Translation Of Cultural Elements In Cinema And Movies

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Translation of cultural elements in cinema and movies

The translation of cultural elements is one of the main problems facing the translator. According to Javier Franco, we could define cultural elements as “those textually updated elements whose function and connotations in an original text imply a translation problem in their transfer to a terminal text.”This problem usually appears when in the culture of the term term there is no element to be translated or if said element has a different consideration than the original proposes. Which can lead to misunderstandings or that the audience I don’t understand anything.

If we go a little further in the definition of cultural elements, Rosa Agost (1999) understands cultural referents such as those "that make a society differentiate from another, that each culture has its idiosyncrasy";In this case Rosa Agost does not focus her definition on mere textual connotation and she considers cultural referents other aspects such as issues related to history, art, outstanding characters of a society, gastronomy, etc.

The translator has the duty not only to know the language perfectly but also the culture in order to avoid this type of problems easily. To solve these problems the translator can opt for one of these three solutions:

  1. Domestication, also known as naturalization, in which the translator suppresses the elements of the original text that will be strangers in the culture of the target language. To solve this problem, change these elements to other relatives in the culture of arrival. We see an example of this in the movie of Ali G Indahouse (Ali G is loose), when the protagonist in the original film says: "What Another Cream Cake", which is translated into the Spanish version by "Another Bacon Boca".
  2. Another resource that can be employed is foreignization;This consists in maintaining in the target text the characteristic elements of the culture of the original text;This would be the opposite position to the previous option. Taking as an example the translation into English the eight -name Basque surname movie, we see that the translator uses this method in translating “I am a costaler of the brotherhood of the divine creator” as “i’m at Float Bearer in the Brotherhood of the Divine Creator”That this role of beast and all that Holy Week implies is something of the Spanish culture that does not occur in other countries and that the translator has decided to keep in the English version.
  3. Finally, we find neutralization;This consists of changing an element of the culture of the original text for another of the culture of the target text. This option can be given by the lack of knowledge of the translator or simply because I have opted for this solution. It usually occurs a lot when translating brand names that may not exist in the other country or by referring to famous characters from a specific country. An example of this type can be seen again in the translation of the movie eight Basque surnames;In this one chooses to translate: “But what is this, a demonstration or an apartment in Fuengirola?"For" IS this a demonstration or a springsteen concert?”Since the translator has probably considered that if he maintained the cultural reference, the spectators would not understand the comic connotation.

Although these summary in broad strokes the three possibilities of the translator against cultural elements, there are other options such as maintaining the original accompanied with a brief explanation. However, this technique is not usually useful in audiovisual translation since this type of translation, especially in the case of dubbing, is much more restrictive since the dialogue has to be adapted to the intervention time of the characters.

After an analysis of the techniques used by the translators, we move on to analyze what is understood as audiovisual translation and what it consists of. Specifically we will focus on dubbing, a technique used in much of European countries. To get an idea some of the countries that opt for this type of technique are: Austria, France, Italy, Spain, Germany and Czech Republic among others. While some countries such as: Romania, Greece, Finland, Sweden or Portugal opt for subtitling when cinematographic translation time.

Having the definition of Rosa Agost (1999,16) again: "Dubbing is the audiovisual translation in which the audiovisual text remains unchanged and the oral text is replaced by another oral text in another language" this type of translation ismore focused on target culture and tongue spectators. As we have previously said, dubbing implies the adaptation of translation into the intervention times of the characters, which involves extra difficulty when translating cultural elements typical of the original culture of the original. However, the translator is not solely responsible for the final translation;Dubbing is a very extensive process that implies the intervention of different people, including: we can highlight:

  • The dubbing study team that is responsible for deciding the type of translation that you want to carry out and look for the translator.
  • The translator who takes care of the translation in itself.
  • The dubbing director in charge of adjusting the text to the appropriate times
  • The people in charge of folding the voices
  • The team in charge of mixing the folded voices with the image giving rise to the final product.

Starting from the basis that language is a fundamental element of a culture, we must bear in mind that to carry out an adequate and precise translation, the knowledge of both languages is as necessary as a good basis of culture and history of culture originand of the target culture. The differences between both cultures will influence the difficulty of translation, at a greater distance between these, more difficulties will find the translator during its translation process.

Returning to the theme of dubbing this presents some advantages and some inconveniences that may be avoided by choosing subtitling. As inconveniences, its high cost can be highlighted since as we have said this method entails a great work team;On the other hand, this implies more laborious and therefore slow. However, the dubbing also presents many advantages related mainly to the final product for the viewer: on the one hand the audience can be more focused on the scenes of the film without the concern of missing images while reading the subtitles and on the other handThe film illusion is greater than with the subtitulation and the viewer will be more in the film.   

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