Translation of interjections and subtitling: a study based on the BETA corpus of TV series and film subtitles

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.24310/trt.27.2023.15552

Keywords:

audiovisual translation, subtitling, interjections, corpus, English into Spanish, translation solutions

Abstract

Interjections, often considered minor and peripheral linguistic elements, have been disregarded in both linguistic and translation-studies research. The main aim of this study, in this sense, is to analyse the translation of three primary and three secondary interjections in a parallel English-Spanish corpus of subtitles. More specifically, the interjections under study were ah, wow, ugh, God, damn, and shit, and the corpus used was the BETA corpus. Four main translation solutions have been identified: literal translation, translation by an interjection with a different form, translation by a textual fragment which contains no interjection, and omission. The results of the study indicate that the most frequent translation solution in the whole corpus has been omission, followed by the translation by a different interjection. In a more fine-grained analysis, the two variables analysed, namely type of interjection and specific interjection, have been found to condition the choice of translation solution. 

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...

Author Biography

Francisco Javier Díaz Pérez, Universidad de Jaén

ORCID: 0000-0001-6772-0852

References

Ameka, F. (1992). Interjections: The universal yet neglected part of speech. Journal of Pragmatics 18, 101-118. https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(92)90048-G

Ávila Cabrera, J. J. (2016). The subtitling of offensive and taboo language into Spanish of Inglourious Basterds. Babel 62(2), 211-232. https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.62.2.03avi

Bally, C. (1950). Linguistique générale et linguistique française. A. Francke.

Barbéris, J. M. (1992). Onomatopée, interjection : un défi pour la grammaire. L’information grammaticale 53, 52-57.

Bloomfield, L. (1933). Language. George Allen & Unwin.

Chen, C. (2004). On the Hong Kong Chinese subtitling of English swearwords. Meta, 49(1), 135-147. https://doi.org/10.7202/009029ar

Cuenca, M. J. (2000). Defining the undefinable? Interjections. Sintaxis, 3, 29-44.

Cuenca, M. J. (2002). Translating interjections for dubbing. In L. Iglesias Rábade & S. M. Doval Suárez (Eds.), Studies in contrastive linguistics. Proceedings of the 2nd International Contrastive Linguistics Conference (pp. 299-310). Universidade de Santiago de Compostela.

Cuenca, M. J. (2006). Interjections and Pragmatic Errors in Dubbing. Meta, 51(1), 20-35. https://doi.org/10.7202/012991ar

Díaz Cintas, J. (2001). Sex, (sub)titles and videotapes. In L. Lorenzo & A. M. Pereira (Eds), Traducción subordinada (II) El subtitulado (inglés-español/galego) (pp. 47-67). Universidade de Vigo.

Díaz-Pérez, F. J. (2020). Translating swear words from English into Galician in film subtitles. A corpus-based study. Babel 66(3), 393-419. https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.00162.dia

Drzazga, A. (2019). Interjections in Shakespeare’s Hamlet and their Polish translations. Linguistica Silesiana 40, 83-98. https://doi.org/10.24425/linsi.2019.129403

Farhoudi, M. (2012). Translation of interjections in drama. Babel, 58(3), 327-338. https://doi.org/io.iO75/babel.58.3.o5far

Fernández Dobao, A. M. (2006). Linguistic and cultural aspects of the translation of swearing: The Spanish version of Pulp Fiction. Babel 58(3), 222-242. https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.52.3.02fer

Gómez Capuz, J. (2001). La interferencia pragmática del inglés sobre el español en doblajes, telecomedias y lenguaje coloquial: una aportación al estudio del cambio lingüístico en curso. Tonos Digital, 2. https://www.um.es/tonosdigital/znum2/estudios/Doblaje1.htm

Gómez Guinovart, X., & Sacau Fontenla, E. (2004). Parallel corpora for the Galician language: building and processing of the CLUVI (Linguistic Corpus of the University of Vigo). En M. T. Lino et al. (Eds), Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC 2004) (pp. 1179-1182).

European Language Resources Association (ELRA).

Han, C., & Wang, K. (2014). Subtitling swearwords in reality TV series from English into Chinese: A corpus-based study of The Family. The International Journal for Translation & Interpreting Research, 6(2), 1-17.

Hjort, M. (2009). Swearwords in subtitles: A balancing act. inTRAlinea, Special issue: The translation of dialects in multimedia. http://www.intralinea.org/specials/article/1718

Ivarsson, J., & Carroll, M. (1998). Subtitling. TransEdit HB.

Jing, Y. (2021). Audiovisual translation as orchestration of multimodal synergies: Expendability of interjections in intralingual film subtitling. Target, 33(1), 26-46. https://doi.org/10.1075/target.19163.jin

Jing, Y., & White, P. R. R. (2016). Why Audiovisual Translators Downplay the Interpersonal: The Case of ‘Interjections’ in English-to-Chinese Movie Subtitling. The Journal of Translation Studies, 17(4), 107-142. https:/doi.org/10.15749/jts.2016.17.4.005

Kleiber, G. (2006). Sémiotique de l’interjection. Langages, 161, 10-23. https://doi.org/10.3917/lang.161.0010

Matamala, A. (2004). Les interjeccions en un corpus audiovisual. Descripció i representació lexicográfica. [PhD thesis, Universitat Pompeu Fabra]. Biblos-e File. http://hdl.handle.net/10803/7498

Matamala, A. (2007). The translation of oh in a corpus of dubbed sitcoms. Catalan Journal of Linguistics, 6, 117-136. https://doi.org/10.5565/rev/catjl.127

Matamala, A. (2009). Interjections in original and dubbed sitcoms in Catalan: A comparison. Meta, 54(3), 485-502. https://doi.org/10.7202/038310ar

Mayoral, R. (1993). La traduccion cinematografica: el subtitulado. Sendebar, 4, 45-68.

McEnery, T. (2006). Swearing in English: Bad language, purity and power from 1586 to the present. Routledge.

Meinard, M. E. M. (2015). Distinguishing onomatopoeias from interjections. Journal of Pragmatics, 76, 150-168. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2014.11.011

Qin, H., & Valdeón, R. A. (2019). Intercultural pragmatics and the translation of English interjections and expletives into Spanish and Chinese. Babel, 65(3), 337-354. https://doi.org/10.1075/babel.00098.qin

Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., & Svartvik, J. (1985). A comprehensive grammar of the English language. Longman.

Rodríguez Medina, M. J. (2009). Consideraciones pragmáticas en la traducción de las interjecciones del inglés al español: El caso de la novela británica Jemima B. Revista de Lingüística y Lenguas Aplicadas, 4, 175-187.

Rojo, A. M., & Valenzuela, J. (2000). Sobre la traducción de las palabras tabú. Revista de Investigación Lingüística, 1(3), 207-220.

Rusu, O. C. (2015). Language functions in a comparative classification of interjections. Potential benefits to their translation. Journal of Romanian Literary Studies, 6, 920-930.

Rusu, O. C. (2016). A corpus‐based approach on the relevance of translating interjections. Professional Communication and Translation Studies, 9, 167-176.

Santamaria Ciordia, L. (2016). A contrastive and sociolinguistic approach to the translation of vulgarity from Spanish into English and Polish in the film Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! (Pedro Almodovar, 1990). Translation and Interpreting Studies, 11(2), 287-305. https://doi.org/10.1075/tis.11.2.08cio

Shahraki, A., Karimnia, A., & Mashhaddy, H. (2012). A Skopos-based study on translation of interjections from English into Persian in drama. Elixir Linguistics and Translation, 47, 9088-9093.

Swiatkowska, M. (2006). L’interjection: entre deixis et anaphore. Langages, 161, 47-56.

Thawabteh, M. A. (2010). The translatability of interjections: A case study of Arabic-English subtitling. Meta, 55(3), 499-515. https://doi.org/10.7202/045067ar

Valdeón, R. (2020). Swearing and the vulgarization hypothesis in Spanish audiovisual translation. Journal of Pragmatics, 155, 261-272. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2019.09.005

Valero Garcés, C. (2001). Las fórmulas rutinarias en la comunicación intercultural: la expression de emociones en inglés y en español y su traducción. In I. de la Cruz (Ed.), La lingüística aplicada a finales del siglo XX. Ensayos y propuestas, vol. 2 (pp. 635-639). Universidad de Alcalá.

Vassileva, A. (2007). Sur le traitement de la forme du signifié interjectionnel. Langages, 165, 115-122.

Wierzbicka, A. (1992). The semantics of interjection. Journal of Pragmatics, 18(2), 159-192. https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(92)90050-L

Xiang, C. (2015). On Chinese Translation of English Interjections. Cross-Cultural Communication, 11(12), 15-20. https://dx.doi.org/10.3968/8027

Zamora, P., & Alessandro, A. (2016). Frequency of use and functions of Italian and Spanish interjections in film language and their impact on their Spanish dubbing. In C. Calvo Rigual & N. Spinolo (Eds.), Translating orality. Special issue 3 of Monografías de Traducción e Interpretación (pp. 1-30). https://doi.org/10.6035/MonTI.2016.ne3.7

Published

2023-12-28

How to Cite

Díaz Pérez, F. J. (2023). Translation of interjections and subtitling: a study based on the BETA corpus of TV series and film subtitles. TRANS – Revista De Traductología, (27), 151–171. https://doi.org/10.24310/trt.27.2023.15552

Issue

Section

Miscelánea