Theories of Translation
Write a Review of an English Translation of a Chinese Film.
Over the years, Chinese movies have been being published with the English subtitles or completely with the English dubbed version in order to enrich the base of the audience. Chinese language has its own diction and a distinctive style. Thus it is easily understood that translation or dubbing of the Chinese movies fail to provide the actual essence to the audiences (Perego et al.2016). The Chinese movies with English subtitles rather create difficulties for the audience while following the movie and the sub titles at the same time. Therefore, the whole discussion is the critical review of a Chinese movie which has an English dubbed version. In the whole course of the discussion, the basic theories and the nature of translations have been discussed. To do this one particular theory has been elaborated in terms of its pioneer, significance and most importantly its role in translation. In the second part of the discussion, a movie has been thoroughly reviewed as to how far the translated version of the movie was successful.
As nowadays most of the Chinese films come with English subtitles, thus it has become a common phenomenon in the world of Chinese entertainment. The growing demand of watching the new realized movies among the western audience is the driving force of English dubbing or the translation of the Chinese movies. Under this situation, Chinese movies with English subtitles have become a vital aspect for the film production industry to achieve greater audience base. However, the idiomatic expressions, language differences and rules of conversations differ from the actual articulation of the movie (Ameri and Ghazizadeh 2017). Thus often the audience gets confused while watching the movies. weather it is the matter of subtitle or the matter of the matter of the dubbing, english translation only fulfills the satisfaction of watching newly released movies but it cannot give the essence of that the original version of the tries to give to its audience. However, despite of the above mentioned fact, there are certain theories regarding movie translation and subtitles.
The most relevant theory regarding the translation of movie is the relevance theory that was raised in Grices’s theory of conversation (Clark 2013). According to the theory, there are two primary tasks while translating a movie is to overcome the language barrier and the difficulties faced by the audiences during watching the translated version of a movie. In order to achieve the success of movie translating, the production houses must fulfill these aspects. In accordance with the theory of conversation, translation has been considered as the medium of communication which creates a bond between the people of two different language backgrounds. Thus the translators must play the role of double actions. For example they need to act as the hearer of the original language of the movie and at the same time they must act as the speaker of the language ion which it will be translated. To do this, the translators must understand the meaning that the maker of the movie tried to convey through his piece of work.
Review of translated English version of Shaolin Temple 1976
The work of a translator includes perfect interpretation of the meaning of the movie which is to be translated not the mere translating of the language of the original version. The translator’s dual role is operated in accordance with the relevance theory. However, the dual role of the translator is rather impractical to a certain extent. There are certain characteristics regarding movie translation. One such characteristic is the use of spoken language rather than written language. As movie is the direct form of communication, the translation also has to follow the direct form of communication by using the spoken language (Clark 2013). Another characteristic of movie translation is that it must convey the emotions of the characters rather than the word-to-word translation of the dialogues delivered by them. However, in most of the English version of the chins movies, it has been seen that the translation focuses more on the word-to word translation rather than the use of language based on the emotions. Thus most of the English translated Chinese movies lack the original essence that the actual version of the movies has.
In order to give a further detailed description of the relevance theory of translation, a Chinese movie named Shaolin Temple was taken as an example for an English dubbed Chinese movie. Shaolin Temple whose English version under the title of the Death Chambers received massive response from the Chinese audience as well from the western audience.
Directed by Chang Cheh Shaolin Temple 1976 is based on the theme of the martial art. The movie opens with the some of the shaolin monks with the realization of unfavorable time prevailing within the Shaolin society (YouTube. 2018). They were of the opinion that the fighter needs to be trained in order to fight with the Quigs, the enemies. Large number of youth enthusiasts was waiting outside of the temple to become trained fighter as the temple before selecting them, tested thier will to become the fighter. The two youth namely Fang Shih Yu and Ma Chao-hsing were chosen as the most potential candidate to be trained. Thus the whole story of the movie revolves around the training of the Shaolin youths and then becoming capable to fight against the Qings.
Now the main part of the discussion comes with the main English dubbed or translated version of the movie as to how far the translated version has achieved response like the original Chinese version of the movie. The very first aspect to the considered to begin reviewing the discussion is both in terms of entire dubbing of the movie in English language and the original movie with English subtitles (Clark 2013). It is needless to mention that the original version of the movie which is in the Chinese language lost its actual essence due to poor translation. The translators mainly focused on translating the dialogues of the movie by word-to-word, for which the original articulation of the movie lost its charm. It seemed that the translated dialogues became technical with the lack of having emotions in it (Clark 2013). This reveals that the translators inappropriate and inadequate understanding of the Chinese language. As far as the communication of the translated version is concerned it has been observed the translated version has failed to communicate with the western audience as well as failed to convey the message which the original version intended to. Illustration can be drawn with a dialogue when Miss Yan Yongchuen was seen appearing and the scene proceeds with a dialogue like “she will take us to a fish village nearby…” which shows a mere technical translation (YouTube 2018). In this regard, it is easily understood that the dubbed version was published mainly with the view of satisfying the curiosity of western audience. Thus it will be very apt to assert that the dubbed or translated version makes it a poor quality work.
If the light is shed on the original version with English subtitles, the major issue regarding the subtitled version has been observed. Major section of the audience faces difficulties in following the subtitles and the visual while watching a translated version of any movie. As Chinese language is completely different from the English language from the pronunciation to the diction, the flow of the movie disrupted while views try to balance between the following the subtitles and the visuals. Another aspect is that being a Chinese movie, Chang Cheh used and incorporated some scenes keeping the emotions of the Chinese people in mind (Zago). It is thus needless to mention that the translators failed to address the emotional aspect which connects a viewer with a movie. Therefore the movie lost its spirit and became a mere visual amusement for the western people.
Conclusion
Therefore in the concluding section, it will be right to state that the regardless of language, any translated version of movie is lacks the quintessence of its vernacular version. As Chinese language has its own diction and a distinctive style, it is easily understood that translation or dubbing of the Chinese movies fails to provide the actual essence to the audiences. The Chinese movies with English subtitles rather create difficulties for the audience while following the movie and the sub titles at the same time. Therefore, the whole discussion is the critical review of a Chinese movie which has an English dubbed version. In the whole course of the discussion, the basic theories and the nature of translations have been discussed. To do this one particular theory has been elaborated in terms of its pioneer, significance and most importantly its role in translation. In the second part of the discussion, a movie has been thoroughly reviewed as to how far the translated version of the movie was successful.
References
Ameri, S. and Ghazizadeh, K., 2017. A norm-based analysis of swearing rendition in professional dubbing and non-professional subtitling from English into Persian. Research in English language pedagogy, 2(2), pp.78-96.
Clark, B., 2013. Relevance theory. Cambridge University Press.
Perego, E., Laskowska, M., Matamala, A., Remael, A., Robert, I.S., Szarkowska, A., Vilaró, A. and Bottiroli, S., 2016. Is subtitling equally effective everywhere? A first cross-national study on the reception of interlingually subtitled messages. Across Languages and Cultures, 17(2), pp.205-229.
YouTube. 2018. Kung Fu Shaolin Temple 1976 FILM MRT. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRu2BXna1H8 [Accessed 23 May 2018].
Zago, R., ENGLISH IN THE TRADITIONAL MEDIA: THE CASE OF COLLOQUIALISATION BETWEEN ORIGINAL FILMS AND REMAKES. TRANSNATIONAL SUBJECTS, p.91.
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