Dubbing in drama

Dr. Gauti Kristmannsson

University of Iceland

Reykjavik

The Filmic Text in Drama

• Film is a polysemiotic text that makes simultaneous use of various signs.

• Structurally these texts are divided into acts, sequences, scenes, beats and dialogues.

• Words in dialogues, on scene texts and captions are the object of translation within the total original.

Dialogue

• Words in dialogues, on scene texts and captions are the object of translation within the whole of the original.

Hermeneutic procedure

• analytic steps from words to phrases to sentences, dialogues, scenes, sequences, acts and the film as a whole.

Parts and the whole

• absorb the whole in its parts, make sure of having understood each part and then reconstruct the whole from the same parts. In translation this means one has to tackle each micro component with the macro in mind.

• analysis takes this into consideration

Structure

• a selection of events from the characters’ life stories that is composed into a strategic sequence to arouse specific emotions and to express a specific view of life.

Events

• A story event creates a meaningful change in the life situation of a character that is expressed and experienced in terms of value.

Values

• Story values are the universal qualities of human experience that may shift from positive to negative, or negative to positive, from one moment to the next.

Conflict

• A story event creates meaningful change in the life situation of a character that is expressed and experienced in terms of a value and achieved through conflict.

Basic Film Structure

• beats– A beat is the smallest element of structure

and shows an exchange in behaviour in action/reaction. One by one these changing behaviours shape the turning of a scene.

Basic Film Structure

• scenes– A scene is an action through conflict in

more or less continuous time and space that turns the value-charged condition of a character's life on at least one value with a degree of perceptible significance. Ideally, every scene is a story event.

Basic Film Structure

• sequences– a sequence is a series of scenes--

generally two to five--that culminates with greater impact than any previous scene.

Basic Film Structure

• acts– an act is a series of sequences that peaks

in a climactic scene which causes a major reversal of values, more powerful in its impact than any previous sequences or scene.

Definitions: Beat

• A beat is the smallest element of structure and shows an exchange in behaviour in action/reaction. One by one these changing behaviours shape the turning of a scene.

Definitions: Scene

• A scene is an action through conflict in more or less continuous time and space that turns the value-charged condition of a character's life on at least one value with a degree of perceptible significance. Ideally, every scene is a story event.

Definitions: Sequence

• A sequence is a series of scenes--generally two to five--that culminates with greater impact than any previous scene.

Definitions: Act

• An act is a series of sequences that peaks in a climactic scene which causes a major reversal of values, more powerful in its impact than any previous sequences or scene.

Story

• A series of acts, one master event.

• Plot navigates through the story at the author’s choice

Different plots

• Archplot– classical design around an active

protagonist who struggles against external forces in pursuit of his or her desire through continuous time and causally connected fictional events and with að closed and irreversible ending.

Different plots

• Miniplot has, for example, an open ending, an internal conflict of the protagonist, multi-protagonist or a passive protagonist.

Different plots

• Anti-structure is based on coincidences, nonlinear time, inconsistent realities etc.

Closed ending

• A story climax of absolute, irreversible change that answers all questions raised by the telling and satisfies all audience emotion.

Open ending

• A story climax that leaves a question or two unanswered and some emotion unfulfilled is an open ending.

Protagonists

• One or more

• Active or passive

Time

• A story without flashbacks and arranged into a temporal order of events that the audience can follow is told in linear time.

• A story that either skips through time or blurs temporal continuity is told in nonlinear time.

Causality and conincidence

• Motivated and unmotivated actions– interconnectedness– fragmentation

Film structure and drama

• Act one---Act two---Act three---Act four---Act five• ----------+-----------------------------------------------------

• Inciting incident, what starts the dramatic conflict.

• Each act has its minor climax, where there is a reversal of fortunes, a kind of new inciting incident.

Action

• action combined with dialogue makes the drama move on

• classical example: boy meets girl in The Titanic

Theoretical issues

• The subtext and speech acts

• Questions of deixis, or pointing

• Questions of pragmatics such as:– the act of “reading” the “text”– the whys and wheres of a text

The subtext

• what do people really say?

• what is the purpose?

• what do they really want?

• what expresses what they want?

Speech acts

• Austin and Searle are the main propagators

• The main premise is that behind an utterance lies a desire to affect the world in some way, but that this is not always expressed directly

An example

• A: It’s a bit chilly in here, don’t you think?

- B can do a few things a) go and cose the window and perform the act expressed by as an illocutionary act.

- or b) agree and do nothing reversing the illocutionary act

- or c) say no and reverse the illocutionary act by asserting one of his/her own.

Deictic Problems of Film and TV Translation

• As film and TV translation does not replace the original, but operates within it, as either an addition (subtitles) or partial replacement (dubbing, voice over) problems of deixis may be the most difficult to solve.

Definition of deixis

• The act of pointing through verbal or non-verbal expression.

• More exact: The characteristic or function of an expression that defines the relation of the expression or its speaker to others, space, time and place. They can function within and without the „text“.

So what’s the problem?

• What makes deictic expressions remarkable and in need of added interpretation is the fact that on their own they can in many cases not be proved or disproved.

• „It is cold outside“ may be applicable to this time and place, but not in July. Without a context this expression is meaningless.

What do they do then?

• Deictic expressions are always dependent on the context and have the function to put speakers and objects into „place“.

The deictic centre

• i) speaker

• ii) time of speaker’s expression

• iii) place of speaker’s expression

• iv) discourse within which the speaker expresses him-/herself

• v) social position

Types of deixis

• Speaker-deixis refers to the speaker’s relation to others participating in the communication (as adressees or viewers). In film and TV translation we may have many problems here, as many relations of this sort are part of the viewers background knowledge which is taken for granted in the expression.

Types of deixis

• Place-deixis refers to the place in which the expression takes, places which are referred to from this centre and places beyond the centre of expression: It is not hot here; Brussels is not far from here; the cathedral is only 20 meters from the Museum. Again, background knowledge is of prime importance.

Types of deixis

• Time-deixis can be divided into expressions that refer to „real“ time on the calendar or the watch, or more „deictic“ expressions that refer to past, present or future without being measurably defined. In film, time is very often referred to through visual elements such as costume and equipment.

To complicate things

• To complicate things there is a division between the time of expression and reception. This can of course happen at the same time, as now when I am saying this to you; in texts, however, and in films especially, this is much more complicated.

Dubbing drama

• specific problems of dubbing

• translation procedure

• dubbing texts

• synchrony

• accents and dialects

• paralinguistics

The dubbing studio

See overhead

Translation procedure

• rough translation

• dubbing script

• recording

Dubbing texts

• what kind of a text is the dubbing text?

• written to be spoken

• acted to fit the foreign lips and acting

• heard not seen

Changes made for lip sync.

• omission of words

• pronouns used instead of full name

• omission of clauses

• phrase reformulated

Changes made to improve

• correct or better collocations

• less formal vocabulary

• correction of context reference

• avoidance of anglicisms

• more idiomatic language

• closer to the spoken language

Main characteristics

• many mistakes

• high frequency of anglicisms

• tendency to a written formality

• stylistic uneveness due to unmotivated switches from formal and informal language.

• cohesive factors neglected

Problems

• Replacing an original creating an illusion of it at the same time

• adapting language to the lip movements of a foreign language

• reacting a scene with different talents and voices

Definition of equivalence

• an adequate relation between source and a target text that fulfills the same communicative function on the same level in the respective culture

Lip synchrony

• off- and on-passages• length of utterance• labial cononants /b/, /m/, /p/• labiodental fricatives /f/, /v/• open vowels /æ/, /eI /, /aI/, /i:/ in SL

English• /ou:/, /y:/, /u:/, /o:/, /ø:/, /i:/, /a:/, /a:/ in SL

German

Types of synchrony

• quantitative lip synchrony

• qualitative lipsynchrony

• synchrony related to speech tempo

• synchrony related to articulation

• synchrony related to gestures

• nucleus synchrony

Accents and Dialects

• Usually accents and dialects are dubbed into the standard language.

Terminology

• Variety (national and/or social AmE or RP)

• dialect (regional, social)• accent (pronunciation only)

Social meaning

• 1. Regional marker

• 2. Social marker

• 3. Ethnic marker

Dialect as a marker in German

• High German has more prestige, and dialects have stereotypical connotations. Standard is the "appropriate variety" although no one speaks "Bühnendeutsch".

Problems of Equivalence I

• Equivalence through variety, accent or dialect is considered difficult.

• Most dialects and many accents as well serve as regional and/or social markers.

Problems of Equivalence II

• Loss of atmosphere or character fidelity where accents or dialects play a role.

The problem is common in:

• in situation comedy• when dialect reflects characters position

in the plot• when language is a subject

Possible equivalents:

• verbalise the origin of the speaker• switch the register according to situation

and social position• use voice quality to hint at e.g. a refined

upper class or crude working class (i.e. stereotypes)

• personality markers; competence vs. incompetence (swift speech or stutter)

Paralinguistics

• what is it?

• do non-verbal elements of speech have meaning?

• how do they combine with verbal elements of language?

Characteristic paralinguistic features

• speech tempo

• pauses

• volume

• pitch span

• articulatory precision

• gesture, body movement

Elements of meaning

• affective meaning

• modulation

Paralinguistics and culture

• Paralinguistic phenomena are culturally determined

• Hence an attempt at paralingustic equivalence (or compensation) can be at odds with paralinguistic synchrony, especially when it comes to the nucleus stress of the utterance

Paralinguistic problems

• speech tempo -» too much text• pitch span -» monotonous German• pauses -» very often not motivated due

to demands of lip synchrony• physical expression and gestures -» do

often not coincide with the nucleus stress of the utterance; lack of nucleus synchrony

Voice quality

• equivalence needed for informative and indexical features such as:

• biological (age, size, gender, etc.)

• psychological features

• social features

Choice of dubbing actors

• is intuitive (based on experience) after auditions

• likeness of voice not a primary criterion• the voices are generally accepted• voice as a personality marker• of the technical conditions (takes, lip

synchrony etc.)

Dubbing Theory

• inherently linked to translation theory

• considers practical problems of:

• drama

• translation of dialogue in context

• practical constraints

Synchrony and equivalence

• two central elements of dubbing

• texts are defined by both demands

Equivalence levels in dubbing

• Text sense and meaning

• Synchrony

• Text function, in which the dubbed film is taken as a whole

The End

Ende

Einde

Fin

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