This master’s thesis deals with translation shifts in Slovene subtitles and German dubbing in the American series Friends. The aim is to analyse and compare the textual reduction strategies used in the subtitles and the strategies used in the dubbed version, while focusing on identifying changes in meaning, more specifically, the manipulation of personal features in the character. Through a corpus analysis we seek to confirm or reject the following hypotheses: H1: More omissions are expected in the subtitles; H2: Omissions, condensations, simplifications and generalisations in the subtitles affect the expressivity of the original dialogue; H3: The textual reduction strategies in the subtitling process and the dubbing strategies for achieving synchrony in the dubbing process can manifest manipulation of personal features in the character.
In the theoretical part, we first outline audiovisual translation and subtitling and dubbing. We present standards of quality in subtitling and dubbing. In subtitling, the focus is placed on studying omission, condensation, simplification and generalisation, while in dubbing, the emphasis is on analysing omission, addition and paraphrase. Kovačič’s (1992) functional linguistic model is used to determine whether the essential message from the source text is preserved in the subtitles and to assess any changes in expressivity. We briefly discuss the role of textual manipulation.
The empirical part includes a corpus analysis of the English source text, the DVD Slovene subtitles and the DVD German dubbed version. The analysed material contains three 10-minute segments from 3 randomly selected episodes from Season 3 of the series Friends. In total, the corpus contains 716 units, with one unit presenting one sentence in the source text. The units are identified for the types of strategies used in the subtitles and the dubbed version, as well as marked for changes in meaning and manipulation.
The results confirm our initial hypotheses. Regarding the first hypothesis, there are more omissions in the subtitles than in the dubbed version, which is due to the fact, that subtitling focuses on reducing the length of the text, while dubbing emphasizes achieving quality synchronisation. In the dubbed version, additions and paraphrases contribute to the dubbed version being lengthier than the source text. Furthermore, due to examples of addition in places where there is no verbal communication in the source text, we introduce a new strategy called insertions.
In regard to the second hypothesis, the results show that the textual reduction strategies do affect the expressivity of the text, yet to a minor degree. The most omitted elements in subtitling were elements with the (inter)personal function, such as interjections and greetings, while elements with the ideational function carry the essential message and are therefore subject to fewer omissions.
The third hypothesis is also confirmed, as we found examples of changes in meaning which resulted in the manipulation of personal features in the character. The results show that the dubbing process makes greater use of additions—as well as insertions—and paraphrases than omissions. As the greater focus is achieving good synchronisation and on creating a natural-sounding communication in the target language, this provides more opportunities for changes in meaning and the manipulation of personal features in the character.
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