DUBBING

 is the replacement of the original dialogue with the translated dialogue which need to match the lip and body
movements of the actors. The language of a dubbed film is the result of a complex process of translation,
manipulation and adaptation.
In Italian “adattatore dialoghista” works from the film and the original film script and then he passes the target
language to the director who choses and directs the actors.
The screen translator has:
to reconstruct the source text in its linguistic and cultural components and to take into account all the visual
and paralinguistic elements of the movie, together with the meaning of the story, personality, origins and
characteristics of each character
also to recreate the musicality of the lines
to match the dialogue with the characters’ movements and to describe them though their language
he’s a cultural mediator who has to recreate the source film dialogue for a different audience thanks to his
knowledge of source and target language and cultures

TECHNICAL CONSTRAINTS:

Dubbingis subject to technical constraints.
“It’s the only form of translation in which the length of
the translated text has to be identical with the length of
the original text” (Herbst)
The translator has to focus on the words, the sentence,
utterance and to fit actor’s body and lip movements,
and if those do not fit he has to change/cut /add
elements in order to achieve balancestrategies of
compensation (elements omitted in one part, then some
of them may be added elsewhere)
Lip synchronization: is one of the key factors that
distinguish dubbing from other types of
translation.
It maintains the illusion of reality for
audiencenot to distract their attention
the dubbed dialogue has to sound as if it was
the originalmatch the images in a natural fluent
way
3 types of visual synchronization:

Isochrony / Visual synchrony:

there has to be correspondence bet the length
of utterance as they’re seen on screen and as
they’re heard and bet the n° and rhythm of
syllables.
the dubbed dialogue must start when the
actors opens his mouth and stop talking
it’s very important, because its lack would
distract or annoy viewers, because it would
destroy the impression that the actors are
pronouncing the translated wordsthe illusion of
reality
Es:” Romeo+Juliet”  “You kiss by the book”
translated in Italian as “Baci come dice il
libro/secondo le regole”but in the movie we
see the uttering of the bilabial /b/ in “by” and
“book”so there wouldn’t be isochrony “Baci
come un Dio” is synchronous with the source
language utterance and has bilabial and a dental,
Lip synchrony: is the correlation bt lips and mouth movements of
the original actors with the utterance heard, that is the sounds
heard in the dubbed version
is the matching of consonant and vowel soundsoften called
phonetic synchrony
is necessary only in some situations: when there certain
vowels and consonants, as bilabials /b/p/m/; labiodentals /f/v/
and open vowelsin this case the translator has to use words
with similar sounds or with a similar articulation of the mouth
Es. “see Naples and die” the verb “die“ doesn’t have labials, is
pronounce with the mouth wide opentranslated in French, the
verb “mourir” has a strong bilabial consonants which involves
the closure of the lipsdon’t match with the original
movementso the translator has to choose “deceder” which is a
synonymmore unnatural and too formal
 Kinetic synchrony:
So it’s closer to the English bilabials version. =spoken words have to match the body movements of the
actors, and the dialogue must coincide with gestures, facial
expressions, body language (nodding of the head, raising of
GENRE/TEXT TYPE AND SYNCHRONY:
eyebrows, or shaking head meaning a negation which can’t be
The degree of synchro varies from film to film,
accompanied by an affirmative “YES”.
scene and camera movement. Different types of
”NUCLEUS SYNC”: refers to the fact that the body movements
movies may require a higher or lower degree
coincide with the characters pronouncing stressed syllables
and Chaume says that “expressive text that aim
(nuclei)make sure that there’s correlation of body movements
to involve viewer demand a higher degree of
with nuclei.
synchro than informative texts”

For example Cartoons are a genre which requires a lower degree, as the characters don’t speak but move their lips
randomly and lip synchro is necessary only in extreme close-upslip sinchro is no needed because the audience is
made up of kids so the Kinetic synchro is more demanding also gestures, intonation and credible and natural
dialogue are important bc they catch the viewers’ attention.

 The translator has to strike a balance between accuracy of the translation, technical constraint and creating a
spoken communication that has to be real the synchro implies textual and linguistic operations, a good
knowledge of source and target languages and cultures.

TRANSLATION CONCEPTS:
DESCRIPTIVE TRANSLATION STUDIES: describes the way in which translations are produced and function in their
target context, the processes and rules followed when texts are translated.
Translator’s choices depend on 2 factors: target culture and target audience (it’s impossible to study translation in
isolation from the cultural context in which it takes place)
Film translations have to be seen as an act of intercultural communication, and many constraints need to be taken
into account:
-the context in which translations are produced -target culture and viewers of the film
-dubbing agencies and film industries which exert huge influence on the way a film is translated

The film has to be accepted and enjoyed by the cinema audience of another culture.

 Lefevere’s concept of rewriting and refraction:

 Rewriting: genre that includes interpretation, criticism, translation and adaptation for different media
and consists in manipulating a text according to the norms of the society and context in which the
rewriter works.
 Refraction: is “the adaptation of a work of literature to a difference audience, with the intention of
influencing the way in which that audience reads the work

 Skopos theory:
is a functional approach to translation developed by Reiss and Vermeer, which considers translation as a form of
human actionthe purpose is to determine the way translators approach the source text and the translation
choices they make
the TT is determined by its skopos, which is the function of the translated text within the Tculture

Skopos+ medium  affect the translation strategywhich will be target-oriented

 Herbssays that translating for dubbing requires a more pragmatic approach and must take into account the
whole film, its characters and their interaction, the atmosphere and every situation
 Delabastiasays that it’s not a matter of equivalence, but of creativity: multimedia translation implies
transformation of the ST, through addition, cuts and substitutions

 Baker and his 4 universal features:

 Explicitation: to make things more explicit in TT, by adding background info
 Simplification: to simplify the language/message in TT
 Normalization: to conform to the norms of the Tlanguage, by using unmarked structures and collocations
 Levelling out: to place the Ttext in-between the written and spoken mode

 Goris and his 4 main norms:

Explicitation: to be more explicit than the Source text, explaining things which in the original may be
implicit
Standardization: to avoid specific language (dialets, idiolets, colloquialisms) and produce a shift in styleto
make the target language more formal, closer to standard/written language
Naturalization: means that the dubbed version seems as natural as possible to the Taudience, as the
foreign features of the source text are eliminated and culture-specific elements are adaptedsimilar to
“domestication”

 Ulrych and his 3 typical aspects of multimedial translation:

 A conscious or subconscious attempt to simplify language
 A tendency to make texts more accessible to target audience
 The manipulation or rewriting of texts in interests of normalization, naturalization, standardization

Film dialogues are rewritten according to what their public want to consume.

SPOKEN LANGUAGE:
Spoken interaction is characterised by specific features (turn-taking, use of vocatives, deictis, question tags,
register, discourse markers…)

SOCIOLINGUISTIC VARIATION:
Language varies according to user sociolinguistic variationthe different varieties are called dialects, which are
divided into 4 types:
1) Temporal 2) Geographical or regional
-depends on the historical period in which the dialect is -where the dialect is spoken and the speakers come from
spoken
- reflects the language change through time - each speaker carries a specific accent which situates him
in a precise geographical position
The English of Shakespeare is different from
contemporary English - they’re problematic in translation of films, deciding
(popular terms in the 1970s can be old-fashioned today. whether to use a target language dialect and, if so, which
Es “ghetto-blaster” signals a text from the 1980s) one

Translators may have some problems in translating texts -British and American films contain many geo and social
if there’s an archaic language, as they need to decide dialectsthere’s no correspondence bet the
whether to use a similarly archaic target language characteristics and connotations of English and Italian
dialect, or to modernise the language. regional dialectsso translators need to lose this type of
info in dubbed films, because the different characters
usually speak with the same standard Italian, in terms of
accent.
o “Match Point” the accents are Irish, English, American and Scottish, and the dubbed dialogues are all in
standard Italian accent

o “Bend it Like Beckham” contains British accents and several varieties as Indian, Southern English, Irish
o “Finding Forrester” Sean Connery speaks in his typical Scottish accent, while the boys use Black English

o “Billy Elliot” set in Northern England, but his father speaks in his Scottish accent and the other characters
don’t, while in the Italian dubbed dialogues he speaks like everyone else

= all these regional dialects are neutralised in the Italian versionsPavesi says that accents are obliterated in
dubbed films, while at a lexical and syntactic level translators create the characteristics of natural spoken,
informal by using special syntactic lexis.

Exceptions in which Italian dialects are used: “Mafia people” in American films as “The Godfather” have a
Sicilian accent, which is rendered also in Italian.
“Sharke Tale”cartoon, the “bad” shark don Lino is a parody of a Mafia godfather, and speaks with a Sicilian
accent also in the Italian dubbed version. Sykes, one of Lino’s subjects is given a Neapolitan accent in Italian.

Salmon Kovarskisays that “ethnolects” are ethnic varieties of the majority language, as specific accents which
signal that the speaker wasn’t born in that country, or was born there but belongs to a family speaking another
language.
es. Sicilian accent of Italian immigrants living in the USA, accent of Jewish Americans, Black English vernacular,
Spanish accent of American with Latin-American origins

es. “Bend it Like Beckham”Jess’ mom is an Indian woman attached to tradition and she speaks with a foreign
accent, considered Indian and makes grammatical mistakes.
“Romeo+Juliet” is in contemporary times in a country looking like US, her Nurse has a Spanish accent in
English, which is kept in the Italian version.

3) Social dialects:
are present in films as “Billy Elliot” or “The Full Monty”: with lexical choices as the use of colloquial expressions,
slang, repetitions and grammar mistakes.

4) Standard/non-standard and Individual or idiolectal:

Pavesi provides es. of non-standard Italian colloquial forms and ungrammaticalities used in dubbed version with
social dialect:

a. The use of the indicative instead of subjunctive (Ma prima che lo fate io le voglio chiedere di tornare di qua)
b. Masculine singular pronoun “gli” used also for feminine and plural nouns (Margaret ha preso solo il 41%,
quindi il 59% gli ha votato contro)
c. Use of pronoun “ci” instead of “gli” (Ci vuoi parlare?)
d. Use of dislocations (Io l’ho presi dai miei risparmi questi soldi)

Grammatical variation within general English isn’t a regional feature, it’s more related to the education of
Pag 48 non-standard varieties in English??
speakers.
Non-standard dialects are common in Anglo-American films and may be problematic in translation
 es. “Finding Forrester”: Jamal, all his friends and his brother use non-standard grammar, omitting the verb “to
be”.
 es. “Billy Elliot”: many characters use sub-standard, incorrect grammar:
 Billy’s brother says “you been playing my records, you little twat?” (no ”have”)
 “I never played nowt” ( 2 non-standard features use of “never” for “not” and multiple negation)
 His boxing instructor says “you’re a disgrace to them gloves” instead of “those”

Translation in Italian:
- “Hai messo I miei dischi, no, testa di cavolo?”translated into stardard, grammatically correct Italian
- “Io non ho messo niente/Sei una vergogna per quei guantoni”
Language variation according to user is sometimes difficult to render in translating for dubbing, or it’s even lost in
dubbed films.

REGISTER:
Language may also vary according to useregister variation. People decide what type of language to use
according to what they’re talking about, the social context, who their addressees are (teachers/friends), their
relationships and if they’re speaking or writing

3 dimensions of register:
field tenor mode
Refers to: Refers to: Refers to:
-the subject of the text -they type of relationship -the channel or medium
-field of activity and particular between the interactants (written or spoken/
-function of the text business or informal letter/
phone conversation)

 The closer the speaker feels to the addressee, the more informal the language adopted.
 In translating for dubbing, it’s very important that the dialogue of the dubbed film should convey the same
register as the source language dialogue
Es. in a law courtuse of a specific lexis and fixed expressions, standard formulae and modes of address and
formal wordsregister is formal

 “Intolerable Cruelty””Prima ti sposo poi ti rovino” = the protagonist (a lawyer) is speaking to the judge
Es: pag. 50

 “The Queen” portrays Queen Elizabeth II, the Royal Family, Tony Blair and British peoplethe 1° meeting
between her and the Prime Minister is an extremely formal situationformal register
Es. pag. 50
-Italian dubbed versionreproduces quite the register of the source language:
“consigli che spero tanto di ricevere”less formal than the English “advice..which I look forward to receiving”

 Pag.51”Finding Forrester”Jamal selects different types languages according to the person he’s talking to
(friends/ Mr Forresterformal and controlled register)

 “The Importance of being Earnest”has an unmotivated shift of register: espag 51

Es. Here the English version is formal, but the Italian one is more informal and the register is changed
Modes of Address and Vocatives:
= they establish the relationship between interlocutorsthis can pose translation problems: the translator should
undertake an analysis of the source film and be aware of the way in which the 2 languages use modes of address.

English modes of address:

are the 2° person pronoun “you” and vocative forms
has one form and doesn’t make difference bt polite and familiar forms
Italian:
has the forms “Lei” and “tu” reveal the relationship bt the interlocutors
”Voi” is another option, a temporal and geographical variant still used in Southern regions as a form of respect
for eldersbut in Italian dubbed films is not very used, but the pronoun “Lei” is commonly adopted in spoken
discourse

“Romeo and Juliet” + “The importance of being earnest” use of “voi” between Paris and Capulet
 Juliet addresses her mother using “voi”this choice by the Italian translator is due to the social system at
that time and the king of modes of addresses used by people in that source and target culture

Ulrych says that: when the title and the surname are used in the source film, the target dubbed film renders it
with the reciprocal “voi”which is chosen when a written text or film is set between the Middle Ages and the 19°
century, because “lei” would sound anachronistic.

The Italian pronouns used for formality, politeness and familiarity opposed to Englishcause problems in
translation of film dialogues there has to choose bet “lei” or “voi”

Braun “the non-differentiating pronominal dress “you” in English doesn’t mean a lack of differences in politeness,
respect “but English resorts to non verbal sings to express the relationship bt interlocutors

Quirk and Greenbaum divide vocatives into 3 groups:

1. Single names with/out a title (Mark, Mr Jones, Dr Bradley)
2. Appellatives as terms referring to family relations (mother/mum) or terms of endearment (honey,darling)
or titles of respect (Sir, Madam) or markers of profession or status (doctor, Mr Prime Minister)
3. A single name or an appellative with modifiers or elements of various kinds (my dear Mr Jones, young
man/woman

Biber and his 9 categories of vocatives:

Endearments: Family terms: Familiarizers: Familiarized first names:
baby, honey,dear Mum, mummy,grandpa Guys, dude, buddy, bro Tom, Jackie
First names in full: Title and surname: Honorifics: Others (also nicknames):
Thomas, Jennifer Mrs Johns, Dr Denton Madam, Sir boy, lazy!, Uncle Joe

The choice of them reveals the type of relationship bt speaker and hearer

Biber and 3 main functions of vocatives:

Getting someone’s attention Identify someone as the addressee Maintaining and reinforcing social
relationships

He says that familiarizes and honorifics can be used to address strangers if we don’t know their names

In contemporary English “the title+surname (Mr Bean) in relegated to marking a more distant and respectful
relationship towards as acquaintance”not used as frequently as the 1° name.
 The predominance of the 1° name in conversation is stated also by Gramley and Patzold:
“Italians, on the contrary don’t resort the first name as rapidly with acquaintance and still retain formality and
respect by using Lei “

Pavesi says: there is an overuse of the 1° names in dubbed films, which causes lack of naturalness In the Italian
versionalso because e names are combines with “Lei” formal (used if there’s distance bt interlocutors).

The Lei+ first name is unlikely to occur in Italian spontaneous conversations

This “lei+name” combinationis an intermediate phase in the passage from the formal Lei to the reciprocal
Tushowing familiarity in an atmosphere of relative formality.

 Pavesi says: the unusual combination of “Lei+first name” in Italian is an intermediate form which is due to the
need to keep the first name which is pronounce by the actor, also due to the constraint of lip synch and need
to match the words heard with the visual side of the film
 If the original dialogue has a first name the Italian one will always have a first name
 As the actor pronounces the name of the interlocutor and images would shot it, it would be difficult for the
translator to opt for another word in Italian

Relationship of superiority-inferiority:
There’s a non-reciprocity in the use of modes of address, for ex bet teacher and studentthe student will use
“Title+last name” or Sir, while the teacher will use the first name to address the student
 Between boys or girls of the same age, classmatesreciprocal forms of address

Schifts in Modes of Address:

Signal attitudinal changes in social distance and power relations within a dyad
(es. pag 57 piccola tabella)

Charles is superiorthey start indicating formality and a hierarchical relationship. After making
love, Charles shifts to her first name, while Sarah keeps using the polysemous “you”
pronouneven if there’s intimacy in the target film she uses “tu” (es pag 58 tabella)

Italians will use a reciprocal “tu” or “Lei”, according “Finding Forrester”:

to the distance or familiarity, but in English
familiarity and distance aren’t grammaticalized,
they’re conveys by lexical choices of the speakers,
through vocatives, as names, titles..
They spend time togethergradual move to a more
familiar relation (tabella pag 59 in alto)
Jamal calls him with his 1° name and the colloquial
vocative “man” more familiar
Kyu7kyuk67o6
and closer relationship
 Jamal, 16, black boy
 William Forrester, 60, Scottish writer
In their dialogues we can see some exchanges which
reveal a change in their relationship.
They start with a non-reciprocal relation of hierarchy
and distance:
(Jamal uses “Lei” and a more formal way of speaking;
William uses “tu” and a more colloquial register

In ita: omission of “man”the use of the 1° name is a

sign of closeness and shift in relationship from formal to
familiar (2° tabella p 59)
1. The translator shift from lei to “tu”
2. “come on” is rendered once with “ti sbrighi?”, the second time with “su andiamo”, and the 3° one with
“coraggio”to avoid repetitions and for a need of lip synch
3. The word “man” is omitted in all occurrencesrendered with “amico”
4.
5. He and his friends don’t use the verb “to be”typical grammatical feature of Black American
Englishamong them the words “man/dog/yo” are often used at the end of utterancescolloquial
English and American English (man= tizio, tu) (dog=canaglia, mascalzone, as “hey what’s up, dog?”)all
these are feature of ethnic, geographical and age variationnot expressed in the target text and omitted
sometimesusually making the speech among them less colloquial in Italian and losing its social
specificity
6. Man translated in Italian as “amico” is not always correct because it’s less used among Italian speakers
7. “fuck man”= fottiti amicotranslation through a calqueunusual collocation
(pag. 61 dialogue)

In dubbing there’s tendency to domesticate the source film and its language, eliminating all the elements
that are too culture-related-in the case of modes of address there seems to be a source-oriented,
foreignizing approach.

Italian dubbed films are more characterised by the use of “tu”, a different use of the” Lei” form, and the
choice of unusual vocativesaccording to Pavesi dubbed films show a high use of “Tu” pronouns (used bt
young people and work colleagues).

8. Shift to the “tu” when he gets angry/upset/more aggressive:

“Finding Forrester” Jamal uses “lei” and formal register to address Forrester, shifts to “tu” when the man
doesn’t open the doorhe uses “man”dialogue pag 62 in basso

9. The use of “title+surname” sounds extremely formal in Italianthat’s way “lei” or “lei+title” is more used
(dottore, signore, ingegnere)
Esexchange between Jamal and his teacher Crawfordpag 63 dialogue

The fact that the literature teacher (Crawford) wants to establish a relationship of distance and stresses
his own superiority by calling Jamal “Mr Wallace”title+last name” may be required by the formality of
the context (school)superiority and power over Jamal
“Mr Wallace” is unusual in Italian high schoolsone occurrence is omitted, to make the TT sound more like
a natural exchange and to avoid redundancythe repetition stresses distance and superiority over Jamal

10. “Jamal” is repeated several times, maybe because the teacher wants to impose his control over him.
Es. Jamal and his mother meet his headteacher and another one to convince him to go to the new
schoolhis name is repeatedpag 64/65 dialogue

11. Modes of address translated in the text:

-Sir= signore -ma’am=signora -man= amico (unusual in Italian)
-Son=ragazzo/figliolo -Sir/Madam= are combined with “lei” -“tu” is used with man and son

12. But these modes of address wouldn’t be commonly used by Italian speakers in natural conversation, apart
from “signora”