1

1 INTRODUCTION

The first problem we face in the study of the cultural aspects of translation is
how to devise a suitable tool for our analysis, a notion of 'culture-specific item'
(CSI) that will enable us to define the strictly cultural component as opposed
to, say, the linguistic or pragmatic ones. The main difficulty with the definition
lies, of course, in the fact that in a language everything is culturally produced,
beginning with language itself.
(Aixelá, 1996: 56-7)

1.1 Delineation of the aim of the thesis

In this thesis, I investigate the treatment of culture-specifics (CSs) in subtitling American

films into Czech. I focus on the film translation of foreign CSs in open interlingual subtitles in

the narrow sense. The major objective of the thesis is to demonstrate whether there are any

differences in subtitling CSs between films intended for young audiences and films aimed at

adult audiences. The minor objective is to identify potential differences between professional

and non-professional subtitles, both in their quality and translational approaches, that will

result from comparative analyses.

In this respect, I analyze a small corpus of films and observe the strategies used in

translation of CSs. I compare the findings of the films intended for children with the films for

adults and discuss the reasons that could have led the subtitlers to the employment of

particular translational strategies.

My initial primary hypothesis is that subtitling the CSs in the films for young audiences

will be inclined to domesticating strategies, like neutralization and substitution (cultural

equivalent), and to explicitation of these issues. There will also be a higher tendency to omit

the cultural words than in the films destined for an adult viewership. On the other hand,

subtitling CSs in the films for adult audiences will use more foreignizating strategies, like
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transference and naturalization, and will keep more to the original text in the overall tendency.

The use of cultural equivalence technique will be also high.

The initial secondary hypothesis posits that the professional subtitles will be characterized

by a considerably higher quality than the subtitles made by non-professionals. The quality

will concern not only the translation of the subtitles as a whole but also the translation of CSs.

They will be shorter, synoptic and thus more viewer-friendly. The quality of non-professional

subtitles will be markedly lower. The overall length of these subtitles will be greater.

Concerning translational strategies used for translation of CSs, the professional subtitles will

tend to use transference, cultural equivalent and paraphrase. The non-professional subtitles

will favour transference, neutralization and deletion to a higher extent. The amount of

mistranslations will be higher.

There are several reasons that influenced my choice of the topic of the thesis. First, I

believe that research into specific issues concerning subtitling is still in its beginnings – the

more in the Czech Republic. Second, as the source (American) and the target (Czech)

cultures are substantially different, it seemed particularly interesting to me to compare the

cultural exchange between these two cultural environments in audio-visual translation.

Furthermore, the more and more perceptible influence of mass media on our lives and the role

of film industry as a crucial cross-cultural mediator supported my choice of the topic as well.

In addition, film is a polysemiotic genre and one can expect a whole range of translational

difficulties related to subtitling – another favourable incentive for the theme of subtitling.
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1.2 Specification of the corpus that will be analyzed

Over the course of the thesis I examine CSs in a corpus consisting of following films:

Name of the Year Director Professional Non-professional subtitler

film subtitler
Madagascar 2005 Eric Darnell Zbyněk http://www.titulky.com/?Detail=0000016776
and Tom Ryba
McGrath
Shark Tale 2004 Bibo Vojtěch http://www.subtitles-
Bergeron and Kostiha divx.net/d/99211/Shark+Tale.html
Vicky Jenson
Shrek 2001 Andrew František http://www.subtitles-
Adamson and Fuka divx.net/d/914/Shrek.html
Vicky Jenson
Shrek 2 2004 Andrew Nikola http://www.subtitles-
Adamson and Bruder divx.net/d/154060/Shrek+2.html
Kelly Asbury
Anything Else 2003 Woody Allen Dana http://www.titulky.com/?Detail=0000006540
Hábová
Pretty Woman 1990 Garry unknown http://www.subtitles-
Marshall professional divx.net/d/100816/Pretty+Woman.html
subtitler
Pulp Fiction 1994 Quentin Petr Čemus http://www.subtitles-
Tarantino divx.net/d/105163/Pulp+Fiction.html

All the films represent the U.S. film production. As to Madagascar, Shrek, Shrek 2 and

Anything Else, I deal with the officially distributed Czech cinema subtitles that have been

created to these films. Concerning Shark Tale and Pulp Fiction, I analyse the officially

distributed DVD subtitles whose quality is surprisingly high and can be compared to that of

cinema subtitles. Moreover, as far as I know there are not any official cinema subtitles for

Pulp Fiction because the film had been distributed to cinemas only in a dubbed version that

soon became very popular. Similarily, this seems to be the case of Pretty Woman. The quality

of these subtitles is reasonable. In addition, I analyze the unoficially distributed

non-professional DVD subtitles to these films. As they can be found on the internet and can

be freely downloaded, I call them free subtitles throughout the thesis and analyses. My
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intention is to find out whether there is any substantial difference in quality and in

translational strategies among the professional and amateur subtitles.

The first four films are intended for a young audience and the rest for an adult audience.

As to Shrek, I am considering both Shrek and its follow-up Shrek 2 because the number of

CSs in the first film is very low. I tried to put together a kind of prototype filmic material that

would be at the same time rich in CSs. The choice of the films was also conditioned by

whether the films have been introduced in the Czech Republic and whether there exist any

official Czech subtitles for them. It is important to stress that my empirical study is carried out

on a small corpus of films and that any findings resulting from the study must be taken with

regard to this fact.

1.3 Methodology

First, I outline the general background and the main characteristics of the films that the

corpus consists of. Then I propose a comparative statistics of the occurrences of CSs in the

individual films according to my own typology of CSs (Kolebáčová 29). Proceeding from

Newmark’s classification of translational strategies (Newmark, 2004: 103), I offer

a comparative survey of the translation strategies of CSs used in these films. After that,

I examine the individual occurrences in each category of CSs in terms of the translational

techniques applied. I compare and contrast the approaches to these issues between the films

for young and for adult audiences. Drawing on the findings of this corpus analysis, I try to

formulate several general statements that could apply to subtitling of CSs in general. Finally,

I compare the data from the corpus analysis with the initial hypothesis and either confirm, or

disprove it. All the analyses have been made in the Microsoft Office Excel programme as well
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as the culture-related passages of individual films in form of parallel texts – the original

dialogues with the correspondent Czech subtitles. It can be found on an enclosed CD.

1.4 Possible bias of the study

What needs to be underlined are the possible pitfalls and an inevitable bias of this study

despite its objective approach. Several facts that could have influenced the results should be

taken into consideration. The first problematic issue is the source language of the films and

the choice of the films itself. What is more, all the films are of the U.S. provenience. It is up

to the individual reader to decide to what an extent the results could have been affected by

these factors. To continue, as it is beyond the scope of this thesis to undergo a larger and

a more detailed corpus analysis, the study has been done on a very small corpus and the

findings may not conform the overall translational tendencies. Another problematic issue is

the film genres – different tendencies may have been found in different films. Moreover, an

important factor is the actual experience of the subtitlers and their inclination to certain

techniques as well. In addition, what should not be marginalized is the difference between

home projections on DVD and big screen projections in cinemas because subtitles have to be

accommodated to a particular size of the screen which may have an indirect influence on the

choice of translation strategies as well.

1.5 List of abbreviations that I use in the thesis

In the course of the thesis several specific terms are used more frequently than others.

They are the expressions that are related to the focus of the thesis. With a view to a high

frequency of their occurrences in the text I decided to use their abbreviations instead of their
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full names. As a result, I suppose that the text is more transparent and the reader will orientate

more easily in it. Here is the list of the expressions and their abbreviated forms:

culture-specifics (CSs)

audio-visual translation (AVT)

source language (SL)

target language (TL)

translational strategy (TS)

officially distributed subtitles (ODS)

free subtitles (FS)

1.6 Sections guide

Starting with chapter two, I begin my thesis with a survey of AVT problems in general,

informing the reader about basic terminology and a complexity of film as a genre. I also

consider the power related to mass media and mention two fundamental approaches to AVT –

domestication and foreignization. Furthermore, I discuss the dubbing versus subtitling

tradition in European countries. In the last section, I make reference to three main modes in

AVT – dubbing, subtitling and voice-over.

In the next chapter, I focus solely on subtitling as a unique discipline of translation.

I summarize the various classifications of subtitles and give a brief overview of their

evolution. In the following section, I examine the particularities of subtitling with regard to

various constraints imposed on the genre. Finally, I explain the specific demands for subtitles

and specific requests for subtitlers resulting from them.

The whole chapter four is devoted to CSs. First, I clarify the term culture and cross-

cultural communication and continue with a delineation of a CS. In the next section, I propose
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a survey of important existing typologies of CSs and I denote which typology I am using in

the corpus analysis. Moreover, it seemed appropriate to me to present a review of theoretical

approaches and translational research in relation to AVT and to CSs. It follows in a structured

section. The final section focuses on translational strategies used in subtitling CSs. I also point

out to terminological variation and to problems with labelling these strategies.

The following chapter, chapter five, introduces the focus of the thesis – the corpus

analysis. I briefly repeat my methodology and offer a couple of comparative tables related to

the occurrences of CSs in particular films and the chosen subtitling strategies. Then I proceed

with the analysis of individual CSs according to Newmark’s classification of CSs (2004: 95).

Each section investigates one type of a CS and the translational strategies applied to it in the

films. I demonstrate the differences between films for young and adult audiences.

The main objective of the last chapter is to draw some general conclusions resulting from

the observations made in the corpus analysis. I offer a summary of the main findings and

compare them with the initial hypothesis. In the final section, I propose several incentives for

future research that could be done in this area.

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2 GENERAL BACKGROUND OF AUDIO-VISUAL TRANSLATION

One of the greatest challenges for

a movie after its domestic release
is reaching an international
audience and being successful
abroad.

Ramière (2006: online)

2.1 Terminology

Audio-visual translation (AVT) is a translational discipline that has flied vertically

up-wards since the 1990s. Especially in Europe, the accelerated process of political

unification related to an opening of new markets has given incentive to an ever-increasing

demand for audio-visual products. Such an enormous interest in film industry and television

production not only in the public sector but also among research workers has been prolific in

creating professional terms that would cover the area. Among the most popular terms are film

translation, screen translation, audio-visual translation and multi-media translation. As both

the film translation and the screen translation are quite narrow concepts, it is the term audio-

visual translation that has become the preferred terminology because it includes computer

games, web pages and CD ROMs. Multimedia translation is another favourite concept that

reflects the multitude of media and channels through which the message is conveyed.

However, overlapping of these terms is not infrequent and the inconsistencies of this kind

concern the specialized translational literature. Over the course of the thesis, I keep to the

term audio-visual translation because of clarity.

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2.2 Film as a complex medium

As opposed to other genres, film and the whole audio-visual production in general is a

complex unit and as such, it breeds a complex web of translational problems. Barbara

Schwarz, a Swiss translatologist, calls such a complexity of film “Gesamtkunstwerk”

(a multi-media performance) in her Translation in a Confined Space (Schwarz 2002: online).

Subtitles must provide cohesion and coherence with all its audiovisual elements, i.e. the

dialogues, corresponding images on the screen, non-verbal communication (body language of

actors), background scenery, soundtrack and the resulting co-text.

Mona Baker (Baker 1998, in Schwarz 2002: online) calls film a semiotic composition and

divides it into four channels – the verbal auditory channel (dialogue and background voices,

lyrics); the non-verbal auditory channel (natural sounds and music); the verbal visual channel

(subtitles and writing within the film, like signs, letters, newspapers, posters etc.); and non-

verbal visual channel (composition of the image, editing). Her classification has become

a traditional one.

The polysemiotic nature of the text in AVT is adverted to by many scholars, among them

Adriana Tortoriello. She explains that there are various semiotic codes at play at once – the

verbal code and other non-verbal codes that the verbal code interacts with. The codes provide

a feedback effect to one another and the result is a kind of inter-code overlapping and

redundancy. The filmic components comprise the pitch and tone of the characters’ voices,

soundtrack, musical score, sound effects, work of camera, and various non-verbal elements

like facial expressions and body language (Tortoriello 2006: online).

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2.3 The power of film translation

There is no doubt that film is a medium that has an enormous reach. Due to its

advantageous qualities, it attracts wide range of audiences, from illiterate to well-read ones.

Above all, films function as cultural-meditation instruments. As Schwarz argues, films can be

“a tremendously influential and extremely powerful vehicle for transferring values, ideas and

information” (Schwarz 2002: online). The important thing is that the recently experienced

boom in AVT has attracted an increased interest in the scientific field of translation. Such

a heyday of AVT is related to a considerable rise in the demand for audio-visual products and

their diversification, and worldwide expansion of film production. From the technological

innovations, it is particularly the widespread distribution of DVDs (Digital Versatile Discs)

that has had an enormous impact on the film industry. The possibility to record up to eight

versions of the same film with different dubbing and thirty-two different subtitled versions on

a DVD makes it a revolutionary device. According to the survey made by Christina Sponholz

in her diploma thesis in 2002, the market expected a further expansion of film industry,

improvement of subtitling software and continuing digitalisation, greater importance of the

internet, and also an increase in the use of DVD (Sponholz 2003: 52). Five years later, these

forward-looking expectations seem to have been fulfilled.

2.4 Foreignization/Domestication approach

AVT is frequently approached in terms of the foreignization and domestication concepts.

These opposite poles reflect upon the ever-present concept of the Self versus the Other,

indicating two possible relationships to otherness. The notions of foreignization and

domestication stand for two overall translation strategies that were introduced by Lawrence

Venuti in 1995 and that represent a traditional conceptual framework for the discussion of the
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strategies used in AVT of cultural specifics. In Venuti’s own formulation, foreignization

preserves “linguistic and cultural differences by deviating from prevailing domestic values”

(Venuti, 1998: 240, in Ramière 2006: online) and thus has a defamiliarizing effect; whereas

domestication provides the viewer “with the narcissistic experience of recognizing his or her

own culture in a cultural other” (Venuti, 1992: 5, in Ramière 2006: online) and has

a familiarizing effect on the audience. The later notions of “exoticism” or “exoticization”, and

“naturalization” or “assimilation” are nothing else than different terms for the same concepts

and show the terminological inconsistencies, as Ramière further points out. Venuti’s

foreignization-domestication model has become a classical pillar in translation studies and has

been applied to other areas of cultural studies.

In film industry, foreignization is linked to the written-based mode of AVT – subtitling,

and domestication to the oral-based mode – dubbing, which is also often compared to

adaptation. Subtitles represent the text superimposed on the screen. According to Szarkowska,

it is a method “which assumes that the translated text does not ‛pretend’ to be an original (as

is the case with domestication) and where the foreign identity of the source text is

highlighted” (Szarkowska 2005: online). We can say that subtitling is a neutral method that

tries to keep to the original dimension of the film as much as possible. It enables to hear the

real voices of the characters. It also enables to translate the non-verbal elements of the film,

such as various signs, tokens or notices that appear during the film and that necessitate to be

untranslated in case of dubbing. Similarly, subtitles do not efface the parole of individual

characters, like particular dialects, idiolects and the level of language register. Moreover, it is

definitely a more economical mode of film translation. However, the regaining of the

authenticity is at the cost of the obtrusive effect of subtitles on the screen resulting in a sort of

split attention of the viewer (diversion of focus).

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On the other hand, domesticative tendency in film translation results in a product in which

the foreign elements are assimilated into the target culture. In other words, dubbing is the

method that privileges the target culture and can be even expression of nationalism. As

Szarkowska points out, dubbing lessens the sense of otherness and can be seen, quoting

Danan, as “an assertion of the supremacy of the national language and its unchallenged

political, economic and cultural power within the nation's boundaries” (Danan 1991: 612, in

Szarkowska 2005: online). Dubbing is definitely a mode of translation that infringes on the

original structure of the film in a considerable way.

In connection with the notion of foreignization and domestication, Nico Wiersema,

a Dutch translatologist, features a concept of “excessive translation”. He defines it as

a “translation that fails to foreignize/exoticise, i.e. use source-language terms in the target-

language text, to the degree that”, as he believes, “is now acceptable” (Wiersema 2003:

online). He strongly opposes such an approach because an excessive translation is necessarily

less credible than a translation that tries to keep the original culture-bound word. The factor

that makes the foreignizing approach possible in a higher extent than before is an intensifying

globalization. The process of globalization in Europe is supported by its political and

economic unification. As a result, texts grow more and more exotic and via the foreignizing

translation the source cultures can be better understood. The new attitude to translation based

on loan words, that Wiersema popularizes, has become a common new trend recently. The

exoticizing devise “context explains culture” seems to bring the translation – not only literary

translation – nearer to the audience because it promises to be about the real thing and not just

a superbly clear but flattened copy of the original.

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2.5 Countries according to the mode of AVT that they use

The choice between dubbing and subtitling depends on multiple factors that differ from

country to country. It is related to the history of a country, to its economic situation, habit and

custom, the character of its film audiences and the attitude of this country to the rest of the

world (particularly to the source culture). Generally speaking, there is still a clear dichotomy

in Western Europe between larger countries that prefer dubbing and smaller countries that

favour subtitling. Nevertheless, in the Czech Republic, the dubbing tradition has been long

firmly established. Nowadays, with the affluence of American commercial production and the

opening of the Czech film market to foreign influences in general, the number of subtitled

films is steadily increasing. Most of the foreign cinema production tends to be subtitled, with

the only exception of family films or films aimed at very young audiences.

On the contrary, the majority of films on television screen are dubbed, even those that

were released in a subtitled version in cinemas, and the only exception to the rule are

independent films appearing from time to time on the Channel Two of the Czech television.

The tradition of dubbing in our country bears relation to the forty-year hegemony of the

Communist regime and its political repression. Anything foreign not coming from the Soviet

Union or the friendly socialistic nations was supposed dangerous and rotten by the official

policy. However, I find it interesting that dubbing continues to be the preferred mode of film

translation after the Velvet revolution, taking into account its enormously high cost when

compared to subtitling. It probably relates to a still poor knowledge of foreign languages in

the majority of an adult audience. Moreover, I think it is a hidden form of nationalism and

must be somehow related to the natural fear of the unknown.

The Routledge Encyclopaedia of Translation Studies (1997: 244) brings forward a list of

dubbing and subtitling countries that reflects either the central or the marginal position of
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foreign film production. Among dubbing-oriented are French, Italian, German and Spanish-

speaking countries (so called FIGS group); subtitling is preferred in Netherlands, Norway,

Sweden, Denmark, Greece, Slovenia, Croatia, Portugal and some non-European countries. It

should be mentioned that there exists a third category, the source-language countries,

represented mainly by English-speaking countries. However, the boundary between dubbing

and subtitling-oriented countries has been recently blurred and the two principal modes of

AVT often coexist even in countries where one of the modes had long prevailed. The film

market is becoming more homogenous.

The important factor determining is Hollywood’s primacy over the huge film industry.

For smaller countries, it is difficult to compete with American production in film industry. As

Szarkowska mentions, from the early 1930s up to early 1950s the U. S. had total control over

the movie industry as a whole, and some larger countries like France, Italy, Germany and

Spain were forced to launch measures of prevention to reduce the American influence and to

support the home production (Szarkowska 2005: online). The pro-American trend has

continued even nowadays and it is clearly visible in the uneven ratio of foreign and domestic

production in most of the European countries. Jorge Díaz Cintas offers in her Audiovisual

translation in the Third Millennium a comparative table of imported audiovisual products in

European countries, mainly from the American production (Díaz Cintas 2003: 193; table

compiled by Yvane, 1995). Unfortunately, I have not found any data concerning the Czech

Republic that could have been most interesting for our purposes.
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Country Percentage
Spain 95%
Greece 94%
Luxembourg 92%
Netherlands 90%
Germany 90%
France 90%
Denmark 90%
United Kingdom 88%
Italy 80%
Ireland 75%
Portugal 70%

Petr Bým in the business weekly Profit brings another interesting study. In his article,

Bým claims that the amount of money that was spent in the Czech film industry in 2005

almost reached the limit of 5 billion Czech crowns. However, he adds, it was only 11% that

fell upon domestic production. According to Olsberg/SPI, the remaining 89% swallowed up

the foreign production (44%) and the advertizing (45%) (Bým, 2006: online).

2.6 Three main modes of AVT

Generally speaking, the most popular modes of AVT are subtitling, dubbing and voice-

over. Other modes, such as narration and free commentary, are used in a much lower extent.

2.6.1 Dubbing

Dubbing replaces the original soundtrack with a target language in a way that the lips

movements are synchronized. Szarkovska defines the method as alterating the original text in

a considerable way in order to domesticize it, i.e. to make it familiar to the target audience

(Szarkowska 2005: online). By many scholars as well as the public dubbing is regarded

a potentially dangerous mode of AVT. For instance, Taylor makes reference to Jean Renoir
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who is said to refer to dubbing as a “monstrosity, a challenge to human and divine laws”

(Taylor 2000: online). Furthermore, as Díaz Cintas argues, dubbing is experiencing the least

growth because of its financial expense (which is usually at least ten times higher than in case

of subtitling) and limited use. Conversely, subtitling is flourishing and it seems that such

a trend will continue since it is the quickest and the most economical method of AVT (Díaz

Cintas 2003: 193).

2.6.1.2 Advantages of dubbing

preserves the original composition of the picture

offers undivided focus

can be understood by illiterate audience and those whose reading abilities are

limited

replaces the “unknown” with the “known” (ex. the characters’ voices)

2.6.1.3 Disadvantages of dubbing

lost of authenticity (lost of the original accents, idiolects, intonation due to the

re-recording with voices that do not belong to the original actors)

distortion of sounds (devaluation)

risk of misuse by political censorship

alteration of the script (because of the lip synchronisation)

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2.6.2 Subtitling

Subtitling stands for a combination of the original soundtrack of the film with a written

text translating the dialogues, displayed at the bottom of the screen. Szarkowska defines

subtitling as “the form that alters the source text to the least possible extent and enables the

target audience to experience the foreign and be aware of its ‛foreignness’ at all times”

(Szarkowska 2005: online).

2.6.2.1 Advantages of subtitling

authenticity – subtitling does not efface the real voices, preserves the original

sounds and intonation

promotes tolerance towards other cultures

functions as a support for the acquisition of a foreign language; it is a well-

known fact that in countries that prefer subtitling (such as Denmark) the

general knowledge of English language is considerably higher than in dubbing-

oriented countries.

improves mother-tongue literacy plus the knowledge of immigrants of the

country’s official language

makes possible to follow a film for the deaf and hard-of-hearing

enables the neglected languages (ex. Catalan, Welsh etc.) to be recognized

2.6.2.2 Disadvantages of subtitling

presumes a literate viewership

According to common rules used in Europe, subtitles should consist of at most two

lines of 35 characters each. However, these numbers largely exceeds the reading speed of an
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average viewer. The Swedish research made in the early seventies found out that average TV

viewers needed 5-6 seconds to read a two-liner of 60-70 characters (Hajmohammadi 2005:

online). Subtitles usually cannot stand on the screen such a long time because they have to

observe a large number of particular constraints, among them their alignment to gestures,

their exit with the end of the voice utterance etc.

demands a high degree of attention (film as a polysemiotic medium)

To illustrate this point, I would like to refer to Hajmohammadi’s paper that lists the

processes that happen in the viewer’s mind while watching a subtitled film. They comprehend

reading the subtitles, decoding them, watching the image flow, deciphering the visual

information, connecting the image flow to the underlying story, listening to the sound,

guessing what is about to happening, and remembering what has already happened. The

author argues that the reading and decoding of subtitles is at the cost of the perception of

image because the attention of viewer must be divided between subtitles and image. Since the

visual constituent plays a crucial role in film, the dual attention of this kind is distorting. As

the author points out, “films are made to be watched, not read” (Hajmohammadi 2005:

online).

diverts the viewer’s attention from the picture – dual demands

obscures part of the picture

lacks intonation

2.6.3 Voice-over

Voice-over is a superimposition of a target language on the original soundtrack; the

volume is usually reduced to a minimal level. It is predominantly used for cheap production

films (soap operas), company projections, learning programmes, and documentaries.

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3 SUBTITLING AS A UNIQUE DISCIPLINE OF TRANSLATION

Subtitling makes it particularly

obvious that translation is a
decision-making procedure.

Kovacic (1996: 298)

3.1 Types of subtitles and their brief evolution

Gottlieb defines subtitling as “a written, additive, immediate, synchronous and

polymedial translation” (Gottlieb 1998, in Schwarz 2002: online). There exist several

typologies of subtitles, each of them based on different criteria. The most frequently

mentioned dichotomy is the division to interlingual and intralingual subtitles. Interlingual

subtitles transfer source-language oral dialogues into different target-language written

equivalents. On the contrary, intralingual subtitles are intended for the deaf or hard-of-hearing

and involve no change of source language. Another typology is based on the

openness/closeness of subtitles. Open subtitles are electronically inserted in the film and

appear on the screen without any interference of the viewer. Closed subtitles (captions) are

optional subtitles used in television programmes and can be selected via teletext. Moreover,

one can encounter a few specific types of subtitles, among them live subtitles and pivot

subtitles. The former can be compared to a written counterpart of simultaneous interpreting

and represent an experimental form of translation. The latter consist in making subtitles in one

language, usually English, which then serve as a “pre-fabricated mould” for any following

subtitles in other languages.

Concerning the historical development, subtitles evolved out of the intertitles used in the

era of silent films. Text was printed on cardboard, filmed and shown between sequences of

the film. A Hollywood filmmaker Herman Weinberg introduced the first “real” subtitles as we
 20
know them nowadays in the early 1930s after the invention of sound film in 1927. However,

before subtitling became a widely recognised “economic” method, the general practise was to

shoot several multilingual versions of the same film with different teams of actors in order to

fulfil the particular cultural demands of different countries (Sponholz 2003: 10-11). The first

subtitles were made on a chemical base; later on optical subtitles were introduced. In the

1980s, laser method replaced the older techniques and a decade later digital subtitling became

the predominant subtitling method worldwide. A huge interest in the area of subtitling is

suggested by various guidelines for good subtitling, such as the “Code of Good Subtitling” by

Ivarsson and Carroll or “A Proposed Set of Subtitling Standards in Europe” by Fotios

Karamitroglou (both 1998).

3.2 Particularities of subtitling

The crucial factor that makes subtitling a specific translational discipline is the fact that

subtitling is not a text-to-text transfer. It is far from being uni-directional since the

interdependence between acoustic and visual channel makes it a poly-dimensional translation.

Due to the polysemiotic nature of film, subtitlers have to face numerous problems. The

concept of constrained subtitling usually involves three main areas – change from oral to

written mode, time and place constraints (that are interrelated), and technical constraints. The

problematics is often narrowed just to the technical hindrances but it is a much wider issue.

According to Chesterman, it includes the social norm of communication and it is the task for

every translator to communicate the message in a way that is optimal for a particular audience

of a particular culture (Chesterman 2000: 69, in Bogucki 2004: online).

Kovacic reminds that subtitles favour the ideational function of language (in the

Hallidayan terms). It means that their main function is informative, whereas the role of
 21
a dialogue is predominantly interpersonal. Subtitling misses the nuances of dialogue and the

interpersonal dynamics is inevitably altered (Kovacic 1996: 298, in Taylor 2000: online).

3.2.1 Change from oral to written

Among the fundamental tasks for the subtitler is the transfer from an oral to a written

mode. The problem is that the oral communication may be more intricate but as a whole is

lexically less dense than the written one (includes filler words, tag questions, redundancy,

repetitions, i.e. expressions that add no new information). The written word is necessarily

a normalized alternative to the spoken word and the possibilities of the written system are

limited. Taylor (Taylor 2000: online) sums this problematic up pointing to the disorganized

nature of spoken discourse and to the elements of co-text that are important in crating

meaning and for maintaining cohesion. Oral utterance is often connected to the visual element

on the screen and its transfer to the written translation is problematic because it does not have

the same means as the oral speech has. In this context, Gottlieb speaks about diasemioticity of

subtitles, i.e. they are the result of the shift from speech to writing (Gottlieb 2001: 8, in

Bogucki 2004: online).

Furthermore, subtitlers are under a constant contradicting pressure – they should keep the

oral elements and they are forced to reduce the lengthy dialogues at the same time. In

reducing the amount of text, it is the oral elements that are typically omitted as first because

they are not semantically relevant. Sponholz argues that up to 40% of the original gets lost in

the subtitled version (Sponholz 2003: 29).

 22

3.2.2 Time and place constraints

The limited space for subtitles on the screen (two lines per 30 to 35 characters at the

most) results in a need of substantial reduction of dialogues. The volume of the written text is

limited according to the size of screen – film screen demands naturally less reductions than

television or computer screen. In Gottlieb’s terms, the constraint of place is labelled as

“formal or quantitative” constraint (Gottlieb 1998, in Schwarz 2002: online).

Time restrictions force the subtitler to condensate lengthy passages. The higher the pace

of the action, the higher the pace of the subtitles and the higher the demand for the subtitler.

In this respect, Schwarz refers to Gottlieb who has called this constraint the “textual or

qualitative constraint” (Gottlieb 1998, in Schwarz 2002: online). Time constraints also

concern the limits of human brain that are imposed on the AVT, such as our limited reading

speed. That is why subtitlers are forced to use simple grammatical and lexical structures, opt

for shorter synonyms or chose letters that are narrower in shape. It has been frequently

observed that, in comparison to a standard viewership, a young audience (between the age of

15 to 30) can read very easily and quickly as it is accustomed to watch subtitles.

Finally, time pressure under which subtitlers often make their translations constitutes an

additional specificity of the genre.

3.2.3 Technical constraint

Among the issues linked to technical constraints are synchronization and layout problems.

The obligation to synchronicity does not concern only the synchronicity between subtitles and

spoken words, but also between subtitles and picture (correct “in-times” and “out-times”). To

put it simply, the dialogues must match the action on the screen; they can neither fall behind

nor anticipate. It is advisable to use a steady rate of presentation throughout the film. There
 23
are also rules for consecutive subtitles and camera takes. As to the layout, the main purpose of

layout rules for subtitles is an ease-of-reading. To be user-friendly, subtitles must not for

instance pre-empt the plot line, some units like subject and its verb cannot be divided, and

there have to be clear line-breaks.

All the constraints mentioned in previous paragraphs are subject to a meta-constraint of

relevance. Bogucki suggests that the concept of relevance works as “as a filter, making sure

that what is lost in the process is irrelevant or does not prevent the audience from appreciating

the resulting product” (Bogucki 2004: online).

3.3 Specific demands for subtitles and subtitlers

Demands that are frequently imposed on subtitles can be summarized under following

headings:

coherence

layout (legible distribution of the text)

number of characters (two lines of 35 characters at maximum)

ease of reading

idiomaticity

discreetness

temporal aspects (steady rhythm, synchronization)

standardized punctuation, appropriate font

The general rule is that the obtrusive effect of subtitles should be lessened to a minimum.

Thompson argues that subtitles do not have to be “invisible” as text but rather to be felt as

speech (Thompson 2000: online). Moreover, Ali Hajmohammadi suggests other

 24
considerations that the subtitler must bear in mind – the characteristic demands of each

audience and the specific nature of audio-visual media. Subtitles should be as short as

possible in order to be “user-friendly”. Otherwise, they tire the audience and the final

impression of the film may be distorted (Hajmohammadi 2005: online).

Among the most important desired skills of a subtitler are:

excellent mother tongue skills

good translation abilities

fluency in source language

editing and spotting skills

good knowledge of culture and slang of the source language

accuracy

questioning nature of a subtitler

These demands differ from those required of a literary translator and confirm the

specificity of subtitling (Sponholz 2003: 46).

 25
4 CULTURE-SPECIFICS

Translation takes place not only

between languages, but it is also a
transfer between cultures.

Oltra Ripoll (2005: online)

4.1 Definition of culture

In his Textbook of Translation, Newmark puts forward the following definition according

to which culture is “the way of life and its manifestations that are peculiar to a community

that uses a particular language as its means of expression” (Newmark 2004: 94). Another

definition, rendered by Johnson in Encyclopedia of International Media and Communications,

posits that culture is “a set of beliefs, values, behaviors, and customs that is developed by

a group of people”. It is the “framework for how people see the world” (Johnston 2003: 357).

I think highly of Johnston’s label “framework” and I believe it does not have to be

necessarily a negative thing that imposes some limits on human beings. I rather perceive it as

unavoidable reading glasses – without them, we could not experience the world. It may distort

our perception of the reality, as subtitles can distort the picture of film, but it offers a way how

to look at the world. If the viewer is aware of having them on his nose, then, in my opinion,

everything is all right and a true understanding between cultures is possible.

4.2 Cross-cultural communication

It is important to realize that we “practize” a cross-cultural communication every day

when we are in contact with the outer world. Strictly speaking, everything is culture-bound.

Even the language that we use to denote these concepts is culture-embedded. It is through our
 26
culture-bound glasses that we evaluate things and people around us. When we see a stranger,

we automatically compare him or her to our established traditions and deep-rooted

conventions. The mass media play a crucial role in this respect because they provide

a constant exchange of information among cultures. They determine “who is heard and what

is heard” (Johnston 2003: 357).

On the other hand, it is in the power of media to change an intercultural “encounter” to

a real, effective “communication”, especially through the screen translation that functions as

a bridge over cultures. What is more, due to the new technologies, media now enable even an

immediate intercultural transfer. On the other hand, media can become a powerful instrument

of ethnocentric arrogance and censorship of various kinds (ex. the mode of dubbing used by

authoritative regimes as a way to efface the original culture or even to change the content of

dialogues to keep the target audience in a cultural vacuum). From the multitude of factors that

can give rise to miscommunication it is cultural difference that is considered the most

interfering factor. However, if a communicative process between cultures is successful then

miscommunication is substituted with acculturation. Mark Le highlights that AVT can be

seen as a part of the vast process of acculturation that we are constantly exposed to in our

everyday life and during which we adapt to a new culture. He calls it a re-orientation of

thinking. The process of acculturation thus brings a cultural paradigm shift (Le 1999: online).

4.3 Delineation of a cultural reference

Cultural references, cultural specifics, culture-specific item, cultural words, culture-

bound, culture-related, culture-embedded, culture-tied issues – all these are just different

labels for the same concept. To avoid ambiguity, I refer to these issues in the thesis as to

culture-specifics (CSs). However, to define this concept in a clear way is strikingly

 27
problematic. The “circle” definition of a CS would be “anything that is the opposite of

culture-free”. It could also be defined as the counterpart of the universal (for instance knedlík

as a cultural word versus meat as a universal). I would circumscribe it as a unique concept

created for the use of a particular culture and fully apprehensible only by that culture. Anyone

outside that culture can understand it but cannot experience it in a way the natives do. To give

an example of a scholarly definition, Olk refers to CSs as to “objects and concepts that are

specific to the original sociocultural context” (Olk 2001, in Ramière 2006: online).

4.4 Existing typologies of cultural references

Despite the diverse nature of concepts that CSs denote, it is possible to classify them

according to their level of generality. All CSs can be situated on the generality/particularity

axis. I suggest a following general classification of CSs:

international CSs (i.e. shared across cultures, intercultural)

CSs coming from the Anglo-Saxon and especially American tradition (i.e. CSs

that have become common through the widespread dissemination of American

movie industry. They are often incorporated into the cultural heritage of the

receptor’s culture, like for example trademarks, lifestyle and popular colloquial

expressions.)

CSs with a partially restricted understanding (i.e. more culturally specific,

usually understood only by higher-educated audiences or people that are in

somewhat closer relation with the source culture, for instance students of

English)
 28

CSs with a restricted understanding (i.e. particularly infrequent CSs,

characteristic of a concrete group of people, jargon-like, hardly

comprehensible even for the native-speakers)

Any classification of CSs is unavoidably incomplete and only approximate because it is

hardly achievable to render an exhaustive classification that would cover all aspects of

culture. Moreover, it seems to be an impossible task to define the limits of a particular

category. More so that many issues are related to one another and exceed the narrow

boundaries of such categorical delineations. What follows is a survey of the main existing

typologies made by well-known scholars, starting from Peter Newmark, Mallafre and Katan

to Oltra Ripoll and Schwarz.

4.4.1 Newmark’s classification of CSs (2004: 95)

Peter Newmark’s classification is an adaptation of the earlier Nida’s ideas. Newmark

distinguishes five major categories: ecology (flora, fauna, natural phenomena); material

culture (in other words artefacts concerning food, clothing, housing, transport etc.); social

culture (work and leisure); gestures and habits; organizations, customs, activities, procedures,

concepts (political and administrative, social, religious, artistic). I find this classification quite

comprehensive but not very well arranged. The fifth multiple category has stroke my attention

in particular. It seems difficult to handle.

 29

4.4.2 Katan’s classification of CSs (Katan 1999: 45)

David Katan introduces another approach to classification of CSs. He divides them also

into five categories as Newmark do, but different ones: environment, behaviour, capacities

and strategies, principles, and identity. This classification is clearly organized but too

compendious. In my opinion, it is not sufficient to be used for the purpose of any detailed

analysis.

4.4.3 Oltra Ripoll’s classification of CSs (2005: online)

Maria D. Oltra Ripoll suggests a kind of comprehensive compilation of the preceding

categorizations: nature; leisure, feasts and traditions; artificial products; religion and

mythology; geography; politics and economy; history, art and literature; science.

4.4.4 Schwarz’s classification of CSs (2002: online)

Barbara Schwarz focuses on CSs in a narrower sense. She deals with CSs in films.

According to her study, the implied cultural connotation on the screen includes architectural

or geographical landmarks; icons from mass culture like pop music or television; historical or

political events; and symbols of political or religious significance. In my opinion, Schwarz’s

classification offers an interesting look at CSs and can be used as a general framework for

more detailed research. However, it is not a proper typology with further clear delineations

and many CSs could not be classified in any of these four categories. What I find useful is

Schwarz’s term icon that I will incorporate with slightly enlarged connotations into my own

classification of CSs that I am going to propose.

 30
In addition to these typologies, Mallafre (Mallafre 1991, in Oltra Ripoll 2005: online)

introduces the concept of tribe language (referring to private life, personal experience of an

individual, relationships), and polis language (public life – social, political and other

environment).

In view of the character of the corpus that I analyze in the thesis, I found out that among

the above-mentioned classifications of CSs there is not any that would be at the same time

clear and comprehensive enough to be applicable to my corpus. None of them seemed to offer

sufficient typology whose headings would cover all the aspects of the film translation – at

least concerning this particular choice of the films. If one of the classifications were applied,

a substantial number of compromise solutions would have to be done in the attempt to

classify the particular CSs found in the corpus. The more such compromises and only poorly

functional headings the more skewed results that would be based on them. Considering the

high exigency of the analyzed corpus, I decided to use my own classification that, I believe,

serves the purposes of this thesis best. If an interesting issue related to a particular concept of

other typologies emerges, I make a special reference to it.

4.5 Particular classification used in the corpus analysis

The classification that I propose here has been created for the purposes of the analyzed

corpus of films. However, as I believe, it is not a narrow-framed, locally oriented classifying

system of CSs that is predestined to with the analysis of the corpus in this thesis. Even though

created for a specific corpus, it is not corpus-attached and can be used for classifications of

other screen CSs if one finds it useful.

To come to the point, I propose the following typology consisting of eleven functional

classes:
 31
No. Type of CSs Specifications of each category
1 Icons famous actors, artists, musicians, writers, celebrities etc.
2 Material culture food, beverages, products, vehicles, periodicals etc.
3 Geographical items towns, cities, states, islands, mountains ranges, rivers etc.
4 Infrastructure clubs, organizations, institutions, names of streets, parts of
towns and cities, shops, buildings, services, trademarks etc.
5 Ideological items symbols, concepts, customs, traditions, feasts, ideological and
religious groups, sayings, games etc.
6 Arts and Literature novels, poetry, theatre plays, paintings, sculptures, films etc.
7 Social items social status, social roles
8 Activities sports, entertaining activities
9 Historical items battles, events, sovereigns etc
10 Nature fauna, flora, inanimate nature
11 Code third language, nonsense language, jokes, play with words,
rhyming, neologisms etc.

4.5.1 Close description of the proposed categories

To start with, there are two elementary types of CSs: those that are easy to classify and

those that start to get out of control when a curious person wants to give them a “label”. In

most cases the placement of a particular CS into a particular category is necessarily subjective

and it would be a pure speculation to dare to say that this or that CS belongs here or there for

hundred percent. Nevertheless, in effort to minimize the subjective part in the decision-

making process, I think it is advisable to work with such typology that enables it. It is obvious

that categories of any typology frequently overlap. It results from the complex character of

CSs that only rarely communicate one-track information. In order to explain more thoroughly

the proposed classification of CSs, I pay attention to individual categories and offer

illustrative examples in the sections that follow.

 32
4.5.1.1 Icons

Icons epitomize the easily labelled type of CSs. The word icon has several meanings

however, I use this term exclusively in the sense of a representation of a famous person or

a fictitious character. These people function as icons in the society – they are “venerated”,

they have a special status and for the rest of people they impersonate success, power and

fulfilled dreams. Here are a couple of examples from the analyzed corpus:

- What I love about Bogart is that he's so intensely urban.

- Didn't I say that exact same thing about Frank Sinatra? (Anything Else)

- The bush shaped like Shirley Bassey! (Shrek 2)

4.5.1.2 Material culture

By the term material culture I mean all the cultural products that are palpable and

corporeal. Among the most often mentioned examples of material culture are food and

vehicles:

- You know about cars. Where did that come from?

- Road and Track. The boys back home I grew up with, they were really into
American heavy metal: Mustangs, Corvettes. (Pretty Woman)

- Jerome! Coffee and a Monte Cristo. Now! (Shrek 2)

4.5.1.3 Geographical items

Geography represents a tricky category of CSs. First, it is questionable whether

geographical items should be labelled as CSs at all. Second, it may be difficult to delineate

what is a geographical item and what is rather a social-culture item because these issues go

frequently hand in hand. For instance, the word “Florida” can refer to both the state and the

peninsula of the same name.

Another common ambiguity occurs when we refer to a town or a city – they can be found

on the map but they are cultural products of particular societies as well. It depends on what
 33
we want to highlight. To introduce a system into the analysis of these items, I take a town

(city) as the smallest unit that can be marked as a geographical item. The more detailed

references, typically parts of cities (residential districts, streets etc.) are classified as

infrastructure. It is obvious that this rule concerns only the nature-culture phenomena and not

the purely natural phenomena like mountain ranges or rivers.

Sometimes, it is also difficult to distinguish between material culture and arts as in case of

a reference to TV series. If I found it impossible to decide between the two, I ranked them

under a mixed category in which each reference has a half value. To close this section, let us

look at some examples:

- Yeah, here we are.

- Where exactly is here?
- San Diego. (Madagascar)

- For all I know, he's ice fishing somewhere in the Yukon. (Anything Else)

4.5.1.4 Infrastructure

I particularly missed this special umbrella category in the existing typologies. It enables

to catenate items like institutions, parts of cities, services, and trademarks. These seemingly

unrelated issues have one thing in common – they are all constituents that create the frame

structure of a city or another similar unit. They are the essential spinal brace thanks to which

the society can function. I suppose that the category of infrastructure makes the analysis

synoptic. The following instances may serve as suitable examples of this category:

- It's of paramount importance, during the sad weeks ahead, the eyes of the
W.B.A. remain firmly fixed on the... (Pulp Fiction)

- Tell me about your dream. The Cleveland Indians got jobs at Toys R Us?
(Anything Else)
 34
4.5.1.5 Ideological items

Although the designation ideological is not fully satisfactory, as it may suggest a too

narrow category, let us keep to it for reasons of economy. Throughout the analysis, I use the

term ideology in the broad sense of the word: any result of a particular train of thought that is

reflected in a culture. In my interpretation, apart from popular traditions and feasts it may

include a particular way of behaviour or entertainment, locutions and set expressions. In this

sense, I use this category in the analysis. Ideological issues may be unique for a concrete

culture but they may also be common to many cultures and in this sense, we can speak about

a kind of intercultural ideological concepts. To conclude, ideological issues like sayings

frequently overlap with code and in some cases, I think it would be possible to treat them as

codes. However, to avoid confusion I try to be consistent in labelling them as ideological

items if I find it appropriate. Finally come a couple of examples:

- Don't you want to tell me about your trip? Or how about a game of Parcheesi?
(Shrek 2)

- Well, um... that's because I had some wine.

- Wine? Why? It's not Passover. (Anything Else)

4.5.1.6 Arts and literature

Fortunately, another category that is easy to define and does not need much comment.

Nevertheless, I would like to point out to a couple of possible clashes between the categories.

First, it may be problematic to classify architectural works as arts because they could be

labelled as infrastructure as well. Once again, I think it depends on how a particular

architectural work is usually perceived. If it is a renowned architectural landmark, then

I classify it as arts. On the contrary, if an architectural work is mentioned rather because of its

geographical situation and its ability to anchor the action on the screen for the viewer but its

artistic value is poor, then I treat it as infrastructure. The second remark concerns the
 35
classification of songs and nursery rhymes references. Even though these CSs are based on

the oral tradition and not the written one, I believe it is appropriate to give them the label of

literature for the purpose of the analysis. Examples:

- I just finished 'Notes From Underground.' (Anything Else)

- 'My candle burns at both ends, it will not last the night.'
- Millay! Edna Millay! She's my favorite poet! (Anything Else)

4.5.1.7 Social items

The first of the three following low-usage categories, social items is a category that in

some ways gathers what could not be built into the rest of the categories. It mainly applies to

a social status and specific roles of an individual in a particular society. As the occurrences of

these CSs are extremely low, I do not consider this category, provisional as it may seem, to be

treated in further details. Examples:

- She's married to a Park Avenue doctor and that's too dull for her.
(Anything Else)

- Tell Princess Fiona her husband, Sir Shrek, is here to see her. (Shrek 2)

4.5.1.8 Activities

This is another example of a category with very low number of occurrences in the kind of

corpus that I analyze. I suppose that under certain circumstances these references could be

classified as ideological items. Not to forget some concrete examples, here they are:

- The Japanese fox was a kung fu master. (Pulp Fiction)

- The world-famous Jackrabbit Slim's twist contest. (Pulp Fiction)

 36
4.5.1.9 Historical items

Historical items is the third scarcely utilized category of CSs yet I think it is necessary to

have such a category. As historical items always refer not only to history but also to a specific

thing, concept or a person, they could have been ranked in other categories. However, their

focus on the past would have been lost and the way to misinterpretation would have been

opened. To give an example of what I denote as a historical item in the analysis:

- He was in the P.O.W. camp with Daddy. (Pulp Fiction)

- Yes, I'm an atheist, but... but I resented the fact, however obliquely that they
implied Auschwitz was basically a theme park. (Anything Else)

4.5.1.10 Nature

By the denotation nature I mean plants, animals and inanimate nature, and not any

geographical landmarks that have their own category. References to nature are not very

abundant in the corpus which is a pity taking into account how easily they are to be classified.

Some examples to illustrate this category:

- May I suggest a barnacle peel? Removes lines and salt damage. (Shark Tale)

- According to the latest Scallop Poll, fear of sharks is at an all-time high.

(Shark Tale)

4.5.1.11 Code

In comparison with the previous category, the last category of code appears much more

frequently in my analysis. It may be because the language in the analyzed corpus is largely

playful, in the films for young audience in particular. In case of various idioms and maxims,

this category can overlap with ideological items and as to the puns, it frequently borders wit

icons as in the first of the following examples:

- Tuna Turner. Mussel Crowe. Jessica Shrimpson. Cod Stewart. (Shark Tale)
 37

- Oh, no! Por favor! Please! I implore you! It was nothing personal, Seńor.
(Shrek 2)

- You dig, dog?

- Dig. Dog. Dog dig. Dig dog.
- Yeah, yo diggy dog. (Shark Tale)

It could be argued that code, as I label it, does not belong to the area of CSs and many

scholars exclude it from cultural issues. I assume that in translatology, any area of research is

largely open to interpretation. The more it applies to CSs. As Franco Aixelá highlights in the

quote at the very beginning of the thesis, everything is culturally produced. Any language is

a culturally embedded means of dealing with the world. I decided to approach CSs in

a broader sense because plays with the code in the corpus films were enormously frequent and

fruitful, and it was interesting to observe how the individual subtitlers managed to produce

equivalent effects in the TL. Since the references classified in the category of code would be

otherwise omitted from the analysis (i.e. they would not be included in any other categories),

the inclusion of code does not skew the overall results of the research. On the contrary,

I believe that the data obtained from the observation of code enrich the corpus analysis.

4.6 Review of theoretical approaches and translational research in relation to AVT

In order to bring the problems of subtitling nearer to the reader, it seems appropriate to

me to introduce some essential concepts that have been made in the area of AVT. My

intention is not to give any extensive treatment of the research activities related to AVT but to

prepare a conceptual basis for the corpus analysis that follows in next chapter. There is no

hierarchy in my ordering of the research workers and their ideas.

 38
4.6.1 Venuti’s concept of translator’s invisibility

Lawrence Venuti’s idea of the invisibility of translator meant a crucial breakthrough in

AVT. He regards a translated text acceptable “when it reads fluently, when the absence of any

linguistic or stylistic peculiarities makes it seem transparent [...], the appearance, in other

words, that the translation is not in fact a translation, but the ‛original’” (Venuti 1995: 1).

There is no doubt that Venuti was influenced by Norman Shapiro whom he often quotes in his

work. Shapiro’s allusion of translation to a pane of glass is a well-known one: “A good

translation is like a pane of glass. You only notice that it’s there when there are little

imperfections [...] Ideally, there shouldn’t be any. It should never call attention to itself”

(ibid). The demand for translator’s invisibility is even more desired in subtitling than in any

other genre of translation.

4.6.2 Susan Bassnett: language as an intermediator of social reality

Bassnett argues that no two languages could represent the social reality in the same way.

Since language and culture are interrelated phenomena, translation process has to include not

only inter-linguistic but also extra-linguistic criteria. To illustrate her idea, she explains: “In

the same way that the surgeon, operating on the heart, cannot neglect the body that surrounds

it, so the translator treats the text in isolation from the culture at his peril” (Bassnett 1980: 14).

What is required in any translation is an equivalent effect. The demand for equivalence is

a general concept, shared for instance by Nida (and his idea of dynamic equivalence) and

Newmark. The latter however critically admits that even though the equivalence is a desirable

result of translation, it is hardly achievable if there is a pronounced cultural gap (Newmark

2004: 48).
 39
4.6.3 Levý’s minimax strategy

I suppose that the minimax strategy proposed by Jiří Levý has become a standard device

of subtitlers because it is exactly what they strive for – a maximal effect with a minimal

energy invested and a minimal number of words used.

4.6.4 Malinowski’s term context of situation

The importance of context is one of the essential aspects in AVT. Malinowski qualified

his context of situation as “the totality of the culture surrounding the act of text production

and reception”. His idea of translation from a remote culture was a translation with

commentary that introduces the particular social and cultural context (Malinowski, in Hatim

& Mason, 1997: 36-7). To give an example of the application of Malinowski’s idea in AVT,

subtitlers have to be able to differentiate between the films for adult and young audiences and

to accommodate the subtitles to the specific demands of each audience.

4.6.5 Newmark: key words, theatricality of dialogue

Newmark defines key words as “a conceptual term which covers a significant part or the

whole text, and which normally recurs several times” (Newmark 1993: 7). I think that

subtitling is also kind of a translation of “key words”.

Another idea that can be applied to AVT is Bednarz’s notion of theatricality in the

dialogue which Newmark refers to in his Paragraphs on Translation. The characteristics of

theatricality is mumbling, stuttering and other oral speech features that are used for different

purposes – to indicate confusion, drunkenness, embarrassment, hesitation, or physical

 40
handicap. As film is a kind of drama represented on the screen (in movie theaters), film’s

dialogues keep a lot of this theatricality.

4.6.6 Kovacic: translation as a decision-making process

To put it briefly, Kovacic argues that translators decide how to translate, what to translate

and what to left untranslated (Kovacic 1996: 297-305, in Schwarz 2002: online). This

decision-making is a process inherent to any translation and cannot be avoided.

4.6.7 Thompson’s concepts of translation exactitude and translation impression

Thompson points out that the longer the film is, the more the translation exactitude is

tiresome and difficult to follow in every detail for the audience. Thompson argues that in case

of long films it is better to use the “impression” technique that will diminish the number of

words the viewer must read. On the contrary, the shorter the film is, the more the subtitler

may choose the “exactitude” technique without risking audience fatigue (Thompson 2000:

online).

4.6.8 Hatim and Mason’s concept of translator as a cultural mediator

There is a general acceptance of Hatim and Mason’s notion of a translator as a cultural

mediator. Two general approaches that translators can have to the source text – they are either

SL-oriented or TL-oriented, in other words, they give priority to the authority of the text or to

the demands of the audience (Hatim & Mason, 1990: 223-4).

 41
4.6.9 Hajmohammadi’s viewer-oriented approach

Hajmohammadi criticizes the lack of attention to film audiences and suggests an approach

that would be more viewer-based. For instance, he points to a general tendency of subtitlers to

overestimate the audience’s reading speed. He argues that the frequent problem lies in the fact

that the supposed maximum reading speed of the viewer becomes the standard for subtitlers.

However, since many people cannot keep to such a pace, it results in semantic losses,

eyestrain and related tiredness of the audience (Hajmohammadi 2005: online).

4.7 Survey of particular translational strategies used in subtitling

The main objective of this section is to summarize in a synoptical way the common

strategies used in AVT and to underline those of them that can be applied to the translation of

CSs. The corpus study of the thesis will stem from the observations that are explained in this

section. After a general introduction to subtitling strategies a review of classifications

concerning translational techniques follows. I make reference to Gottlieb, Newmark, Vinay

and Darbelnet, Marco, and Tomaszkiewicz. The listing of the classifications is without any

hierarchy.

To start with, according to Wojtasiewicz, problems in translation can be summarized into

two main areas – either the target language does not have adequate structural means to

translate the expression of the source language; or it has not any corresponding expression to

that of the source language (Wojtasiewicz 1992: 30, in Tomaszkiewicz 2001: online). The

latter case is typically connected with the translation of CSs because it happens more often

than not that due to the non-existence of a particular cultural reality in the target culture, there

is no equivalent expression to be found. On the other hand, Newmark (2004: 103) emphasizes
 42
the role of the context and proposes several factors that the translator should keep in mind

when translating a cultural reference:

purpose of text

motivation and cultural, technical and linguistic level of readership

importance of referent in source language text

setting (whether a recognized translation exists)

recency of word/referent

Among the most frequently mentioned requirement in subtitling is to realize what target

audience the subtitles come for. As Schwarz argues, higher-educated people have better

reading skills and general knowledge. The subtitler, having this in mind, can opt for denser

subtitles, rich vocabulary and a more complex syntax. On the contrary, simpler or young

audiences require subtitles appropriate to their level of understanding (Schwarz 2002: online).

I suppose that the subtitler’s decision-making process is substantially determined by the

film itself because a similar process must have been previously in the mind of the

screenwriter and director of a particular film.

Before approaching particular concepts of translational strategies, I would like to draw

focus on terminological variation and inconsistencies that relate to them. I suppose that the

incongruous methodology derives from the enormous boom in AVT and a multitude of

concepts being created simultaneously in different parts of the worlds. Thus, behind different

terms lies the same idea. For instance, what is called neutralization in Newmark’s

classification and normalization in Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies is

conventionalization or sanitization in Chesterman’s terms and standardization for many other

people. Moreover, once the strategies are labelled, it is problematic to situate them in the
 43
foreignization/domestication spectrum since what seems to be foreignization from one point

of view becomes domestication from another one.

4.7.1 Gottlieb’s typology of TSs (1992: 161-170)

Gottlieb argues that the difficulty in translating cultural issues goes hand in hand with the

degree of their specificity and the distance between the source and the target culture. He

distinguishes ten strategies in reducing a text to subtitles: expansion, paraphrase, transfer,

imitation, transcription, dislocation, condensation, decimation, deletion, and resignation. With

Newmark’s typology that will follow in the next subsection, Gottlieb shares the terms

paraphrase, transfer, imitation and deletion. However, these terms may have different

connotations and may denote in fact different strategies. For instance, transfer in Gottlieb’s

terms is a technique consisting in a complete translation of the source text (literal translation).

It maintains information structure in terms of theme and rheme, cohesion and information

focus. Transference in Newmark’s terms is rather an emprunt, loan word, or transcription. On

the other hand, Gottlieb’s imitation, a strategy that maintains the same forms but

accommodates them to the target language (typically with names), stands for the same

concept as Newmark’s naturalization. I found Gottlieb’s typology suitable for classifying TSs

in general but not sufficient for labelling techniques used in translation of CSs.

4.7.2 Newmark’s typology of TSs (2004: 103)

Newmark’s typology appears to be the most fruitful one with a view to the analysis of the

corpus. As I will base the corpus analysis on this typology, let us look at it more thoroughly:

Transference: loan word, transcription (popcorn, jukebox)

 44

Cultural or functional equivalent: Cultural equivalent is an approximate

translation where a SL cultural word is translated by a TL cultural word. The

following example is taken from Shrek 2 (ODS):

The muffin man? - The Každý den přilétá až k nám.

muffin man. - Yes, I know
the muffin man, who lives
on Drury Lane? - Well, she's
married to the muffin man. -
The muffin man? - The
muffin man! - She's married
to the muffin man
- Včelka Mája? - Včelka
Mája. - Ano, naše
kamarádka včelka Mája. -
Máme jí co závidět? Výšku,
z které vidí svět. - Mája! -
Včelka Mája…

Functional equivalent is a common procedure applied to CSs, requires the use

of a culture-free word (it frequently neutralizes or generalizes the SL word):

Sejm → Polish parliament. In case of CSs, it often combines with transference

(couplet).

Neutralization (mackerel → fish)

Literal translation (an example from Shrek 2 – FS)

How do you explain Sergeant Tak jak vysvětlíš tady pana

Pompous and the Fancy Pants seržanta Pompézního a jeho
Club Band? kapelu pestrých kalhot?

Label: a provisional translation which should be made in inverted commas (ex:

Sartre’s play No Exit → “Bez východu”)

Naturalization (Kenya → Keňa)

Componential analysis: based on a component common to the SL and the TL

to which the extra distinguishing components are added

Deletion (especially metaphors and intensifiers; an example from Shark Tale –

FS)

May his stinking, maggot- Nechť jeho mrtvola

covered corpse rot in the shnije a zhoří v
fiery depths of hell. hlubinách pekla!
 45

Couplet: combines two translation procedures (an example from Madagascar –

ODS; couplet: transference + paraphrase)

How I have to compete with Shamu. Budu zachraňovat Shamu a nosit

And a smug little grin! tý kosatce kosatce.

Accepted standard translation: concerns typically institutional terms (WBA →

Světová boxerská asociace)

Classifier: A generic, general or superordinate term supplied by the translator

to qualify a specific term (Redondo → Redondo Beach)

Paraphrase, gloss, notes (an example from Pretty Woman – ODS):

Wherever did you find her? - Kdes k ní přišel? - Sehnal jsem

976-BABE. ji na telefon.

Newmark is reluctant to use the term “paraphrase” as a translation technique, since the

word often interchanges with a free translation. He accepts it when used in the sense

“amplification” or “explanation of the meaning”.

I decided to take Newmark’s typology as a framework for the corpus analysis. However,

I assume that it is important to mention right at the beginning that the fact that I proceed from

this typology does not mean that Newmark’s dozen types of strategies cover all the problems

in the AVT. I had to re-interpret subjectively quite a lot of things to be able to give

“objective” and consistent labels to particular translational processes used. I will come back to

this issue later on in the section “Corpus analysis”.

4.7.3 Vinay and Darbelnet’s typology of TSs (1977/1995, in Bogucki 2004: online)

Their classification ranges from the most semantic to the most communictive strategies.

They also introduce the concept of the dichotomy of obligatory and optional shifts. With
 46
Gottlieb and Newmark they share the concept of literal translation, transposition and

equivalence. I suppose that their term borrowing denotes the same concept as Newmark’s

transference (loan word). Moreover, they introduce the strategies labelled as calque (which

seems rather redundant to me if it stands for a literal loan-translation), modulation and

adaptation.

4.7.4 Marco’s typology of TSs (Marco 2002; in Oltra Ripoll 2005: online)

Marco is simplifying Newmark’s extensive classification based on the earlier

observations made by Vinay and Dalbernet (1958). To Newmark’s terms transference,

naturalization, neutralization, cultural equivalence Marco adds Vinay and Darbelnet’s

calque. Newmark’s paraphrase and notes Marco transforms into additional information.

However, due to time and place constraints related to subtitles, the technique of additional

information is practically inapplicable as a translation of CSs in subtitling. Furthermore,

Marco condenses the remaining strategies of Newmark and Gottlieb’s typology into the

categories of omission, substitution and combination. Nevertheless, I do not see his reasons to

do that. In my opinion, omission is the same as deletion, substitution by another cultural

reference equals cultural equivalence, and combination of more techniques denotes the same

idea as Newmark’s original couplet. I am afraid that it is nothing else than another rewording

of the old concepts.

4.7.5 Tomaskiewicz’s typology of TSs (2001: online)

The author introduces an additional sub-category called allusion to the “already known”.

Regarding the translation of CSs, Tomaszkiewicz suggest three types of TSs when the

translator faces the problem of transferring these issues: to find a cultural substitution for
 47
a CS; to keep the original expression and provide it with a supplementary explicitation; to

neutralize the CS (i.e. to replace it by a more general reference).

In connection with classifications of translation strategies, Nathalie Ramière highlights

that most of them keep to a general tendency to progress from the most exoticizing to the

most domesticating. The following table, taken from Ramière’s paper (Ramière 2006: online),

shows two poles of possible approaches to translation and the continuum between them.

transference/literal translation/explanation/cultural
borrowing calque gloss substitution

| | | |
<----------- ------------------- --------------------------------- ------------------------------ ------>
FOREIGNIZATION DOMESTICATION
Exoticism/exoticization Naturalization/assimilation
Foreign/exotic Familiar
Other Self
Source-culture bias Target-culture bias
Typical progression of procedures found in the literature.

The further to the left the strategy lies on the axis, the more exotically “accurate” and SL-

oriented the translation will seem; the further we go to the right side of the scale, the more our

translation will be TL-oriented, erasing the local colour of the original. The type of strategy

that the translator chooses has an impact on TL in terms of how they will perceive the SL.

According to Ramière’s paper, this seems to be a widely recognized opinion among scholars,

among them for instance Olk (2001), Jacquemond (1992) and Herrero (2000). At the same

time, scholars like Peter Cryle and Anthony Pym underline that the concepts of foreignization

and domestication can be only defined by virtue of one another and suggest their rather

mutual conditional character that is the opposite of the traditional dichotomic approach.

Furthermore, Ramière points out that the foreignization/domestication model does not

reflect the pragmatic realities of AVT. In her proper words, the taxonomies based on that
 48
model “cannot […] adequately capture the pragmatic complexity of cultural transfers in film”

(Ramière 2006: online).

All of the above-mentioned strategies are results of the subtitler’s prior thoughtful

consideration of many factors related both to the reality presented in a particular film and to

the extra-linguistic reality outside the film. In order to point out to the scope of the problems

related to translation of CSs, I would like to underline the list of the factors proposed by

Chaume (Chaume 1999: 215, in Oltra Ripoll 2005: online):

the position of the target culture

the cultural relation between the source and the target language

the cultural restrictions imposed on the translator by the target culture

the client’s intentions and requirements regarding the translation

the existing tradition in the target culture (text types, intertextuality)

the flexibility of the target culture

the linguistic policy of the target culture

To sum it up, it results from my observations that translatologists seem to agree on the

importance to know the target audience and on the use of such translational strategies that are

appropriate to a particular audience. If the circumstances enable cultural transfer, then the

scholars are in favour of using the foreignization strategies in order to mediate to the viewers

as direct contact with source culture as possible. Speaking more generally, they remind of

a need of a comprehensive understanding of a particular film, taking into account all its

aspects, before starting with creation of subtitles. However, what scholars preach does not

have to be exactly what subtitlers actually do.

 49
5 CORPUS ANALYSIS

[A]ll texts are shaped by the

particular aims for which they were
produced, the particular context in
which they were composed, and by
the particular readership to which
they are addressed.

(Pápai, in Translation Universals

2004:143)

The analysis of the corpus films constitutes the pivotal part of my thesis aimed at the

translation of CSs. As I had introduced the focus of the intended analysis in the initial

hypotheses, I pay a special interest to the comparison of CSs between the two subcorpora –

one subcorpus consisting of four animated films for children or a young audience, the other

being composed of three films destined for adult viewers. The data comparisons between

ODS and FS are meant as accompanying research into the area of subtitling CSs. In my

opinion, such a comparative survey discloses interesting differences between professional and

non-professional subtitlers, and explores the problems of CSs from another perspective.

I have analyzed the CSs that occur in the films according to various assessing criteria and

I have approached the corpus from the point of view of several additional evaluating

strategies. After that, I have compared the results from such an analysis of the individual films

within the particular subcorpus and then between the subcorpora. Subsequently I have

confronted the results found within ODS with the results acquired from FS. The analyses can

be found on an enclosed CD ROM.

 50
5.1 Introducing the corpus films

Before getting to the particular analyses and the findings resulting from them, I consider it

appropriate to introduce summarizing characteristics of the individual films. These

characteristics may shed light on the TSs that the subtitlers use.

5.1.1 Films for young audiences

All the films in this subcorpus were created after the year 2000 and all of them won the

ASCAP Award (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers Award) in the

category Top Box Office Films. They focus on young audiences but not on the very young

ones. I think that they can be more or less fully appreciated from the age of 10, definitely not

less. All of them draw the viewer into a colourfully animated, dynamic world where animals

speak and act as human beings. After various captivating peripeteia, their heroes finally find

their peace. Happy endings are understood. As to the plot lines, their level of difficulty is

similar. Although the films are aimed at a young viewer, they demand an increased attention.

Plenty of rapid actions and swift dialogues make the films particularly challenging for the

subtitlers. Moreover, the films feature many plays with the code. If all the oral elements were

kept in the subtitles, the viewers would have to read the films and there would be hardly any

time to watch them.

As regards the respective films in this subcorpus, I will proceed with introductory

comments on them in the alphabetical order. Madagascar, a film released in 2005, has won

a Blimp Award in the category of Favorite Animated Movie in the U.S. in 2006. It tells

a story of four animal friends (a lion, a zebra, a giraffe and a hippo) that live at New York’s

Central Park ZOO. When one of them disappears from the cage, the rest go to the human

world to find him. Accidentally, they found themselves altogether on a ship to Africa.
 51
However, after a shipwreck, they come to be on Madagascar and their adventure in the wild

begins. Compared to Shark Tale and Shrek 2, this film is slightly less rich in CSs.

The second film, Shark Tale, was introduced in 2004. To outline the plot of the film, it is

a story from a submarine world where a young confident fish Oscar pretends to be a great

shark slayer. He meets a shark called Lenny who is fortunately a vegetarian and tries to hide

this secret in fear of his father, a fearsome mafia boss of shark killers. In addition, Oscar loves

a fish named Angie but at the same time, attractive Lola spellbinds him and he has to realize

who matters more in his life. Finally, he admits that he is no shark slayer and he succeeds in

making peace between sharks and other residents of the reef. Beside other films from this

subcorpus, Shark Tale offers the liveliest action. The character of the dialogues, sophisticated

puns and a demanding vocabulary suggest that the film is intended for an older young

audience.

The last two films to introduce, Shrek (2001) and Shrek 2 (2004), represent a successful

tandem of films whose main heroes Shrek, Fiona, Donkey and Puss-in-Boots have found a lot

of fans among not only young viewers. Shrek 2 was nominated as Best Animated Feature

Film of the Year for the Oscar in 2005 and it received, apart from other prizes, the Hollywood

Film Award as the Animation of the Year. As to the plot summary, Shrek is an ogre who is

forced to set out on a journey to free Princess Fiona from the tower where she has been

imprisoned and where she has been waiting to be rescued by her Prince Charming. A spell has

been casted on her due to which she is a beautiful princess from dawn to dusk but at night, she

changes into an ogre. Shrek’s task is to bring Fiona to Lord Farquaad. However, Fiona falls in

love with Shrek and she marries him in the end. The spell is broken and Fiona becomes a true

ogre. In Shrek 2, Fiona and Shrek visit Fiona’s parents and their further adventures begin.

Mother Fletcher, the Fairy Godmother, wants Fiona to marry his son, Prince Charming. Shrek

and his companions have to fight against her spells and gain recognition from Fiona’s parents.
 52

5.1.2 Films for adult audiences

The subcorpus with the films for adult audiences features three films from different

directors and of different genres – Anything Else (2003), Pretty Woman (1990), and Pulp

Fiction (1994). As it can be observed, two of these films were shot in the early 1990s, which

may have been reflected in the use of more domesticative TSs by the Czech subtitlers since at

that time, the public in our country had a more limited knowledge of American culture than it

has now. However, as far as I know these films were subtitled only much later and that is why

the tendency to domesticate CSs can be noticed only in their dubbed versions.

All the films are cinema feature films and all of them introduce a kind of specific world

with their distinct characters. In Anything Else we meet an ageing eccentric professor Dobel

who is very talkative and expresses himself by means of bizarre scholarly expressions. In

Pretty Woman we are confronted with the story of a prostitute whose juicy mode of

expression reminds of Eliza Doolittle from Pygmalion. Finally, in Pulp Fiction we descend

into L.A. underworld where drug-peddlers and their hit men square accounts with the

unwelcome.

Neither of the films economizes on CSs. On the contrary, a wide supply of cultural issues

is characteristic for any of these films. In comparison with other films of the subcorpus, Pulp

Fiction offers the most gripping action accompanied with informal English. However, the

register in the rest of the films is substantially informal as well. Only the romance Pretty

Woman has a happy conclusion. The endings in the rest of the films are open to interpretation.

As regards the individual films, Anything Else could be characterized as another “typical”

film from Woody Allen’s production. Woody Allen’s film scripts represent quite a specific

type of texts. They are extremely talkative, use colloquial English, very long complex

sentences, and lavish in frequent repetitions due to a sort of spontaneous speech and
 53
improvisations. The genre of Anything Else fluctuates somewhere between comedy, drama

and romance. It is a film about relationships. Set in contemporary New York, it unfolds the

story of an older guy Dobel and his young protégé Jerry. Jerry meets a disorganized girl

Amanda and his troubles with love begin. In total, it is a messy, hilarious spectacle.

To continue, Pretty Woman is such a notorious film that it would be a waste of time to

introduce the basic facts about it. I suppose that any reworking of the old myth of Cinderella

who finally escapes from her unhappy living conditions and finds the man of her dreams is

always functional – at least with female spectators. Apart from the romantic plotline, the film

offers interesting CSs related to both the “cream of the society” (represented by Edward Louis

and his companions) and Hollywood “underclass” (impersonated by the prostitute Vivian and

her colleagues).

The harsh reality of the underworld theme emerges in Pulp Fiction. Quentin Tarantino’s

crime won an Oscar for the best screenplay in 1995. With its rough humour and bloody

scenes, it has become a legendary movie. It offers fresh, spontaneous dialogues and a great

number of CSs related to food and infrastructure. The film structure does not observe

a chronological order. The viewer has to put the story together from flashbacks and flash-

forwards. There is no feature character in the film but rather several couples of characters

whose lives intersect. The plotline is quite complicated and I think that it is no use to explain

it here fully.

5.2 Overall notes on the professional subtitlers and brief characteristics of their subtitles

Every professional translator or subtitler has its characteristic style. By preferring some

TSs to others and by using his or her particular modes of expression, the subtitler is often

recognizable after a closer examination of the translated text. Although professional

 54
translators strive for being invisible, some alteration of the source text is unavoidable in

translation and the translators shine through the text – some of them more, some less. I think

that such a shining through does not have to connote a negative interference in the text. If

a translator is creative and his or her skills reflected in the translation benefit the translated

text, then I would compare it to a text transcribed in a beautiful handwriting. The following

comments are intended as an introductory survey of the subtitlers that made the Czech

versions of the corpus films.

5.2.1 Vojtěch Kostiha (the subtitler of Madagascar)

Vojtěch Kostiha is a graduate of the Prague School of Economics. Since his scholarship

in the U.S. in 1988, he has worked as English lector, translator and interpreter. He had worked

as an assurance and business advisory assistant in Andersen Company and as a project

manager in Controller-Institute. He is currently consultant of software localizations in SDP

CZ Company.

As to his translation of Madagascar dialogues, I found it extremely successful. In my

opinion, Kostiha has managed to transform the SL comic in an effective way for a young

Czech audience. He uses funny exclamations and comes with inventive solutions to cultural

puns. His subtitles are consistent and compact – not too wordy, not too brief. It is a pleasure

to read them.

5.2.2 Zbyněk Ryba (the subtitler of Shark Tale)

Zbyněk Ryba is a recognized film subtitler and translator. He began with translating in the

early 1990s. Among the films that he has subtitled is for instance Spider Man 2 or Ice Age.

The list of books that he translated into Czech comprises Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by
 55
Hunter S. Thompson, Ransom by Jay Mac Inerney or Mother Night by Kurt Vonnegut. From

his subtitles to Shark Tale, it is obvious that Ryba is a translator who is quality minded and

who guards his excellent reputation in the field. The characteristics that I have just used for

Vojtěch Kostiha applies to him as well. I think that Ryba’s subtitles are thorough,

professionally creative and fitting.

5.2.3 František Fuka (the subtitler of Shrek)

František Fuka is a translator in his late thirties who has a lot of drive. He writes film

reviews for Cinema and an internet newsreel called FFFILM. He takes care of the Czech Film

Webring Mailing List. In comparison with two preceding subtitlers of the films for a young

viewer, Fuka’s subtitles do not lag behind them in either quality or creativity. It is a pity that

the occurrence of CSs in Shrek is considerably lower than in the rest of the films.

5.2.4 Nikola Bruder (the subtitler of Shrek 2)

I have not succeeded in finding any information about this subtitler apart from the fact

that two years after Shrek 2 he made Czech subtitles to another feature film for children called

The Wild [Divočina; 2006]. Judging by his subtitles, he gives the impression of an

experienced translator who manages all the translational traps in Shrek 2 without any

difficulties. Without any intention to magnify the young audience films subtitlers, Bruder

confirms the professionalism that characterizes them. It is evident that Bruder has a perfect

knowledge of English and that he is able to transfer its fairy-tale language to the Czech

viewership with as little semantic loss as possible. I would say that his treatment of the play

with words even exceeds the previous subtitlers.

 56

5.2.5 Dana Hábová (the subtitler of Anything Else)

Interpreter and translator from English, Dana Hábová is widely regarded as an expert in

the field. She was born in 1951. She is interested in translating American prose and theatre

plays. In film subtitling, she focuses on Woody Allen’s films. She has translated more than

twenty books in Czech, among them books by Woody Allen, Angela Carter and Sam

Shephard. The overall tendency in Hábová’s subtitles is the breaking up of long sentences, the

use of more explicit cohesion markers and additive connectives, the tendency to normalize

(standardize) the expressions that the Czech viewer would be probably unfamiliar with, and

the omission of redundant and repetitive words or expressions that are clear enough from the

context.

As to CSs, Hábová translates them methodically and do not omit them. In order to

transform Woody Allen’s swift dialogues – that are difficult to follow even in the original –

into a written text, Hábová has to be more concise than the subtitlers in other films from the

corpus are, and to load them with as much information as possible at the same time. In my

opinion, she succeeds. Taking into account the difficulty of Anything Else dialogues, her

easy-to-survey subtitles are worth it.

5.2.6 Unknown professional subtitler of Pretty Woman

The film Pretty Woman had been distributed in our country by Interama. Daniela

Margoliusová made the translation for a dubbed version. Unfortunately, I do not know the

author of the official DVD subtitles to this film. It is possible that Margoliusová created the

subtitles to this film as well but it is only my personal, unconfirmed hypothesis. Compared to

the rest of the corpus ODS, there is a slight difference in quality. Their author is less

consistent in the translation of foreign issues. He or she resolves many CSs via transference.
 57
When a problematic expression occurs, the subtitler often neutralizes or omits it as if he or

she was too indolent to find an appropriate cultural equivalent for the Czech viewer.

However, the overall make-up of the subtitles is acceptable and after all, there is still

a perceptible qualitative gap between these subtitles and FS.

5.2.7 Petr Čemus (the subtitler of Pulp Fiction)

As in the case of the previous film, Petr Čemus is a subtitler that stays, metaphorically

speaking, under the seal of secrecy. Nevertheless, his subtitles proves that Čemus has to be an

accomplished translator. I have not discovered any mistranslations in his subtitles. It seems to

me that Čemus did find the right proportion between the explicitation and implicitation. He

also managed to transfer the colloquial register and the overall tone of Tarantino’s spectacle

into the Czech cultural environment. If I were to compare his subtitles to Italian cuisine, they

would be al dente.

5.3 Overall notes on the non-professional subtitles

As it will further follow from the commentary on the corpus analysis, the non-professional

subtitles differ from the professional ones, and this is evident even for a laic. Their poor-

quality make-up may not be apparent to an audience with a limited knowledge of English –

not so to anybody who understands the original dialogues. The translational deficiencies

concern all the discursive levels, from lexical elements and sentence structure, up to stylistic

devices. Frequent spelling errors and the occasionally unclear typographic organization of the

text lessen the value of these FS even more and make them visually unfriendly. Their
 58
accuracy is unstable. CSs are more often than not neutralized. Most of the FS have one thing

in common – the relatively high frequency of Czech idiomatic constructions.

5.4 Primary assessments – specifications of Newmark’s translational strategies

As I have stated earlier in the text, I analyze the translations of the corpus CSs according

to Newmark’s typology of TSs (see p.40). Primary assessments is a designation that I use in

the corpus analysis as an overall label for Newmark’s TSs in order to distinguish them from

the additional evaluating criteria. I call those additional translational evaluations secondary

assessments (see the section 5.5).

Newmark’s typology brings forward twelve TSs that seem to cover a wide spectrum of

translational shifts. The problem with transformation of a SL text into a TL text is that many

processes are complex and resist such an easy classification. In reality, translators frequently

combine these simplifying labels, which results in a kind of mixed “cocktails” of TSs. One

strategy relates to another. That is why the classifications of TSs made in the corpus analysis

delineate more or less artificial borders between them, and to a certain extent, they inevitably

distort the reality. Let alone the reviewer’s subjectivity and his or her possible

misclassifications. In this respect, I have to point out that what I classify as a particular CS or

TS, somebody else could possibly classify as a different CS or TS. In the next subsections,

I feature some of the correlations between particular TSs that I observed during the corpus

analysis.
 59

5.4.1 Neutralization versus Paraphrase versus Free Translation

In the analysis, I have noticed the thin boundary between the strategies of neutralization

and paraphrase. In my opinion, their correspondence is not accidental. Let us have a look at

the following examples taken from Madagascar:

What you gotta do, is you go Musíš jít zpátky po Západní

straight back down West End 42. It's dvaačtyřicáté... a budeš to mít po
now on your left after Vander levém kopytu. U špičatýho
building. You hit the Chrysler mrakodrapu jsi už moc daleko.
building, you've gone too far.

Concerning the first CS, the subtitler deleted it (because he probably found it too vague for

a young Czech viewer), replaced it with a neutralizing paraphrase po levém kopytu and thus

compensated the semantic loss by using an idiomatic expression. I suppose that it cannot be

classified as a pure neutralization since it exceeds the “generic” boundary of the original

reference – Vander building is a special kind of building but the meaning of building does not

appear in the Czech translation. It would be neutralization if it were translated as …a bude to

nalevo za tím věžákem... In this sense, I think that it could be also judged as a free translation.

However, the label free translation is very inexplicit and I can understand Newmark’s

resistance to employ this term in his typology of TSs.

As to the second CS, the translation keeps the meaning of building but paraphrases the

proper name Chrysler with the Czech word špičatý (mrakodrap). At the same time, it

neutralizes the expression Chrysler by using a general descriptive adjective. The semantic

loss is not fully compensated in this case.

Another example of what I classify as paraphrase/neutralization may be found in Shrek 2:

And oh, what the hey! Have a A pak ještě, hej, dobrou
bichon frisé! frizúru měj!
 60
Bichon frisé is a French expression that probably refers to a cute young man with curly hair.

Nikola Bruder’s translation keeps the word frisé in the Czech expression frizúra, although this

borrowed word got a slightly different meaning in Czech. Thus, the original bichon frisé is

paraphrased by a single word, which is more accessible to a Czech viewer. At the same time,

the allusion to a cute young man is neutralized. I suppose that it cannot be viewed as

a deletion because what has been deleted is not a word but only its connotations. Again,

I think that the non-committal label of free translation could apply to this TS as well. In the

corpus analysis, I try to avoid these “double” or “triple” labels as much as possible by judging

each treatment of a CS individually and highlighting the predominant translational approach.

5.4.2 AST versus Transference

Accepted standard translation or AST concerns primarily institutional terms, and in

general, it applies to any reference that has a long-established translational equivalent in the

TL. To give some examples from Shrek 2, the technique of AST has been used in case of the

names of fairy-tale creatures that Czech children know in their mother tongue quite well:

Cinderella → Popelka, Snow White → Sněhurka, Sleeping Beauty → Šípková Růženka etc.

A problem arises if there is an established translation of a particular CS in the TL that is

identical in form with the SL expression. This is the case of all the loan words that have been

simply transferred from the SL. In the corpus analysis, this AST-transference ambiguity

relates particularly to geographical items, for instance Manhattan → Manhattan, Los Angeles

→ Los Angeles, or Hollywood → Hollywood.

This applies to all the proper names in general that tend to be transferred even though they

could be frequently replaced by similar cultural equivalents (Jerry → Jiří). To simplify the

analysis, I treat these issues as transferences. In addition, I would like to call attention to
 61
a possible terminological discrepancy that regards the term transference. In Gottlieb’s sense,

transfer is regarded rather as a literal translation (see p.43). However, the term literal

translation is among those treated differently by different translators. I use the term

transference in the sense of a TS that keeps both the meaning and the form of the SL

expression, which is, as I hope, in conformity with Newmark’s conception.

5.4.3 Naturalization versus AST

This problem relates to the previous one. Naturalization, strange as it may seem, does not

have to be linked with domestication at all. It concerns more the form than the meaning. In

Newmark’s sense, it is an adaptation of a term into the morphology of the TL (football →

fotbal). It mainly concerns translation of names, like Yolanda → Jolanda, McDonald’s →

McDonald, or Billie Holliday → Billie Hollidayová. I suppose that we cannot label it as

domestication since it keeps the original CS and only accommodates it for the Czech language

conditions. That is why I think it is more a foreignizating TS than a domesticating one. In

case of common “intercultural” CSs, their naturalizations often merge with AST. To make the

corpus analysis simpler, I treat them generally as naturalizations.

5.4.4 Cultural versus Functional Equivalent

Briefly, although Newmark distinguishes cultural and functional equivalent as two

different TSs, these categories in fact overlap. Let us take an illustrative example from

Madagascar:

In fact I'll be here for my whole life Vlastně tady budu celý život. 365
days a year, including Christmas, dní v roce včetně Vánoc,
Hanaka, Helloween and Kwaanza! Dušiček, Velikonoc a Hromnic.
 62
In my opinion, all the three CSs have been translated with the cultural equivalent technique.

Czech children would probably have difficulties with understanding them if they were to be

left unchanged. However, as these transformations fulfil the equivalent functions in the TL, I

think we can treat them as functional equivalents as well. To save time and place in the

analysis, I merge these two kinds of equivalents into one label – cultural equivalent because it

seems to me that the cultural component overweighs the functional one.

To sum it up, there seem to be a number of borderline cases among the translational

solutions that the subtitlers have come with in treating CSs in the analyzed films. The

correlations between particular TSs are of a complex character. That is why I found it

appropriate to employ the secondary assessing criteria. I believe that they support the

evaluation made according to Newmark’s typology of TSs and highlight the complexity of the

changes that happen in translation.

5.5 Secondary assessments

I include the following criteria among secondary assessments: explicitation,

implicitation, explicitation/implicitation, foreignization, and domestication. In the corpus

analysis, I abbreviate them as E, I, E/I, F, and D respectively. In comparison with Newmark’s

TSs, they explain the translational process only partially, each time from a very specific point

of view. That is why I have not mixed them together with Newmark’s TSs. Due to their

supportive evaluating function, I give them the label secondary assessments.

I would like to emphasize the fact that these assessments are not incompatible with

primary assessments. On the contrary, they often combine with one another because there are

close connections among them. In fact, they describe the same operation from a different
 63
viewpoint. In other words, they represent another suite of translation evaluating methods. Let

us look at each of them individually.

5.5.1 Explicitation

According to Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, explicitation is “the

technique of making explicit in the target text information that is implicit in the source text”

(2001: 80). It belongs among the common TSs. To give an example from the corpus, let us

have a look at a Shark Tale CS:

I’ve got to go. The show’s on! Musím jít. Dávají Milionáře!

In the SL, we do not know what kind of show the speaker has in mind and there is equally no

hint offered by the visual part of the film. The subtitler explicitates the meaning of the

reference by concretizing the kind of the show.

As it will follow from further observations, explicitation is related to domestication,

and concerning the primary assessments, it often accompanies cultural equivalent:

Hey, a sewer rat may taste like Krysa z kanálu třeba chutná jako
pumpkin pie… jahody…

(Pulp Fiction)

5.5.2 Implicitation

Speaking in a simplifying way, implicitation can be considered as a functional counterpart

of explicitation. The fact that things are not so easy will be clarified in the next section. A nice

illustration of implicitation can be found in Anything Else:

He should be pushing a Měl by někde v krámě věšet

rack on Seventh Avenue. šaty na stojany!
 64
The Czech translation of Seventh Avenue as někde conceals the fact that the original

expression concerns a particular street in New York City. It implicitates the information by

transforming it into a neutralized adverbial.

5.5.3 Explicitation/Implicitation

As I had already suggested, explicitation and implicitation can be very tricky categories.

Problems arise when the translator transforms a particular CS into a kind of normalized

generalization, like in the following example from Shrek 2:

You know, you didn't exactly Nepřipravil jsi mu právě

roll out the Welcome Wagon. nejvřelejší uvítání.

The Welcome Wagon is a Canadian organization whose mission is to greet new homeowners

as they relocate. As there is no analogy to such an institution in the Czech environment, the

subtitler opted for paraphrasing it as nejvřelejší uvítání. He explicitates the concept that lies

behind the metaphorical use of the Welcome Wagon, and at the same time, he implicitates

that the speaker was getting at this particular company. In my opinion, this is a typical

situation when we come to be at a dead point between implicitation and explicitation and we

cannot incline to either of the two poles. The corpus analysis shows that

explicitation/implicitation dilemma occurs quite often in the studied films.

5.5.4 Foreignization

I have explained the notions of foreignization and domestication in the section 2.4. We

have to realize that foreignization and domestication are not translational techniques in the

true sense of the word; it would me more appropriate to speak about approaches to

translation. They do not stand as categories with fixed boundaries. They represent the
 65
opposite extremities of one translational spectrum. To delineate the exact point where

foreignization ends and domestication begins can be a very tricky task.

What I would like to clarify here are the factors that have to be taken into consideration

before we can classify a particular TS as foreignization. To my surprise, foreignization has

turned out to be an assessment that is difficult to define. It depends on a couple of variables.

First, our critical evaluation whether some translation is or is not an instance of foreignization

must be based on the audience’s degree of familiarity with a particular CS. Second, we have

to assess the degree of explanation that the translator used and its appropriateness as well.

Let us have a look at an example from Madagascar:

What's the fastest way to Grand Znáš nejkratší cestu na Hlavní

Central? - You should take nádraží? - Musíte po
Lexington. Lexington…

Lexington is a street in New York. Despite the fact that it is clear from the context that it is

a street, the subtitler transfers the CS without any explanation to a young Czech audience. The

degree of familiarity of this audience with the word Lexington is probably very low or zero.

That is why I would treat it as foreignization.

The next example introduces a different situation (Pulp Fiction):

Still got your Malibu? Pořád jezdíš v tom Malibu?

This is another case when the subtitler uses transference. However, I would not give it

a foreignizing label. We have to take into account the character of the audience – it is an adult

audience and one can expect that largely male one. Every man who has ever driven a car

knows what a Malibu is. By explicitating the verb in the sentence (have got → jezdit), the

subtitler moreover suggests for the slow-witted that it is a vehicle. That is why I think it is not

foreignization and I do not treat issues of this kind as foreignizations in the analysis either.
 66
5.5.5 Domestication

To recapitulate what the term domestication indicates, it is an overall translational

approach that highlights the target culture recipient. It erases the foreignness of the SL text in

order to make it intelligible for the TL reader. In a sense, domestication is a natural and, to

a certain extent, inevitable procedure in any translation. There are plenty of examples of

domestication in films for young audiences. For instance in Shrek:

He huffed and he puffed and Seděli jsme v domečku,

he… signed an eviction vařili kašičku... a teď jsou z
notice. nás bezdomovci.

You know what else Víš, co má každej rád?

everybody likes? Parfaits. Tiramisu! To neodmítne
Have you ever met a person, nikdo. Tiramisu je skvělý!
you say, “Let's get some
parfait,” they say, “Hell no, I
don't like no parfait”?
Parfaits are delicious.

It results from the character of foreignization and domestication that they are umbrella

approaches that are intrinsically implied in some TSs in the true sense of the word, while they

are incompatible with other techniques that are nearer to the opposite end of the spectrum.

I include foreignization and domestication in the secondary assessment criteria of the

translation of CSs in order to illustrate differing approaches between the Czech translators

who translate for an adult audience and those who translate for a young one. Being aware of

an intrinsic presence or an absence of foreignization/domestication in a particular TS,

I highlight them as two separate categories to call attention to them.

 67
5.6 Analyses

Having introduced the general characteristics of both the subcorpora and of the individual

films as well, and having discussed the assessing system used in the corpus analysis, we can

now approach the analysis itself and observe interesting findings that result from it. I have

analyzed seven above-mentioned films according to the principles commented in the

preceding chapters. Keeping to the aligned TL and SL extracts of the CSs occurrences (see

the CD-ROM), I have made a list of the CSs found in these films and the TSs that the

subtitlers used in transforming these issues to the TL. I have made comparative tables of the

analyzed data and focused on data comparison between the films for young audiences and for

adult audiences. In order to make the comments on the data clear, I incorporate only selected

summarized tables into the text. The portfolio of all the tables can be found on an enclosed

CD ROM. In the sections set out below, I proceed according to the ordering of the tables in

the electronic file and I comment on the findings that can be deduced from the tables.

5.6.1 Culture-specifics distribution (see Tab. 1)

As it follows from the data in the tables, the total number of CSs that I have discovered in

the films is the following: 195 in the films for young audiences (from now on “Young films”

in order to save place); 301,5 falling to the films for adult audiences (“Adult films”); which

means 496 in the whole corpus. If compared, this means that there is less by third CSs in

Young films than in Adult films. Taking into account the approximately same lengths of the

films, we may conclude that the occurrence of CSs in Adult films is considerably higher than

in Young films. More so that there have been in fact four Young films analyzed – if Shrek and

Shrek 2 are to be weighed as two full films – against three Adult films. Within Adult films,

the most CSs occur in Anything Else (122), which is twice as much as in Pretty Woman (68).
 68
As to Young films, the richest film in CSs is Shark Tale (66,5) – half as much than the winner

among Adult films. These facts confirm the hypothesis that Adult films are generally more

abundant in CSs than Young films.

To continue, let us look at the following summarizing table:

Descending order Adult % Descending order Young % Descending order All %

Material culture 24,9% Code 22,6% Material culture 21,5%
Infrastructure 24,5% Material culture 16,2% Infrastructure 21,1%
Icon 14,1% Ideological item 14,6% Code 11,7%
Geographical item 13,9% Infrastructure 11,8% Ideological item 11,5%
Ideological item 9,5% Nature 10,3% Icon 10,2%
Code 4,6% Arts and literature 9,5% Geographical item 10,0%
Arts and literature 3,8% Geographical item 7,9% Arts and literature 6,0%
Historical item 1,7% Icon 4,1% Nature 4,4%
Social item 1,5% Social item 1,5% Historical item 1,6%
Activities 0,8% Historical item 1,5% Social item 1,5%
Nature 0,7% Activities 0,0% Activities 0,5%
Total number of CSs 301,5 195 496,5

The CSs labelled as material culture constitute almost 25% from the total number of CSs

found in Adult films. In close succession follow the CSs related to infrastructure (24,5%).

Distribution of CSs in Young films is slightly different – in the first place reigns code (with a

percentage ratio similar to the first placed CS in Adult films), followed by material culture

and ideological items. The difference in these results may be influenced by the fact that the

percentages come from different numbers of CSs. The smaller the number is, the more the

percentage results are inevitably distorted. In other words, the findings resulting from Young

films are less credible since they are based on a smaller number of CSs. Nevertheless,

material culture presented in top positions in both the subcorpora indicates that this type of

a CS occurs regularly and very frequently in all the films, regardless of the audience that the

films aim at.

As to the high frequency of code in Young films, I suppose that the extra playful

character of the films conditions it. Plays with code, particularly with rhyme, animate Young
 69
films in a similar way icons and infrastructure do in Adult films. Speaking about

infrastructure, the results confirm a higher employment of this category of CSs in Adult

films. I think that it reflects a higher level of knowledge of the surrounding world among

adult audiences and their ability to process this kind of information adequately. Similarly,

geographical items are more frequent in Adult films, which in my opinion mirror the fact that

in comparison with children, grown-ups are much-travelled men – even if it were only by

their fingers on maps.

Among the generally least employed types of CSs in all the films are activities, social

items and historical items. Their percentages are so insignificant as if 2% from the total

number of CSs were their common “glass ceiling”. Finally, I would like to point out to

a striking difference between Adult and Young films in the usage of icons (the third versus

the eight place in the ranking). I suppose that it can bear on the fact that people usually do not

get allured so much by cult figures until they are teenagers. Children’s awareness of the icons

from mass culture is limited and icons are not so important to them. I believe that is why the

filmmakers do not focus on these issues in Young films.

5.6.2 Culture-specifics subtypes (see Tab. 2)

In general, material culture and infrastructure are the two prominent types of CSs in the

corpus. Their participations in the overall number of CSs exceed 20%. Table 2 shows the

individual subtypes of CSs observed in the films. Concerning the material culture, the clear-

cut victory in both the subcorpora belongs to food and beverages. In Adult films, vehicles

constitute another important subtype of this CS. If we look at infrastructure, we will find out

that among the dominant elements are institutions and organizations. In addition, the subtype

called part of a city is a silver medallist in infrastructure within Adult films. Comparing
 70
Young films with Adult ones, their overall amount of material culture is only half as large

and infrastructure only quarter as large.

Within icons (that were quite plentiful in Adult films) prevail actors and singers. In

geographical items, it is an unequivocal triumph of the subtype named city. I found it

interesting that within ideological items, the order of the three most applied CSs is identical in

both the subcorpora. It comprises concepts, feasts and sayings. References to natural

phenomena mostly relate to Young films, Shark Tale in particular. I assume that this nature-

culture dichotomy resulting from the CSs analysis of Young and Adult films may reflect the

general contrast between children’s world and the world of grown-ups.

My last comment that will conclude this section regards the category of code. A third

language participates in both the subcorpora to an equal extent. It concerns mainly the

Spanish language. The observations show that third language is a popular device that

filmmakers employ to put another sparkle of foreignness into their films. In the corpus

analysis, code represents the only type of a CS in which Young films defeated Adult films

(44% versus 14%).

5.6.3 Translational strategies overview (see Tab. 3)

5.6.3.1 ODS

Descending order Adult ODS % Descending order Young ODS % Descending order All ODS %
Transference 36,0% CE 29,2% Transference 25,9%
Neutralization 19,5% Neutralization 17,7% Neutralization 18,8%
Naturalization 11,8% Paraphrase 13,1% CE 15,5%
AST 10,2% AST 12,3% AST 11,0%
CE 6,5% Transference 10,3% Naturalization 9,6%
Deletion 5,7% Naturalization 6,2% Paraphrase 8,4%
Paraphrase 5,3% Deletion 4,6% Deletion 5,3%
Couplet 3,0% Free translation 3,6% Couplet 2,6%
Free translation 1,3% Couplet 2,1% Free translation 2,2%
Literal translation 0,7% Literal translation 0,5% Literal translation 0,6%
Label 0,0% Mistranslation 0,5% Mistranslation 0,2%
Mistranslation 0,0% Label 0,0% Label 0,0%
From the total number of TSs 301,5 195,0 496,5
 71
This is a summarized table of the TSs used in the corpus by the professional subtitlers.

(For the detailed analyses of the particular films see the CD-ROM.) Neutralization appears in

both the subcorpora among the three top TSs and its percentages are roughly the same. It

suggests that neutralization is one of the most favourite TSs applied to CSs in general. The

main difference between Adult and Young films is that the subtitlers of Adult films prefer

transference as the feature TS (36%), while subtitlers of Young films prefer cultural

equivalent (29,2%). It reflects the fact that young audiences need more explanation of cultural

issues or their higher domestication in view of the fact that cultural equivalents are usually

connected with domestication (see Additional analyses). As to the TSs featured in the third

place, they concern naturalization in Adult films and paraphrase in Young films. Since

naturalization often means a foreignizing strategy at the same time, and paraphrase, on the

contrary, usually a domesticative tendency, we may conclude that these TSs conform to the

hypothesis that Adult films favour the SL culture unlike Young films that favour the TL

culture.

Regarding Adult films more comprehensively, we can observe a strong position of

neutralization (around 20%) in all the films and a prevalence of transference (around 40%) in

two of the films (Pretty Woman and Pulp Fiction). In addition, we can notice the important

role of naturalization in Anything Else (17,9%). The distribution of TSs that have not been

used at all or only to a minimal extent is roughly the same in all the films. The zero

percentage concerns the TSs of label, literal translation, and free translation. As to

mistranslation, there has not been any in ODS.

To come to Young films commentary, the employment of cultural equivalent prevails in

each of the films and its percentage rate is in the region of 23% to 40%. The percentages are

not as balanced as the percentages of the feature TS (neutralization) in Adult films. However,

I suppose that the span between the figures results from the dissimilar character of CSs in the
 72
individual Young films. Another TS that all the subtitlers of Young films favour is

neutralization. Again, the rate of employment of this TS is more or less equal in all the films –

it ranges from 15% to 20%. Moreover, there is a high occurrence of naturalization (17,5%) in

Shark Tale. I would like to emphasize that naturalization does not have to suggest

a domesticative approach.

Concerning AST strategy, its relatively frequent usage (often around 10%) should not be

regarded as a manifestation of the subtitler’s preference but rather as his only possibility

because he has to take into account the established standard translation of a CS if there is

such. The high occurrence of AST among the TSs speaks more about the character of CSs

than about the way the translators prefer to treat the SL. Finally, the rarely used TSs in Young

films perfectly correspond with those in Adult films.

5.6.3.2 FS

Descending order Adult FS % Descending order Young FS % Descending order All FS %

Transference 40,4% Neutralization 27,3% Transference 30,2%
Neutralization 13,6% Transference 14,7% Neutralization 19,0%
Naturalization 10,1% CE 13,9% CE 9,9%
AST 8,8% Deletion 10,3% Naturalization 9,6%
CE 7,2% AST 9,3% AST 9,0%
Paraphrase 7,1% Naturalization 8,8% Deletion 7,7%
Deletion 6,1% Free translation 6,2% Paraphrase 6,6%
Literal translation 3,0% Paraphrase 5,9% Free translation 3,3%
Couplet 2,0% Mistranslation 1,5% Literal translation 2,2%
Free translation 1,3% Couplet 1,0% Couplet 1,6%
Label 0,3% Literal translation 1,0% Mistranslation 0,6%
Mistranslation 0,0% Label 0,0% Label 0,2%
From the total number of TSs 301,5 195 496,5

The general look at the data concerning translational strategies in Adult films in ODS and

FS reveals that the three top TSs correspond in both kinds of subtitles. Even the percentages

of the first and the third placed TSs almost match. In the three strategies preferred by the non-

professional subtitlers of Young films, there is only one that conforms to the ODS findings –

neutralization (27,3%). However, if we compare the overall use of strategies in ODS and in
 73
FS, we will find the same strategies in the first places – transference, neutralization and

cultural equivalent.

To comment on Adult films, free subtitlers (similarly as the professional subtitlers) most

often utilize the technique of transference (around 40% in average). They equally make use of

neutralization (10-16%). The distribution of these particular TSs is approximately the same in

each of the Adult films. Furthermore, there is a high employment of naturalization (around

13%) in two of the films (Anything Else and Pretty Woman), which also corresponds with the

increased usage of this strategy in ODS to these films. Nevertheless, the resembling results

between ODS and FS related to the employment of TSs may be influenced by the fact that the

non-professional subtitlers sometimes draw inspiration from the professionals. I do not say it

is a rule but it happens. I presume that it is the case of the FS to Pulp Fiction that in my

opinion grab the ODS made by Petr Čemus. Among the rarely used or not used at all TSs

figure the same types of strategies as in ODS.

Coming to Young films FS, we can notice that there are bigger differences between ODS

and FS to these films than between ODS and FS to Adult films. As compared with Young

films ODS, the predominating translational strategy in FS is not cultural equivalent but

neutralization (20-35%). Cultural equivalent takes the third place in the list and with its 13,9%

it has been only half as much used than in ODS (29,2%). These differing results reflect the

free subtitlers’ overall tendency to simplify the CSs into neutral expressions, keeping usually

only their basic meanings and leaving out their other connotations. What the non-professional

subtitlers use as an alternative to cultural equivalent is transference, which takes the second

place in the descending ordering of TSs (14,7%). I suppose that the frequent employment of

transference is not because the free subtitlers put stress on the SL culture but rather that they

foreignize the translation because they need to translate the films quickly and do not want to

waste their time in paying attention to the appropriate translation of CSs.

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5.6.3.3 Data comparison: ODS versus FS

To sum it up, let us have a look at the following comparative table showing the strategies

ranked in a descendent order according to their employment in the films (see Tab.3c):

TS Adult ODS Adult FS Young ODS Young FS All ODS All FS

1 Transference Transference CE Neutralization Transference Transference
2 Neutralization Neutralization Neutralization Transference Neutralization Neutralization
3 Naturalization Naturalization Paraphrase CE CE CE
4 AST AST AST Deletion AST Naturalization
5 CE CE Transference AST Naturalization AST
6 Deletion Paraphrase Naturalization Naturalization Paraphrase Deletion
7 Paraphrase Deletion Deletion Free translation Deletion Paraphrase
8 Couplet Literal translation Free translation Paraphrase Couplet Free translation
9 Free translation Couplet Couplet Mistranslation Free translation Literal translation
10 Literal translation Free translation Literal translation Couplet Literal translation Couplet
11 Label Label Mistranslation Literal translation Mistranslation Mistranslation
12 Mistranslation Mistranslation Label Label Label Label
Matches 7 2 5

The yellow marker highlights the cases in which a particular TS ranks identically in ODS and

FS. I need to stress that such a comparison is only a very rough one and not completely

“correct”. Although particular positions of TSs reflect the degree of their popularity within the

films and the subtitlers concerned, their hierarchy is only relative. What we compare here is

only the rank of the strategies but not their percentage values. Thus, one TS with 15% from

the total number of TSs used can be found in the fifth place in one column and in the second

place in another. Despite the limits and an inevitable bias, we can deduce some facts from

such a table. First, the general correspondence between ODS and FS to Adult films is

considerably higher than in case of Young films. The accord between Adult films ODS and

FS concerning the first five preferred strategies cannot be a mere coincidence. Second,

neutralization is a standard TS showing high and stable percentages in both the subcorpora,

regardless of the professionalism of subtitles. Similar tendencies go for transference, and

 75
partly for cultural equivalent and naturalization. Finally, it results from the data that some TSs

are used only very rarely in subtitling CSs, among them label, literal translation and free

translation.

5.6.4 TS-CS characteristic (see Tab. 4 + 5)

5.6.4.1 ODS

CS/TS Adult ODS Young ODS

Icon transference naturalization neutralization AST CE couplet
Material culture transference neutralization naturalization CE neutralization transference
Geographical item transference naturalization AST naturalization transference
Infrastructure transference neutralization paraphrase CE neutralization paraphrase
Ideological item AST/transfer CE/deletion CE paraphrase neutralization
Arts and literature AST neutralization free translation AST CE neutralization
Social item CE neutralization deletion CE/neut/trans
Activities transference naturalization
Historical item AST CE/paraphrase naturalization natur/neut/trans
Nature neutralization deletion AST neutralization
Code transference deletion/neut paraphrase CE paraphrase transference

This comprehensive table shows the three most employed TSs in the treatment of

particular types of CSs. The strategies are ranked in the order of their preference. (You will

find the detailed analyses in Table 4 and percentage values in Table 5 in the Supplements or

on the CD-ROM.) Again, these data are only preliminary since we do not take into

consideration the percentage values of the favourite TSs. However, I believe that they are

sufficient for the purposes of a basic comparison of TSs. Let us have a look at the individual

types of CSs in turn.

The difference in the treatment of icons is mostly based on two aspects. First, icons of

a different kind appear in Adult films and in Young films – those in Adult films usually have

no AST in Czech or their AST merge with transference; those in Young films usually refer to

fairy-tale creatures and they tend to have an established AST in Czech. Second, transference

and naturalization in Adult films show evidence of a better knowledge of the world among

adult audiences, and partly of a higher degree of foreignization of these particular cultural
 76
issues. On the other hand, cultural equivalent applied in case of young audiences indicates

a higher necessity to approach these foreign issues to a young Czech viewer.

Concerning material culture and geographical items, the subtitlers use two corresponding

strategies for both kinds of audiences – transference and neutralization. The frequent

employment of cultural equivalent in case of young audiences has the same reasons as in the

case of icons. The same goes for infrastructure. To continue, ideological items are often

translated via the technique of cultural equivalent in both the subcorpora. However, its

application is three times higher in Young films than in Adult films (43,9% versus 14,3%).

Items of arts and literature have either their AST in the TL, or they tend to be

neutralized. In this case, neutralization appears to be the most suitable solution (if

transference is not possible) because this type of a CS is usually heavily context-bound and

cannot be translated by means of cultural equivalent, for instance. To proceed to other types

of CSs, I suppose that any further comment on the data concerning social items, activities and

historical items would be biased as there have been only several occurrences of these items

found in the films. As to nature, AST and neutralization prevail in the translation of these

issues. The results may be influenced by the fact that nature occurs primarily in Young films

and it can be interpreted in a way that children need a slightly simplified translation than

grown-ups. Eventually, code has been most frequently treated by means of transference in

Adult films (46,9%) in comparison with cultural equivalent in Young films (32,6%).

In total, two basic conclusions resulting from these data are the following: First, the

strategy of transference is by far the most employed TS in officially subtitled Adult films (the

predominating TS in 7 out of 11 types of CSs). In Young films, the overall top strategy is

cultural equivalent (also 7 out of 11 types of CSs). Second, a common denominator for

translation of a substantial number of CSs of different types is neutralization. It figures among

the three top TSs in 7 out of 11 types of CSs in both the subcorpora.
 77

5.6.4.2 FS

CS/TS Adult FS Young FS

Icon transference naturalization neutralization CE transference couplet

Material culture transference neutralization CE neutr/transfer deletion CE

Geographical
item transference naturalization AST naturalization transference deletion

Infrastructure transference neutralization paraph/del neutr/transfer CE/paraph AST/natur

Ideological item neutralization AST paraphrase neutralization CE naturalization

Arts and
literature AST AST neutralization CE/paraph

Social item deletion CE/neutralization transference CE/transference

Activities paraph/transf neutralization

Historical item liter/neutr/paraph AST natur/neutr/tran

Nature neutralization neutralization AST deletion

Code transference neutralization neutralization deletion CE

The overall distribution of TSs in free subtitles is very similar to the distribution in

official ones. With minor variance, approximately the same TSs concern usually the same

types of CSs and thus the general comment made in connection with ODS goes also for FS.

Nevertheless, we may observe several apparent differences. To start with, the employment of

cultural equivalent is considerably lower in Adult films FS than it is in ODS. It figures among

the three top strategies only once – in case of social items. Taking into account that there are

only several examples of this particular CS in the films, we may say that cultural equivalent

does not figure as a prevailing TS in any type of a CS. On the other hand, cultural equivalent

occurs with roughly the same frequency in Young films FS as in ODS and relates to the same

types of CSs.

Second, the subtitlers quite often delete the following types of CSs: material culture,

geographical items and code. In treating these issues, Young films ODS commonly avoid

deletion as much as possible and try to find the appropriate translational solution.
 78
Finally, while in Adult films the percentage values regarding the technique of

transference are comparable between ODS and FS, the values of transference in Young films

FS exceed those in ODS quite remarkably. It is not that transference were employed in more

types of CSs but that it is employed more often within the same types of CSs.

5.6.5 Feature names analysis (see Tab. 6)

NAMES Adult ODS Adult FS Young ODS Young FS All ODS All FS
AST 0,0% 0,0% 17,0% 17,0% 10,7% 10,7%
CE 0,0% 0,0% 8,5% 6,6% 5,4% 4,2%
Couplet 0,0% 0,0% 0,0% 1,9% 0,0% 1,2%
Deletion 0,0% 0,0% 0,0% 7,5% 0,0% 4,8%
Literal translation 0,0% 0,0% 0,0% 1,9% 0,0% 1,2%
Naturalization 3,2% 3,2% 7,5% 7,5% 6,0% 6,0%
Neutralization 0,0% 0,0% 3,8% 1,9% 2,4% 1,2%
Paraphrase 0,0% 0,0% 21,7% 10,4% 13,7% 6,5%
Transference 96,8% 96,8% 41,5% 45,3% 61,9% 64,3%
Secondary assessments
Foreignization 96,8% 96,8% 47,2% 50,9% 65,5% 67,9%
Domestication 3,2% 3,2% 32,1% 24,5% 21,4% 16,7%
NAMES TOTAL 31 31 53 53 84 84

Altogether, 84 names of characters figure in the corpus – 31 in Adult films, 53 in Young

films. The main difference between the names used in Adult and Young films is that there

have been many references to fairy-tale characters in young audience oriented films. Almost

97% of the names in Adult films have been transferred in the TL in their original forms

without any attempt to find a cultural equivalent for them. Only one name, which makes 3,2%

of the total number of names in Adult films, has been naturalized (Yolanda → Jolanda). This

transference-based approach corresponds with the commonly approved translational norms of

names in Europe. Both the ODS and FS treat the names in an identical way.

As to Young films, transference also prevails here but its participation in the total of 53

names is only 41,5% – that is less than half as much as the participation of transference in
 79
Adult films. The reason is that subtitlers of Young films employ other TSs instead, among

them paraphrase in particular (21,7%). In Shark Tale and Shrek paraphrases reach up to 30%.

In addition, cultural equivalent and neutralization appear as well. As to the relatively frequent

utilization of AST (around 17%), it follows from the above-mentioned character of names. To

compare ODS to Young films with FS, in both cases we can find three dominating strategies

used in names translation: transference, paraphrase and AST. Free subtitlers use only half as

much paraphrase as ODS (10,4% versus 21,7%) and instead, they employ different TSs. It

may indicate a lower level of consistency in the translation of names in FS.

To summarize, the data acquired from the whole corpus suggest that up to 60% of the

names have been translated by means of transference. From the point of view of

foreignization-domestication spectrum, transference relates to foreignization and the rest of

the strategies used (except for naturalization) fall more on the side of domestication. In these

terms, Adult films subtitlers foreignize the names in 96,8% of cases; Young films subtitlers

only half as much – 50,9%.

This commentary on the translation of names closes the chapter concerning the primary

assessments in the corpus analysis. The following sections regard the individual secondary

assessments. Their possible interdependence with primary translational strategies is discussed

afterwards.
 80

5.6.6 Secondary assessments – Explicitation (see Tab. 7)

5.6.6.1 ODS

EXPLICITATION Summary Adult Summary Young Summary All

Icon 1 4 5
Material culture 8 6 14
Geographical item 5 2 7
Infrastructure 15 10,5 26
Ideological item 7 17 24
Arts and literature 0 3,5 4
Social item 9 1 10
Activities 1 0 1
Historical item 2 0 2
Nature 0 2 2
Code 3 7 10
TOTAL 51 53 104
Total number of CSs 302 195 497
Ratio 16,9% 27,2% 20,9%

The total number of the explicitated CSs in the whole corpus is 104, which constitutes

approximately 21% from the overall number of CSs. The professional subtitlers of Anything

Else and Pulp Fiction use explicitation twice as much as the subtitler of Pretty Woman. The

degree of explicitation is roughly the same within Young films. Although we can find more

explicitation in Shrek if we look at the percentage rates, the result is influenced by

considerably lower occurrences of CSs in this film.

The most explicitated CS in Adult films is infrastructure – it represents almost 30% of all

the explicitated CSs. In Young films, the top explicitated CS is ideological item (32%),

followed by infrastructure (19,8%). Concerning the overall explicitation rate, it constitutes

16,9% and 27,2% in Adult and Young films respectively. It appears from this that subtitlers of

Young films make the translation of CSs more explicit for a young audience. The higher

explicitation ratio corresponds with the higher employment of cultural equivalents (see

Additional analyses).
 81

5.6.6.2 FS

EXPLICITATION Summary Adult Summary Young Summary All

Icon 1 4 5
Material culture 12 4 16
Geographical item 1 1,5 3
Infrastructure 11 6,5 18
Ideological item 7 7,5 15
Arts and literature 1 4,5 6
Social item 2 1 3
Activities 1 0 1
Historical item 1 0 1
Nature 0 1,5 2
Code 3 1,5 5
TOTAL 40 32 72
Total number of CSs 301,5 195 496,5
Ratio 13,3% 16,4% 14,5%

Up to 72 CSs have founded their more explicit equivalents in FS, which equals to 14,5%

from the overall number of cultural issues in the whole corpus. To start with Adult films, the

non-professional subtitler of Pretty Woman explicitates half as much as his fellowmen do in

the remaining films, which conforms to the findings in ODS. On the other hand, less CSs

have been explicitated in this case in Young films (32 in FS versus 53 items in ODS).

Material culture (30%) together with infrastructure (27,5%) take the first places among the

explicitated CSs in Adult films. In Young films predominate ideological item (23,4%) and

infrastructure (20,3%) – the same results as in ODS. The general rate of explicitation is

somewhat lower than it is in ODS – 13,3% in Adult and 16,4% in Young films. To sum it up,

the non-professional subtitlers seem to explicitate less and in case of Young films, the

difference is substantial (16,4% versus 27,2% in ODS).

 82

5.6.7 Secondary assessments – Implicitation (see Tab. 8)

5.6.7.1 ODS

IMPLICITATION Adult ODS Young ODS All ODS

Icon 1 0 1
Material culture 6 3 9
Geographical item 1 1 2
Infrastructure 6 1 7
Ideological item 1 2 3
Arts and literature 1 1 2
Social item 0 1 1
Activities 0 0 0
Historical item 0 1 1
Nature 0 1 1
Code 0 3 3
TOTAL 16 14 30
Total number of CSs 301,5 195 496,5
Ratio 5,3% 7,2% 6,0%

In comparison with explicitation rates, implicitation is much less frequent. It ranges from

5% to 7% in ODS from the overall number of CSs. It concerns primarily material culture in

both the subcorpora. It has been applied with the same frequency to infrastructure in Adult

films, and to code in Young films. The sporadic employment of implicitation can be

explained by the fact that implicitation by far the most often appears together with

explicitation (as explicitation/implicitation strategy). These are the situations when both the

strategies are employed at once and neither of them has the supremacy (see the section 5.5.3).
 83
5.6.7.2 FS

IMPLICITATION Adult FS Young FS All FS

Icon 0 0 0
Material culture 5 2 7
Geographical item 0 0 0
Infrastructure 4 1 5
Ideological item 2 5 7
Arts and literature 0 2 2
Social item 1 0 1
Activities 0 0 0
Historical item 1 1 2
Nature 1 6 7
Code 0 1 1
TOTAL 14 18 32
Total number of CSs 301,5 195 496,5
Ratio 4,6% 9,2% 6,4%

The degree of implicitation in Adult films is approximately the same as in ODS (4,6%

versus 5,3%). There is not any substantial difference related to Young films either. The non-

professional subtitlers made implicit slightly more CSs in Young films (9,2% versus 7,2%)

but such a variance seems to be negligible. It reflects the fact that the free subtitler of Shark

Tale has neutralized a considerable part of nature elements there. The correlation between

implicitation and neutralization is commented in the Additional analyses (5.6.12). Among the

top implicitated CSs are again material culture, infrastructure and ideological item. However,

these data may be influenced by the prevalence of these types of CSs in the corpus.
 84

5.6.8 Secondary assessments – Explicitation/Implicitation (see Tab. 9)

5.6.8.1 ODS

E/I Adult ODS Young ODS All ODS

Icon 1,5 0 1,5
Material culture 7 5,5 12,5
Geographical item 3 0,5 3,5
Infrastructure 14,5 7 21,5
Ideological item 3,5 2 5,5
Arts and literature 1 2 3
Social item 0,5 0 0,5
Activities 0 0 0
Historical item 0 0 0
Nature 1 4 5
Code 0 3 3
TOTAL 32 24 56
Total number of CSs 301,5 195 496,5
Ratio 10,6% 12,3% 11,3%

Tendency to use the explicitation/implicitation strategy is roughly the same in both the

subcorpora: it concerns about 11% of the absolute number of CSs. This is less than it falls

upon explicitation used alone (20,9% in ODS and 14,5% in FS) but more than in case of

implicitation employed alone (6% in ODS and 6,4% in FS). Nevertheless, it is not a negligible

figure. With some types of CSs, E/I is employed more than with others. In general,

infrastructure is the type of a CS that subtitlers explicitate and implicitate at the same time in

38,4% of cases in the whole corpus. In Adult films, E/I is applied to infrastructure even in

14,5 cases, which constitutes 45,3% of all the explicitated-implicitated items. In Young films,

the degree of E/I concerning infrastructure is not so high (29,2%) since another type of a CS

– material culture – joins the top E/I items (22,9%). However, it needs to be stressed once

again that all these findings are to a certain extent influenced by two factors – the overall

number of CSs that occur in the individual films and the particular types of these CSs. To

further illustrate this point, let us consider E/I in terms of nature in Young films. Nature has
 85
been explicitated-implicitated only in four cases and at first sight, it could seem that E/I does

not apply to this type of a CS very much. However, if we take its total number (20) in these

films into account, we will find out that nature has been explicitated-implicitated in one fifth

of the cases, which puts the relation between E/I and nature into another light.

5.6.8.2 FS

E/I Adult FS Young FS All FS

Icon 3,5 0 3,5
Material culture 8 4 12
Geographical item 0 1 1
Infrastructure 8 3 11
Ideological item 2,5 1 3,5
Arts and literature 1 3 4
Social item 0 0 0
Activities 0 0 0
Historical item 0 0 0
Nature 1 2 3
Code 0 4 4

TOTAL 24 18 42
Total number of CSs 301,5 195 496,5
Ratio 8,0% 9,2% 8,5%

In general terms, the gathered data indicate that in case of FS, E/I has been utilized in a

slightly smaller number of occasions (8-9%). The difference between ODS and FS is however

not a significant one. Compared to ODS, material culture joins infrastructure in its prominent

position as regards E/I.

We can conclude that in both the subcorpora, regardless of the type of subtitles, it is

infrastructure that dominates in E/I strategy (10%). The fact that always the same types of

CSs prevail in explicitation and implicitation (or explicitation/implicitation) probably mirrors

their numerical superiority among CSs as a whole. These types are infrastructure, material

culture, ideological items and code. The zero application of E, I, or E/I on some other

frequently used types of CSs, like icons and geographical items, is interesting as well. The
 86
last mentioned CSs undergo these transformations only rarely and if they do, then it happens

mostly in Young films whose subtitlers count with a limited knowledge among their

audiences of these types of CSs.

5.6.9 Secondary assessments – Foreignization (see Tab. 10)

FOREIGNIZATION Adult ODS Adult FS Young ODS Young FS All ODS All FS
Icon 11 12 2 4 13 16
Material culture 19,5 21,5 5,5 10 25 31,5
Geographical item 7 10,5 1 1 8 11,5
Infrastructure 23,5 17,5 3 3,5 26,5 21
Ideological item 5,5 9,5 0 2,5 5,5 12
Arts and literature 0 3,5 2 1 2 4,5
Social item 0 0,5 1 0 1 0,5
Activities 0 0 0 0 0 0
Historical item 0 0,5 2 2 2 2,5
Nature 0 0 4,5 2 4,5 2
Code 8,5 9,5 8 6 16,5 15,5

TOTAL 75 85 29 32 104 117

Total number of CSs 301,5 301,5 195 195 496,5 496,5
Ratio 24,9% 28,2% 14,9% 16,4% 20,9% 23,6%

As it results from the data in this comprehensive table, foreignization moves around 25%

in Adult films and around 15% in Young films. Therefore, it relates more to Adult than to

Young films. The approximately 10-15% difference reflects the differences in the TSs that

have prevailed in the treatment of CSs in the corpus films. While the subtitlers of Adult films

generally prefer transference and naturalization, the subtitlers of Young films favour cultural

equivalent and neutralization. Speaking of neutralization, it may not be connected with

domestication but the examples from Young films show that in these particular films,

neutralization usually does merge with domestication (see Additional analyses, Tab. 13e).

To continue, foreignization mostly relates to infrastructure and material culture, that is

those items that are frequently transferred or only naturalized in their forms. The
 87
interdependence between foreignization and transference is indubitable. In fact, there is no

essential difference in foreignization as to ODS and FS. On the other hand, we may observe

a difference in foreignization of material culture in Young films. While ODS foreignize this

type of a CS in 19% from the total occurrences of these items, FS employ foreignization twice

as much – 10 out of 31,5 items, which makes 31,7%. Finally, the different degree of

foreignization of icons in Adult and Young films reflects their dissimilar character in each of

the subcorpora (see above).

5.6.10 Secondary assessments – Domestication (see Tab. 11)

DOMESTICATION Adult ODS Adult FS Young ODS Young FS All ODS All FS
Icon 3,5 3,5 7 2 10,5 5,5
Material culture 20 22 19,5 13 39,5 35
Geographical item 3,5 1 3,5 0 7 1
Infrastructure 27,5 18 16 5,5 43,5 23,5
Ideological item 8 7 21 11 29 18
Arts and literature 3 2 6,5 6,5 9,5 8,5
Social item 2,5 2 2 1 4,5 3
Activities 0 0 0 0 0 0
Historical item 0,5 1 1 1 1,5 2
Nature 1 2 6,5 5,5 7,5 7,5
Code 4,5 5,5 25 11,5 29,5 17
TOTAL 74 64 108 57 182 121
Total number of CSs 301,5 301,5 195 195 496,5 496,5
Ratio 24,5% 21,2% 55,4% 29,2% 36,7% 24,4%

Observing the data in the table above, we find out that this translational approach affects

primarily Young films where up to 55,4% of CSs have been in some way or other

domesticated. On the other hand, only 24,4% of CSs have been linked with domestication in

Adult films. In average, domestication applies to 121 from the total number of CSs (496,5),

that is 36,7%. Subtitlers’ effort to domesticate these issues is usually directed towards
 88
infrastructure and material culture in Adult films, and to code and material culture in Young

films.

As to the comparison of ODS and FS, there is not any substantial difference between the

results within Adult films. On the contrary, we can notice a fundamental difference in Young

films where the non-professional subtitlers have decided to domesticate only 29,2% of CSs,

which is only half as much as the professional subtitlers have done in ODS. Moreover,

domestication in FS is evenly distributed among various types of CSs, while domestication in

ODS is mostly connected with only two types of CSs as I have already mentioned.

5.6.11 Secondary assessments overview (see Tab. 12)

TOTAL RATIO Adult ODS Adult FS Young ODS Young FS All ODS All FS
Explicitation 16,9% 13,3% 27,2% 16,4% 20,9% 14,5%
Implicitation 5,3% 4,6% 7,2% 9,2% 6,0% 6,4%
E/I 10,6% 8,0% 12,3% 9,2% 11,3% 8,5%
Foreignization 24,9% 28,2% 14,9% 16,4% 20,9% 23,6%
Domestication 24,5% 21,2% 55,4% 29,2% 36,7% 24,4%

In the preceding sections, many comments on secondary assessments appeared. Some

observations were general, some concerned only particular types of subtitles or particular

relationships between various categories. We can now summarize them into a series of

following formulations based on the recapitulatory table:

1. There is a higher tendency to explicitate culture-specifics in the films for young

audiences than in the films for an adult viewership.

2. Implicitation is generally less frequent than explicitation and its degree is

approximately the same in both the subcorpora.

3. The rate of explicitation/implicitation is approximately the same in both types of films.

 89
4. Foreignization is more often employed in the films for adult viewers than in the films

for young ones.

5. In comparison with the films for grown-up audiences, there is a prevalence of

domesticative approach in the films for young spectators. In case of professional subtitles,

this prevalence is considerable.

5.6.12 Additional analyses (see Tab. 13)

The additional analyses accompany the main corpus analyses and highlight other

interesting observations that have arisen during the data comparison. They suggest that there

exist mutual dependences between two or even three particular factors, concerning both the

primary and the secondary TSs. I will proceed with following commentary according to the

ordering of the tables that can be found in the Supplements.

To start with, we may notice that there is an interdependence between explicitation and

domestication (see Tab. 13a). What unifies these strategies is their effort to push foreign CSs

closer to the TL culture. Thus, both of them embody the same principle and fulfil it by their

own means. In Young films, explicitation has been employed together with domestication (i.e.

applied to one CS at a time) in 85% from the total number of the explicitated CSs. In Adult

films, these two strategies have occurred together in 45% of the explicitated CSs, which is

only half as much as in Young films but still it constitutes a considerable number within the

explicitated items. It is interesting that in FS, the percentage values of E-D dependence are

more balanced. They range from 70% to 80%. I would like to emphasize that the degree of

E-D dependence is not the same as the degree of D-E dependence. It results from the table

that explicitation depends on domestication to a much greater extent than domestication does

on explicitation.
 90
As regards the second table (see Tab. 13b), we may observe a similar overlap between

explicitation/implicitation and domestication. There is even a higher correspondence between

these approaches – it moves around 90%, and in case of Young films ODS, it reaches 100%.

To continue, the third table (see Tab. 13c) shows another domestication-based

dependence: that of cultural equivalent. The overlap between these concepts is enormously

significant in Young films (96,3%). Moreover, since cultural equivalent is closely connected

with explicitation, it will not surprise us that there can be even a three-factor interdependence.

In this case, it follows from the gathered data that cultural equivalent, explicitation and

domestication occur together in approximately 60-70% from the overall number of cultural

equivalent occurrences. In Adult films FS, this interdependence amounts to almost 86%.

Last but not least, an interesting overlap between implicitation and domestication emerges

from the corpus analysis (see Tab. 13d). It was a surprising finding for me because I had

expected that implicitation would be linked to foreignization and not to the “opposite” side of

the foreignization-domestication spectrum. However, when I looked up all the common

occurrences of implicitation and foreignization, I did not find any. On the other hand,

implicitation has accompanied domestication in about 60-70% from the total number of

implicitations.

Finally, we come to the last additional analysis, which reflects the dependence of

neutralization on domestication (see Tab. 13e). According to my interpretation of

neutralization in which I tried to be maximally consistent in the corpus analysis, neutralization

has corresponded with domestication in 80-90% from the total number of neutralizations.

Furthermore, a three-factor dependence concerning neutralization, domestication and

explicitation/implicitation has been also frequent. It has usually figured in about 40% of all

the neutralizations occurrences.

 91
6 CONCLUSION

In all cases the success of the

translation depends on how well it
meets the basic criterion for all
human communication, which is
consistency with the principle of
relevance.

(Gottlieb [1990:135], in Bogucki

2004: online)

The previous chapter has introduced the corpus analysis and has given a detailed account

of the gathered data. It has also treated comprehensively the possible relations among various

factors and highlighted the feature questions that have arisen from the data comparison. After

having discussed the matter at large, we can now return to the initial hypotheses and by

comparing them with the results from the analysis, we can draw general conclusions.

To start with the initial primary hypothesis, the findings resulting from the corpus

analysis prove only a half of the assertions. Let us look at the hypothesis sentence after

sentence:

INITIAL PRIMARY HYPOTHESIS RESULT

Subtitling the CSs in the films for young audiences will be inclined to YES
domesticating strategies, like neutralization and substitution (cultural
equivalent), and to explicitation of these issues.
There will also be a higher tendency to omit the cultural words than in the films NO
destined for an adult viewership.
On the other hand, subtitling CSs in the films for adult audiences will use more YES
foreignizating strategies, like transference and naturalization, and will keep more
to the original text in the overall tendency.
The use of cultural equivalence technique will be also high. NO

The corpus analysis confirms that domestication relates more to Young films than to Adult

films. The degree of domestication of CSs is approximately 55% in case of Young films and

only 25% in Adult films (ODS). Although domestication in Young films is less frequent in

FS, it still exceeds the percentage rate reached in FS to Adult films. Moreover, the data from
 92
FS are not so relevant to our research and cannot be taken as a guiding principle. The analysis

further proves that cultural equivalent is the prevalent TS in Young films and that

neutralization is among the top TSs as well. The almost 30% explicitation rate in Young films

furnishes evidence that explicitation applies to this type of films to a great extent.

The next point of the hypothesis has not turned out to be true. Only 4,6% from the total

number of CSs have been deleted in Young films, which corresponds with 5,3% deletion in

Adult films (ODS). The degree of deletions has been higher in FS in both the subcorpora.

To come to the third point, the frequent employments of transference (36%) and

naturalization (12%) in Adult films vindicate the hypothesis in this respect. These TSs have

turned out to be often connected with foreignization, which reaches 25% in this subcorpus.

Finally, it appears that the last point of the hypothesis regarding the high use of cultural

equivalence in Adult films is false. The analysis shows that cultural equivalent constitutes

only 6,5% (ODS) in Adult films, which is considerably less than in Young films (29,2%).

As regards the initial secondary hypothesis, the prognoses have come to be more

successful than in the case of the primary hypothesis:

INITIAL SECONDARY HYPOTHESIS RESULT

The professional subtitles will be characterized by a considerably higher quality YES
than the subtitles made by non-professionals. The quality will concern not only
the translation of the subtitles as a whole but also the translation of CSs. They
will be shorter, synoptic and thus more viewer-friendly. The quality of non-
professional subtitles will be markedly lower.
The overall length of these subtitles will be greater. YES
Concerning translational strategies used for translation of CSs, the professional PARTLY
subtitles will tend to use transference, cultural equivalent and paraphrase.
The non-professional subtitles will favour transference, neutralization and
deletion to a higher extent.
The amount of mistranslations will be higher. (YES)

As I have commented in the section 5.2, the quality of FS has proved to be significantly lower

if compared to the quality of ODS. However, there are differences even at this quality level
 93
and it is necessary to approach the non-professional subtitlers individually. The overall

quality of FS is reflected in the quality of CSs translations. FS are not as consistent and

accurate as their professional counterparts are. The general knowledge of English seems to be

lower in case of free subtitlers. They also lag behind the professional subtitlers in

inventiveness and mother language spelling proficiency.

To continue, free subtitlers have revealed themselves to be more wordy in their subtitles

than the professional subtitlers. To put their more verbose approach into figures, the free

subtitlers of Adult films needed altogether 2221 words to translate the extracts with CSs from

all the three films, while the professional subtitlers succeeded to do with 1937 words. As to

Young films, the difference in the number of the words used to translate the extracts with CSs

from all the Young films is less pronounced – 1437 versus 1344 words.

Concerning the third assertion, it has been fulfilled only partly. It has proved to be true

that ODS widely employ transference but as to cultural equivalent and paraphrase, they apply

only to Young films and not to the whole corpus. On the other hand, the statement about FS

has turned out to correspond with the reality. FS do use all the three mentioned TSs (that is

transference, neutralization and deletion) to a higher degree than ODS do. Finally,

mistranslation has occurred only three times in FS and although it is more than in ODS (zero

mistranslation), it is a too negligible occurrence to draw any conclusions from it.

Furthermore, I would like to summarize the corpus analysis from other point of views

than only from those expressed in the initial hypotheses. Concerning the overall distribution

of CSs, it appears that among the most frequent types of CSs are material culture and

infrastructure. In case of Adult films, we can notice a strong position of icons and

geographical items as well. By contrast, Young films include many codes and ideological

items. Overall, material culture, infrastructure and code are the three top culture-specifics in

the corpus. Within these categories, the most frequent subtypes of CSs are food and
 94
beverages, institutions and parts of a city, and third language respectively. The distribution of

CSs may be influenced by various factors, like the genre of the films, the type of audiences

they focus on, or the recency of the films.

Concerning the TSs used in the corpus, the dominant techniques in Adult films (in both

kinds of subtitles) are transference, neutralization and naturalization. Young films prefer

cultural equivalent, neutralization and paraphrase. In FS to Young films, neutralization

replaces cultural equivalent as a predominating TS. As regards the “zero” strategies that have

been employed only very rarely, they comprise label, literal translation and free translation.

The surprising presence of free translation among these TSs can be explained by the fact that

CSs appearing in a film are usually heavily context-bound and it is difficult to replace them.

Thus free translation usually applies to code when recasting into verse is employed. If we take

Adult and Young films as one category, the three top employed TSs are transference,

neutralization and cultural equivalent in the order of preference.

To continue, the TS-CS characteristic has revealed some interesting observations, among

them the dissimilar role and distribution of icons in Adult and Young films. Icons from the

mass culture have proved to be of much importance to an adult viewer but not so crucial for

a young audience. Young films replace the Adult films icons with fairy-tale creatures because

with those types of icons the young audiences are familiar with. Moreover, we can notice that

in both the subcorpora, geographical items tend to be transferred or naturalized. On the other

hand, infrastructure is most often neutralized in Adult films but in Young films, it is

substituted by a cultural equivalent. The technique of AST prevails in Young films but the

character of the CSs that are more likely to have their AST in these films influences the

results. Furthermore, almost all the names occurring in Adult films have been transferred,

while in case of Young films, the distribution of TSs employed to these issues has been more

varied and implied for instance paraphrase or cultural equivalent.

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Concerning secondary assessments, I have already summarize them in the section 5.6.10.

Briefly, the explicitation approach prevails in Young films and it frequently occurs together

with implicitation (E/I strategy). Foreignization is more a matter of Adult films and

conversely domestication relates mainly to Young films. In addition, there is a common

mutual dependence of one or more factors upon each other, like that of explicitation on

domestication, or implicitation on domestication.

To conclude, I would like to refer to the fact that FS often “grab” the ODS or other FS to

the same film – the latter concerns for instance the transformations of Czech FS into Slovak

subtitles or vice versa.

During the analysis, several questions for possible future research have arisen in my head.

It could be interesting to discuss the “double” TS of explicitation/implicitation in subtitling at

large. Another interesting issue is the degree of foreignization in Young films and its possible

changes in time. It would be also challenging to compare ODS and FS in other aspects, for

example in terms of functional sentence perspective, stylistic differences or the consistency

level. Or to have a comprehensive look at the treatment of CSs in dubbing versus subtitling.

Finally, research into the complex character TSs like couplets or “triplets” is worth thinking

about as well.

I hope that this thesis has contributed to understanding the complexity of subtitling as a

particular mode of audio-visual translation. I also hope that it has brought intriguing

information concerning the role of culture-specifics in films for audiences with different

demands.
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