Translating Compliments in Subtitles

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Discussing traces of innovation and emotion in teen talk in TV series

This study aims to further investigate the language spoken by teenagers as a source of change and innovation on the one hand and as a repository of heightened emotions on the other. Given its volatility and the desire of its users to be understood mainly by group members, it is quite difficult to pin down the ongoing changes and new forms that are constantly being adopted. In this regard, the few specialized corpora available, the COLT (http://korpus.uib.no/icame/colt/) being the most typical, are either too old to register contemporary uses, or rather limited in the kind of situations portrayed. For these reasons, talking media may represent an advantageous source, as they “put standard and vernacular ways of speaking on display, contextualize them and imbue them with the socio-cultural values that we associate with standardness and vernacularity – very differently across different genres and contexts, and differently over time” (Mortensen, Coupland and Thøgersen 2017: 36). The influential role of media in moulding sociolinguistic change has by now been universally recognized: they may raise awareness, re-adjust attitudes, values, and socio-cultural norms, for example promoting standardization or de-standardization (Bednarek 2018). This contribution relies on a corpus-assisted methodology (Partington, Duguid and Taylor 2013) and extends the research in Bruti 2021, by comparing and contrasting the data already obtained (from a self-compiled corpus of American contemporary teen drama) with fresh data from comparable texts, one featuring British English (Skins 2007-2013) and the other offering a snapshot of a previous decade (Dawson’s Creek 1998-2003). The purpose is therefore to ascertain whether the markers of teen language identified in a previous study, e.g., wanna/gonna, totally and the lexical items fuck, shit and dude, can be considered characteristic elements of contemporary American teen talk as represented in drama series or if they also surface in British English and in previous decades

Audiovisual Texts and Subtitling in the Teaching of Pragmatics

In this paper I analyze the potentialities inscribed in the use of audiovisual material – two different TV series, Lost and Brothers & Sisters – and subtitles (DVD subtitles and the fansubs produced by the two largest Italian fansubbing communities, i.e. Itasa and Subsfactory) in teaching the dynamics of (im)politeness rituals. Since unwritten politeness rules vary considerably across cultures, a TV series offers learners examples of situated language use, where all the semiotic codes contribute equally to communication. In the case of Lost, the setting and the theme of the series make the dialogues simple and essential, with people very often opting out from expected politeness rituals because of the urgency of the situation. These features are not a shortcoming but an advantage, as they facilitate understanding in a teaching context. In Brothers and Sisters, on the other hand, interactions are generally more relaxed, as they involve family members and friends in everyday situations, but because of a high level of intimacy or rivalry between family members, they often dispense with politeness. In particular, I analyze the interactional style, the conversational behavior and politeness, or most often impoliteness, strategies used by the main protagonists of the two series in their pilot episode, showing how different subtitles can be used to favor the understanding and learning of pragmatic phenomena

Accents and dialect as a source of humour: the case of Rio

The present work stems from a research project carried out with G. De Rosa on the dubbing and subtitling of the film Rio (Saldanha, 2011), produced by Blue Sky Studios, in which the original English dialogues are compared and contrasted to translations into several languages, i.e. Brazilian Portuguese and Italian, making occasional reference to other dubbed versions, e.g. the Mexican, Spanish and Portuguese versions. In particular, this paper is devoted to an analy-sis of the Italian dubbing of Rio into Italian, focusing especially on humorous aspects and sociolinguistic variation and drawing a comparison with another animated film, i.e. The Aristocats (Reitherman, 1970)

Compliments in fansubs and in professional subtitles: The case of Lost

This contribution aims to explore the occurrences of compliments and their translations in professional subtitles and fansubs, i.e. subtitles produced by non-professional translators. As an amateur phenomenon, fansubbing does not have to comply with the norms that govern professional subtitling and generally exhibits greater accuracy in rendering idiolectal traits, character identity and intertexual references. For this reason, a comparison between the translation of compliments in professional and non-professional subtitles seemed quite promising, as evidence from previous studies suggests that socio-pragmatic meaning often tends to be jeopardized in interlinguistic subtitles. Their different aims and requisites make it possible for fansubs to grant much more attention to these aspects of language, compliments included, as useful indicators of the social forces at play. This paper offers the results of a linguistic comparison between these two types of subtitles for the American TV series Lost (2004-2010), a popular TV series around the world. The subject matter and the rapid rhythm of the series make the presence of ritual talk quite reduced and abrupt, but the analysis of the rendering of compliments in the DVD subtitles and in the fansubs produced by the two largest Italian fansubber communities, i.e. Itasa (http://www.italiansubs.net) and Subsfactory (http://www.subsfactory.it/) surprisingly shows no major discrepancies

Vocatives in Subtitles: a Survey across Genres

The purpose of this contribution is to investigate the function of vocatives and their translation in interlinguistic subtitles over different film genres. Our previous investigation (Bruti, Perego 2005) was based on a small corpus that included 2 British and 2 American films, belonging approximately to the same genre, i.e. COMEDY (with the exception of "The Talented Mr Ripley", which begins as a COMEDY but turns into a DRAMATIC MYSTERY STORY). This project aims to investigate the various roles vocatives play in the construction of the narrative according to the different needs that different film genres aim to fulfil. The corpus has therefore been extended to include: a full-length animated feature from Walt Disney Pictures ("Bambi", D. Hand, 1942), an action film ("Lethal Weapon 4", R. Donner, 1998), an adaptation from a literary masterpiece ("Sense and Sensibility", A. Lee, 1996), a popular comedy series (two episodes of "Sex and the City", Season 4, “The Agony and the Ex-tasy”, M.P. King, 2001 and “I heart NY”, M.P. King 2002) and an animated series (two episodes of "The Simpsons", “Homer in the night”, R. Moore, 1989-90; “Homer the Moe”, J. Kamerman, 2001-02)

Voices from the Anglo-Saxon world: Accents and dialects across film genres

In this paper we mean to focus on the representation of sociolinguistic variation across social classes in two radically different film genres, i.e. mystery and animated comedy, by analysing Gosford Park (Altman 2001), an ensemble murder mystery which takes place during a hunting party of aristocratic people and their friends; and Gnomeo & Juliet (Asbury 2011), a 3D computer-animated film, loosely based on Shakespeare’ s tragedy, whose protagonists are garden gnomes

Am J Trop Med Hyg

Haiti has the lowest improved water and sanitation coverage in the Western Hemisphere and is suffering from the largest cholera epidemic on record. In May of 2012, an assessment was conducted in rural areas of the Artibonite Department to describe the type and quality of water sources and determine knowledge, access, and use of household water treatment products to inform future programs. It was conducted after emergency response was scaled back but before longer-term water, sanitation, and hygiene activities were initiated. The household survey and source water quality analysis documented low access to safe water, with only 42.3% of households using an improved drinking water source. One-half (50.9%) of the improved water sources tested positive for Escherichia coli. Of households with water to test, 12.7% had positive chlorine residual. The assessment reinforces the identified need for major investments in safe water and sanitation infrastructure and the importance of household water treatment to improve access to safe water in the near term.20132013-10-09T00:00:00

How people greet each other in TV series and dubbing

In this paper we peruse the functions of greetings and leave-takings in a genre which shares many traits with films but which has its own distinctive features and has recently gained tremendous success by reaching millions of people – i.e. TV series. More specifically, we concentrate on greetings and leave-takings that open and close conversations, trying to highlight how much narrative space they are granted and how frequent they are in both original and dubbed dialogues

Representing varieties of English in film language and dubbing: The case of Indian English

The article focuses on the linguistic choices adopted in the original version of some films to represent the 'Indianness' (Bhatt 2008: 546) of the characters, also when Indian English encounters other varieties of English- i.e. British English in Bride and Prejudice or Desi in Monsoon Wedding - and then discusses how cultural and social values travel across cultures in the light of the most recurrent strategies adopted in the Italian dub. By Indian English we refer to Vernacular Indian English - i.e. a non standard variety that - shows strong identification with local ideologies??? (Bhatt 2008) and bears traces of the influence of local languages of India, thus differentiating itself from proper Standard Indian English, which in contrast is essentially similar in its core syntax to Standard British English, from which differs only in the domain of phonetics