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    12 views14 pages

    1989 Delabastita Week

    Uploaded by

    elisa hernando

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 14
    Henri Van Hoof: Précis pratique de traduction médicale (anglais fran ¢gais) (John Cairns) Barbara Wotjak & Manfred Richter: Deutsche Phraseologismen. Ein Ubungsbuch fiar Auslander (L. De Grauwe) 1) Revue Babel Translation and mass-communication: film and T.V. translation as evidence of cultural dynamics Dirk Delabastita Yom S Introduction a yqn0 1. The social sciences have often tended to select their subjects for study on the of their high prestige according to the norms of the culture in which they function, or even according to the value system of the cultural paradigm within which the scholars themselves operate. That is one of the underlying reasons why, example, the scholarly study of popular culture has had such a slow start or ‘why, for that matter, translation has so long been the Cinderella of linguistic and cerary studies, Accordingly, itis hardly surprising that phenomena such as trans- mn in mass communication have so far been ignored almost completely, how- ver much the quantitative importance of these phenomena is in evidence, and fever much they may be assumed to play a crucial role in the linguistic, art leological, etc. organisation of our modern societies. In recent years, however, it has begun to dawn on an ever growing number of fan a priori selective approach towards culture often contributes to tendencies, rather than to an adequate for instance, this insight has found expres in the claim that the student of literature can hope to understand the the evolution of literature and its relation to other linguistic and jession only if he agrees to adopt much more comprehensive schemes ike translation, popular rary discourse, criticism, \d so forth, have become canonized works. In fact have view, trans- such a poi ons turn out to be key texts allowing the scholar to detect the tensions and es within literatures and cultures and the mechanisms : for more informatioy Hermans 1985, Lambert 19 hypotheses proposed by th descriptive potential outside the domain of The present paper, then, aims . Systemic schemes 1 le the scholar with the tools to carry out rese translation in a more adequate manner than was focus on two specific forms of mass communicatio Stressing that similar investigations into trans ‘munication such as the press, advert Set up as well. Obviously, I'am not films and T.V. programmes have never raphy. which is far from complete, testif {that the few translation scholars, sociologi nicians who have so far dealt with our to of the problem and ignored others, depe Or practical needs. In addi n the reader is referre 80, etc. I would merely point out the fact that holars have not yet realized 1 terature as fully as seems possibi. iat the historical-descriptive, luded to in the previous line, arch into mass communica ‘d to Even-Zohar & Toury 195) nm — film and T.V. — wh tion with other forms of mass com, ising, popular music, etc., can and should h. iiming that the subttlin een seriously studied before; my bil ies to the contrary. Howeve1 Im experts and tecl ic have only considered certain aspecis ending on their particular n, the importance of a few particular by Virtually none of them. This pay line of the whole field of the prob OF ongoing research but it is to be seen as see Toury 1980. By way of introduc the following schematic characterisation of Toury’s theses ‘Toury challenges the form. lation studies to devi Predominant opinion that itis the task of trans ‘optimal” methods of translation. The disci tion practices (that is 10 sa 'y. empirical phenome is accepted that there are (theoretical level of competence). In pa will often observe certain rej Ula teres of behaviour (em mance). This allows the sch a ares Practices in terms of the « communication nslation an and the reconstruction of translation norms should be in continual interplay with the development of the competence component. tes in 0.2. Before I start on the actual analysis, some preliminary terminological are called for. Firstly, for the sake of verbal economy I will use the term “ a very general sense, so that it also includes T. V. programmes of all kinds. When- ver any of these distinctions are relevant to my argument, they will, of course, be made expl Secondly, the term “translation” will equally be used in an unusually broad I take “film sense, albeit for conceptual rather than for practical reasons. 1 translation” to stand for the whole set of operations — that is to say, including cer- ‘operations on the level of non-verbal signs — that accompany and make pos- sible the transfer of a film from a source culture A into a target culture B. It is sumed that the processes of interlingual recoding (“translation in the tradi- mnal sense) that mostly characterize such an intercultural transfer cannot be ied from the whole bundle of relations between the ori ‘The rationale behind this terminological usage should become clear in the further course of this paper and it will be given some extra thought in my concluding section Thirdly, the notions “translation” (translator, etc.), “source film” and “target im” require additional clarification in view of certain peculiarities relating to the production and distribution of films. It is a well-known fact that films are not just produced for the home market but rather for a wide international market. One can hardly say that, e.g. an American film is originally produced for the Amerj- can film audiences and subsequently translated or made suitableyfor export. The chain of events which brings a film from an American studio into a Belgian or a Japanese cinema is rather involved and it is sometimes very hard to distinguish between production phenomena (level of text) and reception phenomena (level of metatext). In this context it will be remembered that techniques such as subtitling ‘and dubbing (cf. play-back, postsynchronisation) are also very common in the production of “original” films (and that they have even led to several avant-gardist cexperimentations). In the Hollywood era certain production houses even had their ‘own local branches in Europe which had to finish the film in accordance with the native language and taste, as well as with the censorship regulations locally force! Therefore, the term “translator” in this paper is a shorthand term to ind cate all the instances involved in carrying out the various operations between any two stages in thg cross-cultural distribution of a film, Thus, many selections and ns hayé been made before the film reaches the team responsible for its ic adaptation (translation in the narrow sense) and they may still be fterwards. These facts, however, in no way invalidate our interpretation of dimension (section 3) of these various processes of translation 196 order to find out what shifts took place at what stage, before any precise hypoth, cses can be ventured concerning the reasons for the various shifts. Inciden should be noted thatthe scholar of translation sometimes has to reckon vat simi lar complex filiations between source and target texts in the ease of “ordinary “ranslation as well (older texts, strategies of large publishing houses, ete), 1. Competence: possible relationships 1-4. On the level of translational competence I will have to consider a number aero chat relate to the theoretical translation potential of films. I should fice of all attempt to establish the entire set of possible relationships between a prauree” film and a “target” film. What are the various possible ways in which film can be translated? In answering this question, I should of course attempt 1 avoid being swayed by any normative considerations. The researcher cane afford, for instance, to ignore those modes of translation which happen to be “wn acceptable” according to his own set of norms. In fact, stich“ ate” transla. ton strategies may well be acceptable in different cultural situations and it ic therefore reasonable to expect that the competence model should be able to “gen: erate” them, This issue of the possible modes of film translation is greatly com; semiotic nature of the film sign. Before the problem of film transla tion methods can be tackled, it should therefore be esta “text” a film is. At this poi semiotics. It isa w code type of comm: Mm takes place through two int waves) and the acoustic ized, An exception might perhaps though piano players or orchestras Im projection. In ad ‘channel (air vibrations) are simultaneously ut have to be made here for silent movies, ev. often provided a musical accompaniment to the films have made use of other channels as well — consider the use of the olfacors channel in the so-calle ision movies of Zhe 1950's, or of the tactile chan. nel in Earthquake (1974) — but these remain fai lated examples and we are ‘not guilty of serious oversimpl jThe acoustic and the visual channels are the means by which the film message reaches its audience. They should not be confused with the codes that are used Produce the film's actual meaning. There i in fact a multitude of codes that gives shape to any film as a meaningful sign and that enables its spectators to make Sense of it. The following list contains some of the major sign systems of which film producers and consumers avail themselves: cation if we omit them. the verbal code (which is 197 jalects of a language, ete.)s a terry codes and theateal codes (conventions of plot constuction, models dialogues, acquaintance with narrative strategies, with argumentation . ind motives, etc); chniques and with literary gentes and motives, ¢ ; home con ois ody emery ies, makeup cs, olen odes, moral codes, and so forth (enabling us among other thing to understan tnd assess the non-verbal behaviour of the characters); — the cinematic code (rules and conventions of the cinema; its techniques, genres, ete.) Signs from these codes may be combined in a whole range of ways to form the and homogeneous series of signs o signals that emerges, bu ather weave se ically differentiated modes of expression, each governed by its own sclecti und combination rules” (Elam 1980:44). 12. const comple sai wy oi he eto tice an From leer pesecne wee fim sommnsatn an re common sow an importa flere whch a est Bese team ott of fm a pps fo he atonal tra textahestre tents, The explanation of his dfeence wil ake us directly ranltion imo the heart ofthe problem of fim trans ee One a he ma smi fc te ea emis 2 film: ction is the fact that the latter confronts tl i cae She tna rr of hich mas ms ene) deere can, vrteas in the former Base the performance sign Is on each oscesion being mate onsttuted in the very proces of the peformance. Any thea ps sunt ir one-of een and no eon pevomance wl fe eat Hk in it material identifiable constitvens. A film performance, onthe ober hand, is virtue of this fea- fundaremlly detract from my basi argument ts precisely by vit ta ture of mate reproducibility that film is commonly regarded asa phenomenon of mass-comunication: through mechanical reproduction it iin principle acces delimited group of people, irrespective of Ne toa large and not preven : be inclined to admit that is differentiation betw: Dirk Delal 18 of each film, makes frequent use of mass commu film fragments, etc could replace Desdem because the classicist theatrical ‘would not allow one to show publ tor of cin tural or aesthetic code-incompatil system, his range of possible action Process is necessarily effec. uated. In the remai ion 1.2, then, I would like to present a scheme of possible modes of film translation which is accordingly based on the main distinction to be made with regard to the m: of film signs, that isto say, the distinction between the sound channel and the vis, ion channel (Cf course, our scheme will have to include a number of other distinctions ax well, For one, it should be re channel sien {Sf the two distinctions were parallel. In most films the visual chan Used to transmit verbal signs as well. Examples are framing devives uch the title, the “THE END” indication, or the credit titles; in addition, ters, news. ually presented for perusal; and more gener. fen up in section 4. At Present the distinction between verbal and non-verbal signe will be avd i ‘nsert an extra differentiation into our initial distinction between the ¥ chan: me should certainly not ignore the semiotic relevance of th, rojection, nor the fact that modern theatre cation repeatables such as sound-tapes oy ual presentation ~ non-verbal jigns cc. acoustic presentation — verbal signs 4d. acoustic presentation ~ non-verbal signs sions may suggest but in general tions between a and Js 0 be ess clearcut than sch di saotatlon of fey be workable. The dist in technical fea- and between c and d respectively are, moreover, upheld by certain techi tures. Dubbing firms, for instance, are often provid with a Separate so-called stically transmitted signs of the international tape”, which contains all the acoustically "othe four eters that have jt fen ditinguished conti oe ax of ol anton meray he piping ee of int hhh rw nnn pede ile permed. Tee st wef oper es. Th nt of aie mshi fot edly valde tou, was provided many signs upor ent rhetoricians. It comprises: repetiio (the sign is formally reproduced in an E 2 reproduced identical manner), adiectio (the sign is rept ee eee che recton incomplete Kips aren), ranma (he th a certain addition), detrac- Type of sign (Code) repetiio adiectio desractio substttio verbal signs non-verbal signs 200 Dirk Delabas nsla A 201 Poti of the ae pes in ae ie - ing an alteration of the sgn’s textual relation) replied with an alogther diferent sin). The combination for tases ing scheme: sc fig. 1.1 wl be commented upon susenane nal order, the part of his speech is replaced by a dubbing commentator’ tr tanner numerous combinations are possible. Moreover, certain forms of sim ‘cous combination have to be included. In example three, for instance, the ‘eof the source language speaker may still be faintly audible in the sackground, Example four: dubbing and subtitling may be combined, for instance the benefit of viewers who are hard of hearing. In this context certain technical ranovations such as Teletext and stereo television should be mentioned because , allow the viewer autonomously to make a selection from and/or to combine different modes of film translation at will 13. What matters sno 1. het mat nt he AGE ch, Baer he ome hat Stiles which are traditionally denied with fim tratlation, ve, dabbngg sul ing. In order to avoid certain terminological =a problem that our metalanguge doesnt roid specific transformation have prefered to leave Sank: In fet, the scheme contain ner aia, the Convenient label foreach the Bors in my scheme “ llowing options: acorn x uittio = dabig the ore fn an i out the acoustic verbal signs, which are replaced by tar tan a zi acoustic verbal signs; see also subsection 1.4.1 Yes Silvera sx act = shin the get Mamas one Copy ofthe ou fn sign par rm the sdton af ne ia ea bane faaiad also the latter part of subsection 1.4.2; “ . io: visual and/or acoustic, and verba , ce verbal andor non-verbal signs have been + repetito:the fm s reproduced rovduced unchanged with ll ts oiginal bike lly, ee case of on-trns tion’) id mrcrat ane - smutatio: the various signs of the source 1a ina diferent order and formation, ns Proud emcaly, bu + adiectio: new imas r = set: ema dogs or ound han en noe seo ir rept: he fou of cunak h el) ‘ical parts of the film's acoustic signs. an oui Ul i et hat his 8 ony sine a that he ald sun fr more aps than san jt tine. Lt ws noc server are crucial fora correc intrpreiaton of my bas 5. A film isan organized whole or "text", the various component signs of which ser into complex ses of relations, By the same token, any translational opera- ‘hat is performed on a single source film sequence affects the whole ofthe text structure, and imposes a set of constraints on the translator where other refuences have to be translated. Example one: a scene that has been cut (both Maj and vision) may confront the translator with the need to make use “iewhere of certain other teductions or additions inorder to safeguard character coherence, plot coherence, etc. Example two: the adoption of a strategy that is scpettve throughout (non-translation) might imply the need to insert an into- Tory addition in order to facilitate comprehension, Of course, the translator shay prefer to neglect these constraints toa certain degree — the same holds good for the constraints that willbe discussed in section 1.4 — but that is dependent on norms, Example three: on account ofthe general principle of deixs (see, ©. vim 1980-26-27, 72-74, 139-148), by means of which the language is rooted inthe ‘isual elements ofthe film may impose certain con- straints on the rendering of the verbal parts. v 3. Itis important to noté that the scheme is of a purely “quantitative” nature in nip indicates the patterns of sign-ype redistribution thatthe translator roses on his source film. It specifies, for instance, that a dub version of a film aahstitotes target language spoken verbal sign for source language spoken verbal ye but it docs not include any statement regarding the precise ling ye. relationships between both sets of verbal signs. Similarly, our scheme

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