): RT, InL, Sync Wash my hand: RT, InL, Sync Yo-ho: RT, InL, Sync Your majesty: RT, InL, Sync Your highness: RT, InL, Sync Elements from Target Culture (ETCs) There is no element found in the film for this category Intercultural Elements (ICEs) Verbal Elements (4 elements, 12 Non-verbal Elements (0 element, occurrences) occurrence) Colors: RT, InL, Sync Heart: RT, InL, Sync Sail the sea: RT, InL, Sync Tame the sea: RT, InL, Sync Elements from Third Culture (E3Cs) Verbal Elements (9 elements, occurrences) Davy Jones’s Locker: RT, InL, Sync Calypso: RT, ExL, Sync III Isla de Muerta: IT, ExL, Sync Piece(s) of 8: RT, ExL, ASync Rum: RT, ExL, Sync Kraken: RT, ExL, Sync Black Pearl: RT, ExL, Sync Flying Dutchman: RT, ExL, Sync Pizarro: RT, ExL, Sync *Note: In the tables, the exact elements are displayed in the verbal elements column, however, in the non-verbal elements column, only the names of the elements are shown instead of the elements themselves (images or sounds) The elements are written in italic, and the sub categories (realistic/intertextual, intralinguistic/extralinguistic and synchronous/asynchronous) of each element will be abbreviated after a colon (:) *Abbreviations Used in the Appendix: RT: Realistic element IT: Intertextual element InL: Intralinguistic element ExL: Extralinguistic reference Sync: Synchronous element Async: Asynchronous element IV ... are discussed 30 CHAPTER 2: THE TRANSLATION OF CULTURE- BOUND ELEMENTS IN PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD’S END 2.1 A Brief Introduction to Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End The data... as the base of strategies for the current study In the next chapter, the CBEs appearing in the selected American film, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, and the translation of these elements. .. possible translation strategies for these elements The data for analysis is taken from the film Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End Therefore, this study cannot convey all aspects and features of