Issues Of Culture Specific Item Translation In Subtitling
Available online at www.sciencedirect.comScienceDirectProcedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 231 (2016) 223 – 228International Conference; Meaning in Translation: Illusion of Precision, MTIP2016, 11-13 May2016, Riga, LatviaIssues of culture specific item translation in subtitling-ROLWD RUEDþDXVNLHQơa 5DPXQơ .DVSHUDYLþLHQơb,* 6DXOơ 3HWURQLHQơca–cKaunas University of Technology, Mickeviþiaus g. 37, Kaunas, 44244, LithuaniaAbstractCulture specific items (CSI) have received the attention of many researchers who claim that CSI translation is alwaysproblematic due to cultural interrelation. Rendering culture specific items in an audiovisual format is currently one of the mosttopical issues in translation research. The paper employs the taxonomy designed by Pedersen (2011) for culture specific itemtranslation from English into Lithuanian analyzed in the subtitles of the Australian TV reality show My Kitchen Rules. Theresults indicate that not all culture specific items are appropriately rendered into the target language, which is a significant factorin the evaluation of translation quality. 6TheAuthors.Authors.PublishedPublishedElsevier 2016 ThebybyElsevierLtd.Ltd.This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND licensePeer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of c-nd/4.0/).Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of MTIP2016Keywords: Audiovisual translation; translation strategies; culture specific item; subtitling; translation quality.1. IntroductionLow translatability of culture specific items (CSIs) has long been acknowledged by theorists of translation andtranslators. Although different techniques and strategies have been proposed for translation (Newmark, 1988;Hervey and Higgins, 1992; Venuti, 1995; House, 1997), culture specific items stand out especially among languageproblems in translation. Therefore, some researchers have designed taxonomies of translation strategies particularlyfor rendering CSIs in different modes (Aixela, 1996; Davies, 2003; Pedersen, 2011; Tomaszkiewicz, 1993; Valdeon,2008).The purpose of this study is to examine culture specific items, in particular names of foods and beverages, andhow they are rendered in Lithuanian subtitled versions of TV shows. Since subtitles have to be concise to fit the* Corresponding author. Tel.: 37065915483.E-mail address: ramune.kasperaviciene@ktu.lt1877-0428 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND nd/4.0/).Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of MTIP2016doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2016.09.095
224Jolita Horbačauskienė et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 231 (2016) 223 – 228available space on the screen and allow the viewers sufficient time to read them, a translator has few translationstrategies to choose from in order to render culture specific items in audiovisual texts.2. Theoretical backgroundSince the beginning of cable TV, subtitling has been a popular format for audiovisual translation in Lithuania forfinancial and genre-related reasons. Subtitling is very clearly characterized by the use of particular features: two orthree lines at the bottom of the screen written and displayed for a few seconds. Because of this, subtitles should beconcise, simple and straightforward as readers cannot go back to read anything they may have missed. As noted byTveit (2009, p. ³LQ RUGHU WR HQKDQFH UHDGDELOLW\ EUHYLW\ LV WKH HVVHQFH In terms of subtitling, culture specificitems are even more complicated to render, as they usually require the descriptive translation technique, whichfrequently results in longer streams of words in the target language. Therefore, a problematic issue when translatingfor subtitles is the length of the text produced. Omission or inadequate and insufficient rendering of culture specificitems, which is a recurrent case, makes subtitling a vulnerable form of audiovisual translation as anyone can judgeand criticize it upon seeing and hearing source and target texts (Diaz Cintas, & Remael, 2007).A plethora of translation strategies used to render culture specific items in the audiovisual mode exists. Authorsof the latest studies on the translation of culture specific items advocate a few main categories.Tomaszkiewicz (1993), in her study on linguistic operations that underpin the subtitling process in films,distinguishes the following strategies for culture specific items:xxxxxxxxOmission when the culture specific item is omitted;Literal translation when there is a close match between the source and target texts;Borrowing when culture specific items are used in the target text as they are in their original form;Equivalence when a source culture lexical item with a similar meaning and function exists in the target culture;Adaptation when the translation is adapted to the target language and culture;Replacement of the cultural term with deictics;Generalization, otherwise called neutralization of the original;Explication or a paraphrased explanation of the cultural term.Valdeon (2008) provides another taxonomy for the translation of culture specific items in the audiovisual modemainly dividing the strategies into preservation and substitution:xxxxxxxPreservation of international items;Preservation of culture specific items;Substitution with a different source culture item;Substitution with an international item;Substitution with a target-culture item;Substitution with corrupted forms of target-culture items;Substitution with a superordinate term.3HGHUVHQ¶V WD[RQRP\ RI culture specific item transfer strategies is the most comprehensive one as it ³matches theworld, rather than trying to make the world fit the model (Pedersen, 2011, p. 74). The six defined strategies areclassified into two main categories: source language oriented and target language oriented. The strategies that aresource language oriented are as follows:x Retention occurs when the CSI is rendered into the target language in an unchanged (complete retention) orslightly adapted (target language adjusted) form;x Specification, further subdivided into addition and completion, occurs when the CSI is specified by adding moreinformation;x Direct translation is in fact word-for-word translation, further subdivided into calque and shifted.
Jolita Horbačauskienė et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 231 (2016) 223 – 228225The target language oriented strategies are:x Generalization (superordinate term or paraphrase) occurs when the CSI is rendered less specifically in the targettext than it is in the source text;x Substitution (cultural or situational) occurs when the CSI of the source culture is replaced by another CSI;x Omission occurs when the CSI is ignored and not rendered at all.As argued by researchers on audiovisual translation, omission is a legitimate and frequent strategy (Toury, 1995)and sometimes the only feasible strategy for CSI rendering in subtitles (Pedersen, 2011).Pedersen (2011) distinguishes one more strategy for translation of culture specific items for the audiovisualmode: a ready-made, official equivalent existing between the source and target cultures. This strategy differs fromthose identified as target language oriented and source language oriented because it involves an administrativeprocess rather than a linguistic one (ibid). Therefore, such culture specific items should never pose a problem fortranslation.6WXGLHV RQ WKH WUDQVODWLRQ RI FXOWXUH VSHFLILF LWHPV LQWR /LWKXDQLDQ DUH QRW DEXQGDQW /HRQDYLþLHQơ 0DNVY\W\Wơ 3HWUXOLRQơ KDYH PDLQO\ UHVHDUFKHG LVVXHV LQ WUDQVODWion of CSIs in literary texts. FFRUGLQJ WR 0DNVY\W\Wơ &6,V FDUU\ FXOWXUDO KLVWRULFDO DQG HWKQRJUDSKLF EDFNJURXQGs; therefore, linguisticcompetence and awareness of specific culture is needed in order to propose an appropriate translation of CSIs0DNVY\W\Wơ Furthermore 3HWUXOLRQơ (2012, p. 44) argues that ³the hardest thing in translation is to find theright equivalents for words with cultural implications For this reason, translators tend to make non-motivateddecisions in rendering CSIs, which do not allow readers to get appropriately acquainted with different cultures/HRQDYLþLHQơ , p. 43). The author claims explicitation (otherwise called explication) to be the most commontranslation strategy for CSIs. However, the specifics of the genre chosen for the purposes of this research imply anassumption that explicitation might not be the best strategy for rendering CSIs due to space, time and textlimitations.Although researchers disagree on the number of strategies available to translators, as pointed out by Ramiere(2006), it may be argued that all the above-mentioned taxonomies more or less correspond. Although theterminology proposed by the researchers differs, the taxonomies present relatively similar ways of rendering CSIs.PederVHQ¶V WD[RQRP\ RI FXOWXUH VSHFLILF LWHP WUDQVIHU VWUDWHJLHV ZDV FKRVHQ DV WKH EDVLV RI DQDO\VLV DQG VXEGLYLVLRQ because this taxonomy clearly subdivides the strategies into target and source language oriented. Besides, it isproposed for CSI rendering in subtitling. The taxonomy was chosen as appropriate because this particular studyinvestigates the transference of meaning.3. MethodologyCreswell and Plano Clark DUJXH WKDW ³the use of quantitative and qualitative approaches in combinationprovides a better understanding of research problePV WKDQ HLWKHU DSSURDFK DORQH (2007, p. 5). The mixed methodapproach in this research was employed to explore data qualitatively and further analyze the data with a morefocused quantitative analysis of the subtopic. As noted by Saldanha and O¶Brien (2013), the validity of the resultsdepends on the collated and analyzed data contribution to answering research questions.This study employs the qualitative method in the analysis of the translation of names of foods and beveragesfrom English to Lithuanian; the expressed content is analyzed in terms of the translation strategies used.For the analysis, the data were collected from the Australian reality show My Kitchen Rules (season 2014). Thenumber of episodes analyzed was 20, and in total, 219 CSIs related to food and beverages were found. Theirtranslations were subdivided into the classification categories proposed by Pedersen. Although this reality show isbased and broadcast in Australia, the background is international, since participants, judges, hosts and presenterscome from different continents, including countries as Australia, France, Ireland, Thailand, Japan, Italy, Greece,Turkey, etc. and represent a variety of cuisines.
226Jolita Horbačauskienė et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 231 (2016) 223 – 2284. ResultsAll the CSI renderings were analyzed in terms of their source or target culture orientation. The majority ofrendered CSIs (70%) were transferred as source oriented culture specific items (see Fig. 1). Because the transfer ofCSIs is performed via subtitles, the choice of transferred CSI strategies might be possibly affected by the limitednumber of symbols available; therefore, source language orientation is retained, as such rendering requires less text.Fig. 1. CSI transference strategies.Source language oriented CSI transference strategies were distributed as follows: retention (84%), specification(10%) and direct translation (6%). Direct translation requires the subtitler not to change the semantic load of CSIs,i.e. nothing is added nor subtracted, e.g. Paris mash – paryžietiška košơ. Connotations of a source text are nottransferred in any way, which results in an unclear semantic content. It may be assumed that the number of suchcases in the analyzed data was low, due to the fact that this strategy does not allow the rendering of the connotativemeaning of a source text item. In terms of specified source oriented CSIs, the numbers were also low. Specificationinvolves addition, e.g. labna is transferred as labna snjris (En. labna cheese), and completion, e.g. Avgolemono saucetransferred as Kiaušiniǐ, citrinǐ padažas (En. egg-lemon sauce). The information added is part of the connotativemeaning. The major drawback of this strategy is that it is space-consuming.The vast majority of source language oriented CSIs were rendered using the retention strategy, further subdividedinto complete retention (60.5%) and target adjusted retention (39.5%) (Fig. 2). Complete retention involves thetransference of CSIs in an unchanged form, e.g. labna and fromage rendered as labna ir fromage, tastes like cremeanglaise rendered as skonis kaip creme anglaise, aioli as aioli, sous vide bag as sous vide maišelis, etc. In somecases, complete retention may be justified because the target audience is well aware of the meaning of a retainedCSI. However, in the data set analyzed, the choice of complete retention is debatable because, as the examplesillustrate, the meaning rendered is unclear. Target adjusted retention refers to a slightly adapted form of an originalitem, usually in spelling, e.g. chilli – þili, morengue – morengai, mascarpone – maskarponơ, etc. According toPedersen, retention is the most common strategy for rendering CSIs in subtitling, which is also confirmed by thefindings of this particular study.
Jolita Horbačauskienė et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 231 (2016) 223 – 228227Fig. 2. Source language oriented strategies.Target language oriented strategies found in rendered CSIs were substitution (55%) and generalization (41%),followed by omission (4%) (Fig. 3). Generalization was produced either as a superordinate term or paraphrase, e.g.tartes – pyragơliai, barramundi – žuvis, rösti – paplotơlis, etc. All the examples illustrate that source culture specificitems were rendered to the target text more generally, which may be considered as more effective than, for example,complete retention. Substitution involves removing or replacing the source text with something else that is morerecognizable within the target culture, e.g. mushroom wontons – grybǐ koldnjnai, toffee – irisas, etc.Fig. 3. Target language oriented strategies.In summary of the data analyzed, retention was the most common strategy used to render culture specific items inthe subtitling of a reality show from English to Lithuanian. Our findings correspond ZLWK 5DPLHUH¶V, who alsoargues that the taxonomies of translation strategies cannot fully represent the pragmatic issues related to culturaltransfers in audiovisual translation (2006). Translation of CSIs to Lithuanian also poses a challenge, which is furthercomplicated by the fact that audiovisual translation is a comparatively new mode of translation in Lithuania and hasnot been researched extensively so far.ConclusionsThe results indicate that not all culture specific items are appropriately rendered into the target language, which isa significant factor in the evaluation of translation quality. Since there is a strict language-preserving policy in
228Jolita Horbačauskienė et al. / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 231 (2016) 223 – 228Lithuania, target language oriented CSI transference is expected to be most frequent. However, the results of thestudy demonstrate that source language oriented cultural transference prevails. This might be explained by the factthat the subtitling tradition is still at a relatively early stage in Lithuania and the number of professionally trainedsubtitlers is not yet sufficient. Source-oriented transference via retention might be considered an easier way to dealwith CSIs, which may result in an inadequate quality of translation. Since research into the translation of culturespecific items is inconsistent and sporadic and approved translations of culture specific items exist only forparticular areas, further extensive research would be highly beneficial.ReferencesAixela, J. F. (1996). Culture specific items in translation. In E. R. Alvares, M., C., Vidal & A. Clevedon (Eds.), Translation, power, subversion(pp. 56 66). Philadelphia: Multilingual Matters.Creswell, J. W., & Plano Clark, V.L. (2007). Designing and conducting mixed methods research. California and London: Sage.Davies, E.E. (2003). A goblin or dirty nose? The treatment of culture-specific references in translation of the Harry Potter books. The Translator9(1), í Diaz Cintas, J., & Remael, A. (2007). Audiovisual translation: Subtitling. Manchester and Kinderhook: St Jerome.Hervey, S., & Higgins, I. (1992). Thinking translation. London and New York: Routledge.House, J. (1997). Translation quality assesment: A model revisited. Tubingen: Narr Verlag./HRQDYLþLHQơ /LHWXYLǐ NXOWnjULQLǐ WHNVWR UHLNãPLǐ LQWHUSUHWDFLMD LU YHUWLPDV Studies about Languages, 19, 39 44.0DNVY\W\Wơ - 6ąYRNǐ UHDOLMD LU UHDOLMRV SDYDGLQLPDV DSLEUơåLPR SUREOHPD Studies about Languages, 21, 50 56.Newmark, P. (1988). A textbook of translation. New York: Prentice-Hall International.Pedersen, I. (2011). Subtitling norms for television. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.3HWUXOLRQơ / 7UDQVODWLRQ RI FXOWXUH-specific items from English into Lithuanian: The case of Joanne HarriV¶V QRYHOV Kalbǐ studijos, 21, í .DXQDV Kaunas University of Technology.Ramiere, N. (2006). Reaching a foreign audience: Cultural transfers in audiovisual translation. JosTrans 6. London.6DOGDQKD * 2¶%ULHQ 6 Research methodologies in translation studies. London and New York: Routledge.Tomaszkiewicz, T. (1993). Les opérations linguistiques qui sous-tendent le processus de sous-titrage des films. Poznan: University AdamMickiewicz.Toury, G. (1995). Descriptive translation studies and beyond. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.Tveit, J. E. (2009). Dubbing versus subtitling: Old battleground revisited. In Diaz Cintas, J. & Anderman, G. (Eds.), Audiovisual translation:Language transfer on screen (pp. 83 100). Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Valdeon, R. A. (2008). Alienation techniques in screen translation: The role of culture specifics in the reconstruction of target-culture discourse.Language in Contrast 8(2), í Venuti, L. (1995). The translator’s invisibility: A history of translation. London and New York: Routledge.
Issues of culture specific item translation in subtitling . translation from English into Lithuanian analyzed in the subtitles of the Australian TV reality show My Kitchen Rules. The results indicate that not all culture specific items are appropriately rendered into the target language, which is a significant factor in the evaluation of translation quality. 6 The Authors. Published by .
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