VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN DUY ANH AUDIOVISUAL TRANSLATION PROBLEMS OF CULTURE-BOUND ELEMENTS: A STUDY OF THE AMERICAN FILM PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD’S END Những khó khăn trong việc dịch các thành tố văn hoá trong tài liệu âm-hình, nghiên cứu qua bộ phim Mỹ: Cướp biển vùng Caribê: Nơi tận cùng thế giới M. COMBINED PROGRAM THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 Hanoi, 2016 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES NGUYỄN DUY ANH AUDIOVISUAL TRANSLATION PROBLEMS OF CULTURE-BOUND ELEMENTS: A STUDY OF THE AMERICAN FILM PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD’S END Những khó khăn trong việc dịch các thành tố văn hoá trong tài liệu âm-hình, nghiên cứu qua bộ phim Mỹ: Cướp biển vùng Caribê: Nơi tận cùng thế giới M. COMBINED PROGRAM THESIS Field: English Linguistics Code: 60220201 Supervisor: Prof. Hoàng Văn Vân Hanoi, 2016 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com RESEARCHER’S STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY The work presented in this thesis is, to the researcher‟s knowledge and belief, is original and done by the researcher‟s own effort, besides, all sources of the materials quoted in the thesis are also acknowledged adequately.
Finally, the current thesis has not been submitted for any degree at this university and others and also has not been published. Hanoi, 2016 Nguyễn Duy Anh i LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This MA thesis was successfully completed with the supports of many people to whom I want to express my gratitude. Firstly, I want to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Professor Hoàng Văn Vân for his valuable instruction, aids and encouragement throughout my research process. Secondly, I want to express my thanks to the professors, doctors, lecturers and all other people at the Post-graduate Faculty of ULIS for their lessons and supports during my MA course.
Last but not least, I want to express my gratitude to my beloved family and friends whose supports and understanding contributed a lot in the success of my MA thesis. Hanoi, 2016 Nguyễn Duy Anh ii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com ABSTRACT In translation studies, the term audiovisual is not so strange to scholars and researchers. With the development of the film industry around the world, the field of AVT study plays the role of an effective tool which facilitates the directors and producers‟ need of bringing film products across the country borderline. As discussed by many scholars, the notion of culture plays an essential role in translation.
In AVT where the verbal text is supported by the other media, the cultural elements become a challenge. Thus, this study aims at investigating the issue of culture-bound elements in audiovisual translation. Analysing the selected American film entitled Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, the study seeks to (1) identify the culture-bound elements in the film, (2) find the translation problems of these elements and (3) suggest some strategies to improve the translation of these elements. The study is hoped to bring some helpful insights to the translation of films.
iii LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com TABLE OF CONTENTS RESEARCHER’S STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS. iv LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. vi PART A: INTRODUCTION.
Aim, Objectives and Research Questions. Corpus and Methodology. Scope of the Study. Design of the Study .7 CHAPTER 1: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND.
The Theories of Translation .1 Definitions of Translation. Culture Bound Elements in Translation. The Issues of Equivalence. Culture and Translation.
Culture-bound Elements in Translation. Definitions Culture-bound Elements (CBEs). Classification of CBEs. Classification Suggested for the Present Study.
Translation Strategies for CBEs. 30 iv LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com CHAPTER 2: THE TRANSLATION OF CULTURE-BOUND ELEMENTS IN PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD’S END. A Brief Introduction to Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. Data and Examples Format.
Culture-bound Elements in the Original Version .1 The Main CBEs throughout the Corpus. Talking Like Pirates: The Nautical Languages. The Elements from Third Cultures (E3Cs) .2 Other CBEs in the Film. The Verbal Elements.
The Non-verbal Elements. Translation Problems of CBEs and Some Translation Strategies. Translation Problems of CBEs in the Current Film. Possible Strategies for CBEs.
Calque or Literal Translation. Limitations and Suggestions for Further Research. Suggestions for Further Research. I v LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 3C Third culture AVT Audiovisual translation AV Audiovisual CBEs Culture-bound elements CSRs Culture-specific references ECRs Extralinguistic culture-bound references E3C Elements from third cultures ESC Elements from source culture ETC Elements from target culture IC Intercultural ICE Intercultural elements ICRs Intralinguistic culture-bound references SA Source audience SC Source culture SL Source language ST Source text TA Target audience TC Target culture TL Target language TT Target text vi LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com PART A: INTRODUCTION 1.
Rationale Presently, with the advance of science and technology, the film industry is also rapidly developing in both quantity and quality. All nations across the world have developed for themselves different film culture and at different level of development. A movie is not only a product of entertainment. It shows the level of development of the country where it comes from, and re-animates the language, culture as well as the history, the society and the beauty of this country.
At the end of the era of the silent films, when the language was bought into the movies as an effective tool of expression, a new problem also rose, challenging film directors and producers all over the world: their audiovisual products must be translated in order to bring them across the boundaries of language and culture. The term audiovisual translation (AVT) was born as a tool to facilitate the understanding and transferring of culture and ideas which are presented in film products and other audiovisual products such as TV show, TV dramas and video games. AVT has become an important part of our daily life. Many scholars and scientists have been investing their properties and intelligence into the subject.
As a result, many documents namely Topics in Audiovisual Translation by Pilar Orero (2004), Jorge Dìaz Cintas and Gunilla Anderman‟s Audiovisual Translation: Language Transfer on Screen (2009) were created. The information for the field is also provided in many academic associations in the world, such as the European Association for Studies in Screen Translation (ESIST). A feature film, or a movie, is a complete product which consists of many features. These features include the language of the film, presenting the verbal communication, and the non-verbal communication, namely the music, sounds, objects, gestures of the characters and other features.
Besides, the film contains the 1 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com cultural characteristics of the country where it was produced and also the social characteristics of the historical periods that it presents. These features of a feature film bring lots of challenges to translators. Translators are the people who bring the understanding of the texts to the “readers” from different language communities and at different knowledge background. When translating a movie, translators have a very important role of not only transferring the meaning of the language of the directors but also transferring the culture from the source to the target language.
In the translation of a movie, there are many difficulties for translators in terms of language and culture. The audience‟s main need is to understand what the characters are talking about on the screen. However, there is another issue that is not less important: it is that the translation must be acceptable in the receptive society. This problem lies on the differences between the two communities with different cultures and civilizations.
Focusing on culture-bound elements, this thesis has the main aim of identifying the problems in terms of culture that occur during the English – Vietnamese translation of the American feature film entitled: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End directed by Gore Verbinski. This is an American entertaining movie; however, it also contains many features for translators to concern. The film was written based on a historical period in the past in the Caribbean area, when the pirates were a part of the society. During that era, most of the countries were under the reign of feudalism, in which the social values, the culture background and also the language style were very different from present.
One of the film‟s appealing factors is that when watching it, the audience will come through many different tones of feeling, from horror to romance, from hatred to love, and from peace to war. Telling the story of a golden reign of pirates of the Caribbean area, the film consists of elements from many cultural backgrounds, from the mysterious China to the wild Africa, thus, it is really a challenge for translators to transfer the culture-bound 2 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail.com elements in this movie to the audiences who speak another language and come from another community. The differences in culture may cause translators to misunderstand the text and to mis-translate it. This study aims to find out the problems related to culture-bound elements in the conversations of the movie‟s characters that bring challenges to translators and to give some suggestions to transfer these items into Vietnamese.
In Vietnam, there are few researchers interested in this field; therefore, the researcher hopes to bring some useful suggestions for translators of movies and other audiovisual products. The study, thus, is expected to be helpful for translators and interpreters of other fields. Aim, Objectives and Research Questions The overarching aim of this study is to investigate the audiovisual translation problems of culture-bound elements (CBEs) in the film Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End. This aim is broken to be the following objectives: Identifying and categorising the CBEs in the film; Finding the translation problems of CBEs in the film; Offering some suggestions on using possible strategies for the translations of CBEs in the film.
To achieve the above aim and objectives, the study raises the following research questions for exploration: 1. What are the main culture-bound elements contained in the film Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End? 2. What are the major problems in translating the culture-bound elements in the film Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End? 3 LUAN VAN CHAT LUONG download : add luanvanchat@agmail. Corpus and Methodology The selected film to be used as the corpus of the current study is the American film Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End produced by Jerry Bruckheimer in 2008.
The very first step of the research is to download the film. The mp4 file of the movie with Vietnamese subtitle is downloaded from the website www.net and the English filmscript is taken from www. In addition, the researcher also records some examples from the VTV version on Starmovie (on TV). However, the names of the Vietnamese translators are unknown.
A brief introduction to the film (containing its producers, context, plot and main characters) will be presented at the beginning of chapter 2. Before collecting and analysing the data, the researcher will firstly study the theoretical framework concerning culture-bound elements and translation strategies. Henceforth, the following procedure will be conducted: To answer the first research question, the researcher will watch the film with the help of the downloaded English script and the culture-bound elements identified in the characters‟ talks and conversations will be recorded and categorised based on the framework. After identifying the CBEs in the original version, the Vietnamese versions will be examined.
The purpose of this is to find the problems in the translation of CBEs in the film.