Culture-Bound Allusions in Translation

126 Pages·2014·1.33 MB·English

Masarykova univerzita
Filozofická fakulta

Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky

Magisterská diplomová práce

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2014 Petra Řeholová

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Masaryk University
Faculty of Arts

Department of English
and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Petra Řeholová

Culture-Bound Allusions in
Translation
Master’s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: Mgr. Renata Kamenická, Ph. D.

2014
ABSTRACT
The thesis deals with the topic of cultural translation. The theoretical part
introduces the work of well-known translation scholars who addressed this
issue, and presents strategies which can be used for translation of culture-
bound allusions. The practical part analyses the original and the dubbed version
of three seasons of the American sitcom Friends and monitors which translation
strategies have been most applied by Czech translators and how the selection
of strategies for culture-bound allusions changed uder the influence of
technological advancements and growing globalisation.

Key words: culture, translation, cultural allusions, translation theory, Friends

ABSTRAKT
Diplomová práce se věnuje problematice kulturního překladu. Teoretická část
práce seznamuje čtenáře s dílem známých překladatelů, kteří se v rámci své
akademické kariéry této oblasti věnovali, a představuje seznam strategií, které
mohou být při překladu kulturních aluzí využity. Praktická část analyzuje
původní a dabované znění tří sérií známého amerického sitcomu Přátelé,
sleduje, které metody překladu byly pro kulturní aluze českými překladateli
nejčastěji voleny, a zároveň porovnává, jak se volba překladatelských metod
měnila s odstupem let vlivem technologického pokroku a rostoucí míry
globalizace.

Klíčová slova: kultura, překlad, kutlurní aluze, teorie překladu, Přátelé
I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently,
using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

……………………………………………..
Author’s signature
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank my supervisor Mgr. Renata Kamenická, Ph. D. for her inspiring guidance.
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

KP key-phrase
KP1 use of standard translation
KP2 minimal change
KP3 replacement by a preformed TL item
KP4 reduction to sense by rephrasal
KP5 re-creation
KP6 omission
PN proper-name
PN1a method of retention, allusion familiar in the target language
PN1b method of retention, allusion unknown in the target language
PN1c method of retention, explanatory comment added
PN2a method of replacement by another SL item
PN2b method of replacement by another TL item
PN3a method of omission, implied meaning preserved
PN3b method of omission, both allusion and implied meaning omitted
SL source language
ST source text
TL target language
TT target text
TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................... 6
2 TRANSLATION OF CULTURE-SPECIFIC TERMS ........................... 8
2.1 DEBATES AROUND EQUIVALENCE ................................................ 9
2.2 CULTURAL UNTRANSLATABILITY ............................................... 12
2.3 TYMOCZKO AND HER HOLISTIC APPROACH ................................ 16
2.4 FROM SCHLEIERMACHER TO VENUTI ......................................... 19
3 APPROACHING CULTURAL ALLUSIONS ..................................... 25
3.1 DEFINITION AND FUNCTION OF ALLUSIONS IN TEXTS ............... 26
3.2 IDENTIFYING ALLUSIONS IN TEXTS ........................................... 28
3.3 TYPES OF ALLUSIONS AND THEIR TRANSLATION METHODS ....... 33
4 CONSTRAINTS OF AUDIOVISUAL TRANSLATION ..................... 48
5 SITCOM SCRIPT IN TRANSLATION ........................................... 53
5.1 METHODOLOGY......................................................................... 53
5.2 EVALUATION OF SEASON 1 ........................................................ 56
5.3 EVALUATION OF SEASON 5 ........................................................ 62
5.4 EVALUATION OF SEASON 10 ...................................................... 65
5.5 EVALUATION SUMMARY ............................................................. 68
5.6 TOPICAL CATEGORIZATION ....................................................... 71
5.7 LATERAL ASSETS OF THE ANALYSIS ........................................... 73
5.8 BEHIND THE SCENES ................................................................. 74
6 TRANSLATION & CULTURAL HEGEMONY .................................. 77
7 CONCLUSION ............................................................................. 81
8 WORKS CITED ............................................................................ 83
APPENDICES .................................................................................... 88
1 INTRODUCTION

The thesis revolves around the issue of cultural translation, specifically
translation of culture-bound allusions. To avoid confusion, the term “cultural
allusion” as it is used in this work, has been borrowed from Ritva Leppihalme
and her book Culture Bumps: An Empirical Approach to the Translation of
Allusions. When she uses the term she refers to any preformed linguistic
material which often carries some implicit meaning, visible exclusively to the
source audience. The issue of translating culture-specific terms is a chapter in
almost every book providing some theoretical overview of common problems in
translation practice. Nevertheless, not many scholars deal with this subject in
depth. Leppihalme thus offers a unique publication explicitly devoted to the
topic of translating culture-bound allusions in source-culture texts, and for this
reason her book became an indispensable theoretical resource for this thesis.
The first part of the thesis comments on one of the most common issues of
translation which has repeatedly caused disputes among theorists and
translators, and that is the issue of equivalence. Theories introduced by Nida,
Catford, or Baker are presented and compared in the chapter, together with
their relevance to the topic of cultural translation. The thesis further continues
with discussions about the notion of cultural untranslatability, domestication vs.
foreignization, and the holistic approach to cultural translation. A significant role
has the chapter evolving around the topic of cultural allusions and their
translation strategies, as the list of strategies will later serve for identification of
translation methods used on specific allusions collected from the analysed
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corpus, which is the script of the American sitcom Friends. Although largely
based on Leppihalme’s work, the list of strategies had to undergo subtle
adjustments in order to embody the constraints of audiovisual translation.
Audiovisual translation, another chapter of this thesis, is characterized by
qualities which often limit the choices of the translator. It was, thus, an explicit
suggestion made by the translators and script-editors from the Česká televize
network, owners of the copyrights to the sitcom Friends in the Czech Republic,
that these factors are visible to the readership of this work.

As has been previously foreshadowed, the practical part of the thesis consists
in a detailed analysis of the American sitcom Friends, particularly seasons 1, 5
and 10. The planned methodology is to collect all culture-bound allusions from
the original English version and subsequently compare them to the Czech
dubbed version. The objective is to observe which translation strategies were
the most employed by the Czech translators, and to monitor how their
approach to the translation of culture-bound allusions changed from the
translation of the first season (1996) until the translation of the last season
(2004). This time period is, in fact, one of the crucial factors which lead to the
selection of the series Friends as a convenient material for the analysis, as the
sitcom started before and ended after the turn of the new millennium,
essentially marked by developments which undoubtedly influenced the
translation practice such as the fast technological advancement, increasing
globalization, emerging markets and, most importantly, rise of the internet as
we know it today.
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2 TRANSLATION OF CULTURE-SPECIFIC TERMS

The practical part of this thesis uses the script of a famous American sitcom
Friends for its analysis. Thus, there could be a supposition that the thesis
automatically falls within the realm of Audiovisual Translation. In this
connection, theories of equivalence, untranslatability and domestication versus
foreignization which are discussed here might seem irrelevant, as audiovisual
translation essentially adheres more to the functionalist theory. This theory
gives the translator the freedom to reshape the text according to the needs and
expectations of the target audience and completely abandons the old issue of
“faithfulness.” Fuctionalist theories, pioneered by German scholars Katharina
Reiss and Hans Vermeer in 1984 and followed by Christiane Nord in 1997, are
undoubtedly omnipresent in audiovisual translation. Nevertheless, this thesis is
not concerned with the translation of the script as a whole but narrows its
concentration on much smaller segments, which are cultural allusions. In the
sitcom Friends, even though fuctionalist approach might dominate the
translation on a macro level, when it comes to translation of culture-specific
terms, the translators still seem to struggle with the old issues of translation.
This essentially brings us to the conclusion that Audiovisual Translation,
although a quickly developing branch in today's era of technological
advancement, is still not ready to completely distance from theories which were
foregrounded in Literary Translation.
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