21. Film translation 1: dubbing

On p. 211 Christopher Taylor begins his chapter on dubbing with a quote:“Film dubbing, the least studied of all branches of translation.” (Viaggio 1992)

Things have changed a lot since 1992. For information concerning the technical aspects of dubbing:

http://www.doppiaggio.info

This site gives us an example of creative dubbing from Mel Brooks’s film Young Frankenstein. Taylor uses the same example. It is unclear who copied whom.

In the film and TV industries dubbing (also called “revoicing”) involves a team of actors, translators and technicians. It is an expensive process and for this reason subtitles are preferred in some countries.

Italy has a long tradition of dubbing going back to the 1930s. Mussolini didn’t want people to hear too much English or French.

Obvious technical difficulties:

1. trying to synchonize the translated text with the actors’ lip movements (note how in English dialogue dubbed into Italian già is often used instead of sì);2. coping with target language texts that require more words than the source text (è fuori corso – he has fallen behind with his studies);3. matching the words with the images on the screen.

But the greatest difficulty is that of cultural transfer. What do we do about references to historical figures, TV actors (or the roles they play in soaps) , politicians, sports personalities, minor celebrities etc. who are unknown outside the source language culture? What do we do about the sociolects of communities of specific discourse communities (alienated blacks in Harlem, unemployed heroin addicts in Edinburgh, computer geeks in Silicon Valley, cricket fans in Yorkshire)?

TASK: think of some Italian cultural references that are untranslatable.

Taylor says that if we cannot translate the words we must at least communicate the function of the dialogue: “[…] if the function of a line of dialogue is to be humorous or frightening or seductive, or whatever, it is this function that must be conveyed, if necessary at the expense of linguistic fidelity.” (p.212)

The text Taylor gives us is from Spike Lee’s film Do the Right Thing, which is about a black community in a suburb of Brooklyn. The radio DJ, Mister Señor Love Daddy, is beginning his radio show. All DJs use word games but Mister Señor Love Daddy is more creative than most. Apart from the sociolect of Brooklyn African Americans, the translator also has to deal with the DJ’s idiolect.

The text is on page 213. You can also watch this scene on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCL3OtOzYuQ The translation is on page 216.

Translation of Swearing

From the same film, Taylor gives us some dialogue featuring aggressive behaviour and strong swear words (pp 216, 217, translation on p 218).

Your task: pp 218, 219.

FALSE FRIENDS 21

Review: engineer, entitle, entity, etiquette.

Expect The verb wait is usually translated as aspettare or attendere. The semantically related verb expect can be translated in various ways: 1. credere che qualcosa accadrà. I expect Susan will be late as usual. 2. credere che qualcuno arriverà. I can’t go out this evening because I’m expecting visitors. 3. aspettarsi, esigere, pretendere. When I pay that sort of money I expect first-class service. 4. suppore. I expect everyone has moments of self-doubt from time to time.

Extravagant 1. che spende molto più del necessario. Carla is so extravagant when she buys clothes that she hasn’t got enough money for food by the end of the month.2. esagerato. Politicians often make extravagant promises that they are subsequently unable to keep.

Stravagante odd, eccentric

THE DIARY OF A BRAVE TRANSLATOR VERILY IN LEG – PART 21

I usually stay up late because if I go to bed like the hens I end up passing the night in white. On the contrary, if I go to bed after midnight I generally fall asleep fairly quickly. But I don’t know what happened to me last weekend. I went to bed at about 1.00 a.m. on Saturday morning and for some reason I just couldn’t get to sleep. Some people take a horse’s dose of sedatives if they can’t sleep but I don’t even have stuff like that in the house. I tried reading but it didn’t make me tired. Then at about 5 o’clock I switched on the television. There was a repeat of a long interview with our prime minister. As usual he was promising us seas and mountains. It was the perfect soporific drug!

I usually stay up late because if I 1. go to bed like the hens I end up 2. passing the night in white. On the contrary, if I go to bed after midnight I generally fall asleep fairly quickly. But I don’t know what happened to me last weekend. I went to bed at about 1.00 a.m. on Saturday morning and for some reason I just couldn’t get to sleep. Some people take 3. a horse’s dose of sedatives if they can’t sleep but I don’t even have stuff like that in the house. I tried reading but it didn’t make me tired. Then at about 5 o’clock I switched on the television. There was a repeat of a long interview with our prime minister. As usual he was 4. promising us seas and mountains. It was the perfect soporific drug!

1. go to bed very early2. having a sleepless night3. a massive dose4. promising us the earth