CC BY
47
Vasiliy V. Amochkin
УДК 81'23
ACCENT AND DIALECT AS PART OF SOCIAL-CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS OF A MOTION PICTURE CHARACTER
(BASED ON ENGLISH, AMERICAN AND FRENCH FILMS AND THEIR RUSSIAN TRANSLATIONS)
The article deals with accentual and dialectal oppositions in the speech of film characters in original and translated versions of the films. It focuses on the problem of adequate reflection in translation not only of the primary meaning of the utterance, but also of the whole specter of additional social-cultural meanings and connotations inherent in the original text and forming part of a character's image. There is an attempt to prove that accentual and dialectal elements in characters' speech play the role of social, as well as territorial, markers. They can perform a number of functions - create of an important artistic opposition of 'same vs different'; serve as a reference to a complex blend of strong cultural associations connected with a particular social group, help to create comic effect.
Keywords: sociolinguistics, linguostylistics, film studies, phonetics, social-cultural aspect.
B.B. Амочкин
АКЦЕНТНЫЕ И ДИАЛЕКТНЫЕ ОСОБЕННОСТИ РЕЧИ КАК ЭЛЕМЕНТ СОЦИОКУЛЬТУРНОЙ ХАРАКТЕРИСТИКИ ПЕРСОНАЖА КИНОПРОИЗВЕДЕНИЯ (НА ПРИМЕРЕ АНГЛО- И ФРАНКОЯЗЫЧНЫХ КИНОФИЛЬМОВ И ИХ РУССКИХ ПЕРЕВОДОВ)
В статье рассматриваются акцентные и диалектные оппозиции в речи персонажей кинофильмов в оригинальных и переводных вариантах. Особое внимание уделяется адекватности передачи в переводе не только основного значения высказывания, но и всего спектра дополнительных социокультурных значений и присутствующих в оригинальном тексте коннотаций, которые формируют образ персонажа. Делается попытка показать, что акцентные и диалектные особенности речи могут играть роль социальных, а не только территориальных маркеров. Они могут выполнять ряд функций, таких как создание важнейшего художественного противопоставления «свой - чужой»; отсылка к комплексу устойчивых ассоциаций, существующих в сознании носителей языка и связанных с той или иной социокультурной группой; создание комического эффекта.
Ключевые слова: социолингвистика, лингвостилистика, теория кино, фонетика, социокультурный аспект.
Motion pictures as a specific kind of artistic text have been subject of philological analysis ever since they appeared in the beginning of the twentieth century. During the last two decades the majority of films shown in Russia are produced abroad in English or French and are available to Russian viewers only in translation, which is often far from being perfect. At the same time, as part of the so-called mass-culture, motion pictures have a considerable impact on the language we speak.
That is why there is a growing need for special studies devoted to the linguistic aspect of cinema and the adequacy of film translation in particular. It is also increasingly important to draw the attention of philologists to the problem of adequate reflection in translation not only the primary meaning of the utterance, but also the whole specter of additional social-cultural meanings and connotations inherent in the original text and forming part of a character's image.
By social-cultural characteristics we mean references to the origins, class, social-economic status, age, gender, profession, etc. reflected in the peculiarities of speech of this or that film character. It should be noted here, that being a 'mass art' oriented to an extremely broad audience, cinema uses mostly stereotypes. It follows, that such references to this or that social-cultural group in the portrait of a character largely predefine his personality an a general model of behaviour [Brown & Vidal 2014; Dzyaloshinsky & Pilgun 2012; Durovicova & Newman 2009; Pilgun 2012]. Thus, being included in the work of audio-visual art they become utterly important for its understanding and therefore need to be adequately rendered in translation.
The study of the social-cultural aspect of film characters' speech heavily relies on the achievements of to broad areas of linguistics - sociolinguistics, on the one hand, and linguostylistics - on the other. The former studies the real speech peculiarities of different social-cultural groups, while the latter is devoted to the expressive potential of different elements of artistic text (it should be specially emphasized here that we regard a film as a specific kind of artistic text, as here the function of impact [Vinogradov 1963] comes to the fore).
Specific peculiarities (markers) of this or that social-cultural group can be found at all levels of the language - phonetic, morphological, lexical, syntactic and extralinguistic (the level of non-verbal means of communication, such as gestures). The level of phonetics is of special importance for us here, because, dislike the written artistic text of literature, it is oral speech that comes to the fore in a motion picture. It includes both segmental (sounds of speech) and super-segmental features - intonation, tempo, rhythm, loudness, diapason, timber. It also includes accent - a combination of articulatory peculiarities characteristic of this or that territorial or social group of people. There are different varieties of accent, such as 'foreign accent', 'regional accent' and 'social accent'.
The notion of accent should be distinguished from that of dialect. While accent usually presupposes variation only on the phonetic level, dialect includes, apart from that, changes and variations on the lexical and grammatical levels. Besides in case of the English language there is a unique distinction between two diatopic variants of the language - British and American.
It is important to mention that, dislike real-life speech situations, in the context of film art accentual and dialectal peculiarities of speech are more than simply territorial signs, they first and foremost play the role of special social-cultural markers. They are intentionally included in the text of the film as an important part of the character's portrait.
when included in the portrait of a character, accent and dialect help to create a very important artistic opposition of 'insider' vs 'outsider', 'same' vs 'different'. In a more narrow sense it can be an opposition of locals and a foreigner, of an American and a British, a southerner and a northerner, a villager and townsfolk, an aristocrat and a worker, etc. whatever the particular expression, social-cultural oppositions of this kind
tend to perform a number of functions in the film narrative: they provoke whole sets of stereotypical associations, connected with a particular social-cultural group; explain the differences in the behaviour and reactions of the characters; create comic effect.
Hence the importance of preserving accentual and dialectal oppositions in translation. However, our material has shown that, from the artistic point of view, it's not necessary to render the accentual features fully and realistically - it is the functional, symbolic, sign nature of this phenomenon that comes to the fore here. In other words, it's absolutely enough to use in translation only a symbolic reference to this or that accentual or dialectal opposition that would be recognized by the audience and bear similar cultural connotations.
The present article will focus on three main kinds of accentual-dialectal oppositions: 'foreign' accent (including the diatopic variants of the English language), regional dialect and social dialect.
1. Foreign accent and its role in creating the opposition 'local' vs 'stranger'
The opposition of 'local' vs 'stranger' is created first and foremost with the help of 'foreign' accent. It invariably attracts the attention of the viewers and is often used to create comic effect. Besides, as it has already been mentioned above, as far as the English language is concerned there is a unique opposition between the British and American variants of the language and closely connected with them kinds of psychology and styles of communication.
The latter is often played upon in films, but is rarely reflected in translation due to the lack of similar accentual phenomena in Russian. Thus, for example, in the film "Golden Eye" [Golden Eye. United Artists. UK, USA, 1995 / HcT-BecT, 1996] a British secret agent from MI6 James Bond comes to Saint-Petersburg where he meets a CIA agent Jack Wade. In the English-language version the fact that they belong to two different cultures is transmitted at once with the help of two different accents -British and American. This opposition becomes especially prominent because the two accents interchange each other in a dialogue between the two characters. Based on the pronunciation, an English-speaking viewer easily understands that he sees a British and an American - representatives of two rivaling intelligence services in a foreign country. No extra comment is needed here.
However, in the Russian translation of this film produced by the "East-West" distributor company both characters speak in the same way with standard Russian pronunciation without any discernible differences that would point out their origins. It is only at the very end of the episode that the Russian-speaking viewer gets to know that one is a British and the other is an American secret agent, when they make formal introductions. That is why the Russian viewers cannot understand the initial dislike and lack of trust between the two characters - which are absolutely obvious to the English-speaking audience.
Moreover, what is emphasized in this episode is not just the nationality, but the two completely different approaches to work. Thus, the American mocks at the British stiffness concerning passwords, replies and other attributes and ways of secret agents; the British, on the contrary, demonstrates this stiffness forcing his colleague to follow all the rules. Let us adduce this short dialogue:
Bond.: In London April's a spring month.
Wade.: Oh, yeah? What are you - the weatherman? If for cryin' out loud, another stiff-assed Brit, with your secret codes and passwords. one of these days you guys are gonna learn just to drop it. Come on. My car's over there.
(They go to the car)
B.: After you.
W.: Thank you.
(Bond presses Wade against the car door and points a gun at him)
B.: Like you said, drop it.
W.: All right. In London April's a spring month. In St Petersburg we freeze our butts off. Is it close enough for government work?
B.: No. Show me the rose.
W.: Please, no.
All right, all right, all right!
(Shows the tattoo with a rose and the word 'Muffy')
B.: Muffy?
W.: Third wife. Jake Wade, CIA.
B.: James Bond, stiff-assed Brit.
It is not only the accents that are opposed in this episode, but also the tone (mocking and slightly contemptuous with the American and reserved, expressly gallant with the British), behaviour (dedication to rules and details of the stiff Brit and complete disregard to them on the part of the American), the composure of the British and the relaxed attitude of the American. All that has been stated above fully corresponds to the comically stereotypical images of an American and a British. That is why, on the one hand, accent here is an integral part of the image, and on the other, it helps the viewers to understand from the very beginning and without special comments that the characters belong to two different, even raveling cultures and, consequently, to understand the meaning of their conversation and the reason of the initial dislike and mistrust between them.
Let us now turn to the foreign accent proper. The situation here is slightly different, as far as its reflection in the translated variant is concerned. It should be noted that, unlike in the Russian cinema, in the Western film industry it is customary to call for a part of a foreigner an actor with a corresponding origin, i.e. a French character in an American film is likely to be played by a Frenchman and therefore his French accent in English sounds real and natural.
In translation, however, it is rather difficult to preserve the same kind of real and natural accent, which usually leads to one of the following situations: 1) the accent is not reflected in the translation at all (while the information about the character's origin is either lost completely or is rendered with the help of other means); 2) the reference to accent is confined to one or two very prominent details associated with a particular foreign language in a particular linguistic society. In this case the effect of 'recognition' is preserved.
What comes to the fore here is not the particular territorial origin of the character, but the functional opposition of 'local' vs 'stranger'. Therefore, there is no need in reproducing all the specter of pronouncing peculiarities typical to this or that language.
To create an image of a foreigner it proves to be enough to focus the attention on few separate most bright pronouncing features that help the viewer to recognize the character as a Frenchman or a German or an American, etc.
A good example of a translation that fails to render the accentual difference which in its turn leads to considerable semantic losses is another episode from the "Golden Eye" where the two characters mentioned above are joined by a Russian woman and all the three meet on a remote island in the caribbean in one of the final scenes. In the original version of the film the Slavonic accent is very distinct and realistic, as the heroine is played by an actress of Polish origin. This explains the suspicious glance thrown at her by the CIA agent at the moment she opens her mouth and pronounces her first phrase. It is the accent, not the content of the utterance that draws the attention of the interlocutor. A strong Slavonic accent (the accent of the enemy for an American intelligence service agent, as they fight against the Russians in this episode of the Bond series) explains the character's mistrust and momentous suspicion after the absolutely relaxed and confiding beginning of the conversation.
In the Russian translation, however, this crucially important characteristic is lost and the reaction of the American seems completely unjustified:
(James Bond and Natalia Semionova come in a car, Jack Wade comes to the meeting in a private plane)
W.: Yo, Jimbo! Brought a little gift from old whatshisname? T? Z?
W.: Yeah.
B.: What are you doing here, Wade?
W.: Banyan trees... Er, I am not here. The CIA has no knowledge, no involvement, absolutely nothing to do with your insertion into Cuba, if you catch my drift. B.: Yes, I do. Perfectly.
W.: Borrowed the plane from a friend in the DEA. And the Coast Guard and the FAA are in the loop. You're cleared on our radar for 0600 hours. Here's the laterst sat-int from Langley. Stay below 600 feet.
N.: 500feet (with strong Russian accent)
(Wade s expression quickly changes)
W.: Who's that?
B.: Natalya SimonOva.
N.: Natalya Sim-YO-nova.
B.: Russian minister of transportation.
(Wade takes Bond aside)
W.: Did you check her out?
B.: Head to toe.
Because the viewer of the translated version does not hear the difference in the pronunciation of the characters, it looks as if the Jack does not notice the woman at all before she starts to speak in the middle of the episode, though she is standing near him, and only when she pronounces something he suddenly becomes aware and suspicious of her. Without the accentual peculiarities of the heroine's speech such behaviour looks absolutely irrational.
B.: Q.
W.: Right...
At the same time, Bond's comment that it is "Natalia Semionova, Russian minister of transport" plays a completely different function and is not supposed to give any information about the heroine, because the fact that she is Russian in the original version becomes clear much earlier thanks to her accent, while minister of transport is not what she is (she is a programmer). Bond jokes about her being minister of transport, because right before that she makes a comment about the height of flight.
As it can be seen from the examples adduced above, foreign accent can play an important role in the image of a character, while a failure to render it in the translation can influence the viewers' understanding of the episode.
Let us analyze one more example of foreign accent in the image of a film character and its reflection in the translation where accent is rendered with the help of several exaggerated stereotypical pronouncing features associated with French and Chinese. The example is taken from an American-French film "The Transporter" [The Transporter. Europa Corp., TF1, Canal+. France, USA, 2002 / Двадцатый Век Фокс СНГ, 2003] (the original version is in English). The action takes place on the southern coast of France. The main characters have different national origins and the corresponding accents: a retired foreign soldier Frank (it is not specified whether he is British or American), played by a British actor Jason Statham who speaks the so-called Mid-Atlantic variety of English; an American gangster (an American actor Matt Schultz), a French police inspector (a French actor Francois Berlean) and a young Chinese woman (an actress of Taiwanese origin Shu Tsi).
In the original version all these characters speak English, but with a corresponding accent. Thus, the pronunciation of the French police inspector is characterized by reduced aspiration of initial strong plosives in words like people, popular, pretty, car, etc.; more front and more narrow vowel [o] in the words lot, popular, coffee, etc.; more narrow [i] in the words Italy, city, things, think, nothing, etc.; monophtongisation of the diphthong [ou] ^ [o] in the words amount, open, etc.; substitution of a tense vowel by a lax one in always [o:]^-[o], food [u:]^-[u], etc.; quite regular (in about 50 percent of cases) substitution of voiceless interdental [0] by a dental [s] in words like things, thirty, etc.; prevailing shift of voiced interdental [6] towards dental [z] in the words the, there, they, etc.; occasional shift of word stress to the last syllable - in the words Italy and city.
All the peculiarities mentioned above are quite typical of the French accent in English speech, however they change its sounding only slightly and do not impede the communication. They perform a number of functions in the film: to identify the nationality of a character in a multicultural environment; to emphasize that the characters belong to different cultures, but can find a common language (which is also mentioned in their dialogues, for example, "You are a foreigner, but you have a good sense of humour, like a Frenchman", says the French police inspector to Frank in one of their conversations); to show that the inspector is smart and well educated, contrary to the stereotypes, because only such kind of policeman can speak a foreign language so easily and practically without an accent.
Let us now turn to the Russian translation of the inspector's speech. Here we can find much fewer pronouncing peculiarities, but they are much more prominent. Basically, the whole French accent here is created by means of a glottal trill [r] and occasional backward shift of the vowels [o] and [a]. These pronouncing features do not coincide with
the original version where there is no glottal trill, while the vowels are, on the contrary, shifted to the front. But they fully correspond to the Russian idea of a typical French accent, which produces the same artistic effect as in the original.
The Chinese accent is rendered in the same way in this film. In Russian translation it is represented by prolongation of separate vowels, adding the vowel [i] after soft consonants and random substitution of consonants [r]—[l] h [tj]—^[t'], typical for eastern accents. Similar examples of rendering a foreign accent can also be found in French-language films, for example, the German accent of the gang members in the film "Taxi" or the imitation of the Jewish accent in French in the film "Les Aventures de Rabbi Jacob".
In some cases 'foreign' speech can be rendered even with the help of another language. Thus, in the original version of the film "Tourist" the main characters speak English, while a group of gangsters speak Russian (with English subtitles). In the Russian version of this film, however, the gangsters speak Ukrainian, while all the others characters speak Russian. Thus the effect of 'foreign speech' is preserved. This example shows that in the context of film art the main focus is made on the idea of 'foreignness', 'strangeness' as such, rather than the particular territorial characteristic.
2. Regional dialect as a marker of social-cultural characteristic
Special attention, as far as social-cultural characteristic is concerned, should be paid to regional and social dialect. In contrast to accent, dialect presupposes, apart from phonetic deviations from the literary norm, also some variation on the level of grammar and vocabulary. Besides, unlike foreign accent where the deviations are the result of the speaker's involuntary mistakes and individual articulatory peculiarities, dialectal deviations is of regular character.
In linguistics there is a clear distinction between the notions of regional and social dialect. Regional (territorial, local) dialect is a "a dialect spoken in a particular area" (region) that does not coincide with the literary language. Social dialect is "a dialect spoken by a particular social group" [Akhmanova 1969: 31].
However, from the point of view of socio-linguistics, especially socio-linguistics of film text, they should be discussed together as one functional group. The use of the literary norm or one of the social or territorial varieties by a film character provokes firm associations with the social-economic status of this character, his level of education, his surrounding, it can characterize him as a resident of the capital or a big city or a person from a provincial town or a rural dweller.
Thus, for example, an educated person living in a big city, a middle class representative tends to use the literary norm of the language, which is a kind of standardized supradialectal variant. Whereas strong regional dialect (irrespective of a particular region) usually characterizes the speech of villagers or provincial townsfolk or low-educated inhabitants of the suburbs engaged mostly in physical labour. In other words, the use of a dialectal variety provides the viewer with the information not only about the territorial origin of the character, but also about his social status.
As our material has shown, in a film the function of a social marker tends to be much more important than that of a reference to a particular area. It is this function that is usually reflected in a quality translation, while the reference to a particular territory
is usually dismissed as of no principal importance, because unlike foreign accent, it is often next to impossible to find any stable associations with this or that original language dialect in the mentality of the speakers of the language of translation.
To illustrate the ideas stated above let us turn to French cinema. An interesting example of the use of regional dialects is the film "Bienvenue chez les Ch'ti" (in Russian version - «Eo6po nop^anoBarb») [Bienvenue chez les Ch'tis. Hirsch Pathe -Tf1 Films Production - Les Productions Du Ch'timi - CRRAV France, 2008 / Bornra 2010]. Produced in 2008, this film is still at the top of French film release. According to the plot, the main character as a punishment is sent to work from the south of France to the unpopular northern region of Nord - Pas-de-Calais. In the mind of a southerner this region is practically the world's end, a permafrost inhabited by rude, uneducated barbarians. This prejudice is further increased by the funny and incomprehensible dialect that the northerners speak.
The first impression of the character when he comes to the north is hostility and lack of understanding. Misunderstanding takes place at all levels: the character initially has a wrong information about the north; he does not understand the language the locals speak; he does not understand the behaviour of the people and the reasons they have; he does not share their tastes; when he sees a carnival picture of one of his employees that gives him shelter in his house the first night he comes, he mistakes him for a homosexual and barricades his door for the night. But gradually he gets to know local traditions, learns to speak the local dialect and eventually falls in love with the north.
There are three variants of the French language used in the film, that help to shape the images of the corresponding characters - standard literary language, southern accent and northern (Picard) dialect. The main character Philip Abrams (a southerner, head of a post office) speaks the standard variant of the language, as well as his family and colleagues. They can all be characterized as representatives of middle class, occupying positions that presuppose regular contact with people and therefore the knowledge of the standard language.
Strong southern accent can be heard in the speech of an old man, Philip's relative, to whom he comes for advice before setting off for the north. The old man lives in a lonely old country house. A southerner to the very marrow of his bones, he hates the north and scares Philip with highly exaggerated stories about it. Let us analyze how visual, sound and linguistic elements combine in this scene to create the image of a 'southern bastion'.
On the screen we see an old, half-dark traditional rural house standing in the middle of serene Provencal landscape. A solemn silence, a strict and mysterious atmosphere wraps up the house both inside and outside. This silence is emphasized by the silence of the woman who opens the door and the distinct sounds of cicadas and of creaking door and steps. The atmosphere of secret is enhanced with the help of slow, mysterious music. In the depth of the house the old man sits like an ancient oracle. He is literally an embodiment of the south, which is used in the film to enhance the contrast with the north where he main character is about to go.
On the linguistic level this image is created by the southern accent of the old man, which is best noted in trilling [r] and voicing the final [a], accompanied by the shift of word stress to the penultimate syllable. In the Russian translation the southern accent of the old man is practically not reflected, though an attempt has been made by the translator
to preserve some reference to a non-standard pronunciation corresponding to the image of an old villager - such as an unusual intonation in the first two phrases, several occasions of non-trembling [r] not typical for standard Russian (for example, in the word "говорю"), substitution of standard Russian possessive pronoun "их" by a low colloquial "ихние" and generally more trembling, old-man's voice.
In the next episode Philip sets off for the northern town of Bergues. The residents of Bergues speak the northern Picard dialect. Let us look at it more closely, because a special focus is made on this dialect in the film. Phonetically it's quite different from the standard French language. Its most typical phonetic features are the following: 1) the archaic [k] and [g] remain before [j], [i] and [e], as well as before [a] and [o] (compare, for instance: Picard kief и French chef; Picard gambe and Frenchjambe); 2) instead of French [s] (Latin [ts]) in Picard they pronounce [|] (for instance: Picard ch 'ti - French c'est toi) [Phonetic system of the Picard dialect [Электронный ресурс]. - Режим доступа: http:// www.picard.free.fr/lgpic/phonetiq.htm (дата обращения: 10.01.14)].
There are also significant differences on the morphological level. As an example, let us adduce the system of personal pronouns and the conjugation of the verb "etre" (to be) in present indicative, in brackets we'll give the standard French variant: ej sus (je suis), t'es (tu es), i'est (il est), al est (elle est), in est (on est - impersonal form, which is often used instead of first person plural both in French and Picard), os sonmes (nous sommes), vos ètes (vous êtes), is sont (ils sont).
On the lexical level there are also considerable deviations which are played upon in the film. Thus, for example, a kiosk is called baraque (фр.kiosque), coffee - jus (fr. kafé), a little - ptchiot (fr. petit), etc.
Dialectal opposition is one of the main comic elements in this film. The lack of coincidence in pronunciation, as well as separate lexemes and grammatical forms leads to a comical miscomprehension between the characters. Thus, for example, in the episode where Philip first comes to Bergues at night, he knocks down the colleague who has come out to meet him. When Philip asks M.Bailleul if everything is fine, he answers something absolutely incomprehensible, that leads Philip to the conclusion that he has broken his jaw. What he actually says is "Bienvenue, Monsieur le directeur" ("Wellcome, director"), but with Picard pronunciation. In Russian this phrase is translated as «Бобро поржало-вать». The comic effect is preserved, although Philip's suggestion about the broken jaw becomes less reasonable. In the Russian variant his speech rather suggest the idea that the character lacks some teeth or is simply drunk. Let us compare the original version and the translation of this short dialogue:
- Mon Dieu! ça va? Vous n'êtes pas mort? - Господи! Вы живы? Все в порядке?
- Bienvenue, M.le directeur. - Бобро поржаловать, мужье директор
- M. Bailleul? - Господин Байоль?
- Ouais, ch'est mi. Ouh! Vingt diousse! - Эрто мья. Ой, мья ржадница!
- Faut appeler les secours. - Не шевелитесь, я вызову скорую
- Cha va, cha va. -Жо ножмально, жо...
- J'aurais pu vous tuer! - Я же мог вас убить!
- Ch'est pas grave, cha va. J'vous ai reconnu à vot 'plaque. Ichi, ch'est 59. J'vous ai fait signe d'arrêter vot' carète. Mais j'ai rin, j'ai rin. - Ржадницу ужарил. Мья важ зражу ужнал. Мья вам машонкал, жоп вы торможили. Но вжо в пожядке, не божтезь, не, не, не...
- Votre mâchoire, vous êtes blessé? - Вы челюсть вывихнули?
- Heiiin? - Э?
- Vous avez mal quand vous parlez? - Вам больно говорить или нет?
- Quo? - Жо?
- Votre mâchoire, ça va? - Ваша челюсть в порядке?
- J'ai mal à min tchu. Chuis tombé sur min tchu, quo. - Не, не, тонько ржадницу ужарил слежка.
- Le tchu? Vous voulez pas qu'on aille montre mâchoire à un médecin? - Лёжка? Что-то я вас не понимаю. Может, все-таки отвезти вас ко врачу?
- Non. J'ai rin, vingt diousse. - Не, вжо хохоржо.
- Vous vous exprimez d'une façon très très particulière. - Уверяю вас, вы говорите не совсем нормально.
- Parc ' que j'parle ch 'ti, ch'est cha? - Эрто потому жо я ржикаю?
- Pardon? - Простите?
- J'parle ch 'timi. - Это наш француржик.
- Putain! C'est ça, le fameux "cheutimi"? - Черт! Это языкржиков?
Let us look at this dialogue more closely. Philip speaks the standard French language which is translated by standard Russian. The speech of Bailleul, who speaks the local dialect, poses much more difficulties for the translator.
In the original text the most prominent peculiarity of Bailleul's pronunciation is the shift of [s]—(for example: ga—cha) and of some vocals (for instance, [a]—[o]: quoi—quo; [a]—[in]: rien —rin). On the grammatical level the difference is confined to the use of a conjunct form chuis (je suis) and contracted or dialectal pronouns: je—j', votre—vot'; moi—mi, mon—min. As for the vocabulary, only two dialectal words are used in this dialogue - a noun curette (voiture) and a popular local interjection hem. In other words, although the Picard dialect is quite different from the standard French, the language used by the characters of the film is easy enough for a common French-speaker
to understand, it sounds strange and funny, which fully corresponds to the popular image of 'northern barbarians'.
To preserve the comic effect the translator uses a number of random phonetic substitutions in Russian words, which have no connection with the original dialectal specifics, but they perform the same artistic function. Thus, in the Russian variant instead of the original Picard shift [s]^-[|] the translator uses random substitutions of consonants by the sound [3] or the combination [Г3]: нормально ^ ножмально; узнал ^ ужнал; ударил ^ ужарил. In the last example the comic effect is enhanced due to the similarity with another word. In some words the sounds are randomly added or change their places in the word: хорошо ^ хохоржо; это ^ эрто; я ^ мья. Besides, the translator uses words-derivatives from low colloquial forms: чтобы ^ (прост. шоб) ^ жоп.
There are no grammatical or lexical deviations in the Russian variant; the main focus is on the pronouncing difference, which proves to be enough to create the same artistic effect as in the original. But the Russian translation relies on an interesting allusion that ensures the correct understanding by the viewers of the nature of the characters' strange pronunciation. The local dialect ch'ti (in the southern pronunciation - chetemi) in Russian is referred to as «француржик» (with a derivative verb «ржикать», which symbolically reflects the main pronouncing difference). The verb «ржикать», created by the translator, only symbolically points at the main peculiarity of the northern pronunciation, because the combination of consonants [rj] was chosen randomly and is used in the Russian translation instead of the original phonetic [s] - [I].
This artificially created word resembles another Russian word - 'суржик'. In the narrow sense of the word, this is used to refer to various parlances based on the merge of Russian and Ukrainian spoken in the regions near the border of the two countries; in a broader sense, it refers to any merges of two neighbouring languages when the grammatical structure of one language combines with the vocabulary and pronunciation of another language. In this way the translator manages to render the information which is clear to the viewers of the original French version, but calls for special explanation for the Russian viewer - the information about the nature of the strange pronunciation of Bergues residents.
We come to the conclusion that regional dialect is not only a territorial, but also a social marker, as the use of dialect instead of the standard literary language is characteristic of rural population or the inhabitants of provincial towns and suburbs that are occupied with physical labour and have little education. On the other hand, the use of the literary norm characterizes a person as a middle class city resident with good education who occupies or is able to occupy a good position at work. Regional dialect is difficult to render in Russian translation, as this kind of phenomenon is much less prominent in Russian. Therefore dialectal differences are often lost in translation. However, when these differences are specially focused upon and create comic effect, they are rendered in translation with the help of other linguistic means that perform the same artistic function.
3. Social dialect as a means of class characteristics and level of education.
As the Bristish society has managed to preserve the most clear-cut class differentiation, it is logical to use an English-language film to illustrate the discussion of
social varieties of language. A vivid example of the use of accent as a social marker is a musical film "My Fair Lady" [My Fair Lady. Warner Brothers. USA, 1964], where the theme of social-cultural positioning of a person through his accent is by itself one of the central topics of the narration.
According to the plot of the film, professor Higgins, a phonetician, agrees to teach a poor provincial girl that sells flowers on London streets to speak her native language correctly in a very short time and makes a bet that he would pass her off as a duchess at an embassy ball. For the young girl, Eliza Doolittle the main stimulus in this experiment is that she would e able to get a place as a shop assistant in a flower shop, "which requires a better English". In other words, the variety of language a person uses is closely connected with his position in the society.
It should be noted that there is no one answer to the question which kind of dialect - regional or social - is discussed here. From the point of view of the stratification of London population and the possibility to raise one's social status by adopting a more prestigious variety of pronunciation, it is social dialect. But on the other hand, originally the heroine's language is an example of regional dialect, which is clearly demonstrated when professor Higgins tells Eliza which part of England she comes from based on her pronunciation.
In the first scene the attention of the viewers is drawn by the sharp contrast between the speech of the ladies and gentlemen coming out of a theatre and the street dwellers. on the phonetic level we can observe, on the one hand, standard British RP with the typical intonation of the descending scale and occasional elements of the upper-class 'posh English' - such as, for example, the reduction of initial [h] in Colonel Pickering's pronunciation (for instance, in the word 'harm') and a shift of the diphthong [ai] towards the more narrow [ei] in the word 'sign' in Mrs Eynsford-Hills. Drastically different is the pronunciation of the flower girl and her friends, which is a blend of London cockney and different regional accents. The same contrast is played upon in the following scenes when Eliza comes to Higgins' house and starts to learn.
The most prominent pronouncing features of Eliza Doolittle at the beginning of the film are the following: regular use of rising intonation at the end of a phrase (instead of the standard discending scale); accents in the form of accidental rise instead of high fall; substitution of the diphthong [ei] by a wider [ai] (for example, in the words paying, rain, take, mistake); complete reduction of initial [h] ('h-dropping') in the words like heat, hands, head; substitution of velar [q] by alveolar [n] in the ending -ing (in the words like making, sitting, nothing).
However, the difference in speech is not confines to the pronunciation. on the lexical level the use of 'learned' words (like pneumonia and molestation) and elevated vocabulary (divine gift, disgrace the noble architecture, incarnate insult) by the upper class characters is opposed to the use of slang and low colloquial vocabulary (like 'bloke' instead of neutral man; 'tec' instead of policeman; 'blooming' in the meaning 'bothering') by the representatives of the lower class.
In terms of grammar, Eliza's speech also has some peculiarities. Let's take her phrase "I ain't done nothin' wrong by speakin' to the gentleman!" Here we can see three clear deviations from the literary norm: firstly, the first person singular verbal form 'I
ain't' instead of the standard 'I'm not'; secondly, the form of 'be-perfect' instead of the standard perfect form with the verb have ('I am done' instead of 'I have done'); and thirdly, double negation ('I ain't done nothin' wrong' instead of 'anything wrong').
Finally, on the level of syntax the main opposition lies in the variety of syntactic structures used by the educated representatives of the upper class and rather simple structures used by Eliza with frequent elliptical sentences and repetitions ("You're no gentleman, you're not, to talk of such things. I'm a good girl, I am; and I know what the likes of you, I do").
Let us now turn to the Russian translation of the film [My Fair Lady. Warner Brothers. USA, 1964 / Film Prestige, 2003]. Eliza's speech here is characterized by the extensive use of colloquial forms («жентлемен», «фиялки», «че», «шоб», «покажте»), low style vocabulary («вывалил», «смыться», «сцапать», «накарябать») and colloquial expressions («Сильнее льет - скорее перестанет», «плакала моя выручка»). Ladies and gentlemen, on the contrary, are expressly polite and correct: «Сэр, кончится ли когда-нибудь этот дождь? - Боюсь, что нет. Льет все сильнее».
It should be noted, though, that in the original version the main focus is made on the pronunciation. It is by the accent that professor Higgins tells where a person comes from and other details of their biography. In the Russian translation the phonetic peculiarities are confined to several colloquial forms, which are unsystematic and quite few. The main focus here is shifted to the lexical level. The reason is that in Russian phonetic differentiation is much less distinct than in English, therefore the translator has to look for the socio-cultural markers at other levels of the language. As a result, the main opposition of cultured vs uncultured speech remains, but the rich variety of English accents played upon in the original is lost.
Thus, social and class characteristics can be reflected in the characters' speech by means of social dialect. The main opposition is between a low and a high position in the society. In Russian translation accent is usually rendered with the help of colloquial vocabulary and forms, the main focus being shifted from the phonetic to the lexical level.
Let us draw the conclusions. As our material has shown, accentual and dialectal elements in speech play the role of social as well as territorial markers, therefore an important part of the social-cultural characteristic of a character. They can perform a number of functions, the main ones being: the creation of an important artistic opposition of 'same vs different'; reference to a complex of strong cultural associations connected with a particular social group; the creation of comic effect.
Proper reflection of these peculiarities of speech in translation proves to be a very difficult task, while their omission leads to the loss of artistic unity of the work, as well as the loss of some implicit meanings inherent in the original text. At the same time, our material has shown that it is usually not necessary to preserve all real peculiarities of this of that original accent in the translation. From the functional and artistic point of view, it is enough to preserve only a symbolic reference to the differences in speech. This reference can be based on the traditional associations with this or that regional or social-cultural group. However, in the absence of such associations the translator is free to choose random linguistic elements that would perform a similar aesthetic-artistic function.
Reference
Дзялошинский И.М., Пильгун MA. Коммуникативное воздействие: культурные и этические аспекты // Проблемы теории и практики управления. - 2012. - № 7-8. - С. 95-101.
Пильгун М.А. Аксиологические составляющие медиатекста в межкультурном аспекте // Ученые записки Российского государственного социального университета. - 2012. - № 8 (108). - С. 135-139.
Akhmanova O.S. Dictionary of linguistic terms. - M.: URSS, 1969. - 608 p.
Brown T., Vidal B. The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture. - Routledge, 2014 - 314 p.
Durovicova N., Newman K.E. World Cinemas, Transnational Perspectives. Routledge, 2009. - 366 p.
Phonetic system of the Picard dialect [Электронный ресурс]. - Режим доступа: http://www.picard.free.fr/lgpic/phonetiq.htm (дата обращения: 10.01.14)
Vinogradov V.V. Stylistics. Theory of poetic speech. Poetics. - M.: The USSR AS publishing house, 1963. - 254 p.
Elena V. Gabrielova
УДК 81'23
NEW MEDIA IN PROTEST MOVEMENT: EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT EXPRESSION OF POINT OF VIEW ON THE PROTEST MOVEMENT OCCUPY WALL STREET ON TWITTER
The article presents the results of the research of linguistic peculiarities in expression of personal opinion about the protest movement on Twitter in the USA. In the first part of the article there is an overview of the event, its description and specific features. There is also described the role of new media in coverage of the political events. Further in the investigation there was examined Twitter as a means of communication. The core part of the article presents a content analysis of the messages taken from Twitter microblog and exposed to linguistic analysis. In the end of the article there is a conclusion, based on the research data which is also presented in tables.
Keywords: new media, explicit and implicit expression of personal opinion, social networks, protest movement, Occupy Wall Street.
Е.В. Габриелова
НОВЫЕ МЕДИА В ПРОТЕСТНОМ ДВИЖЕНИИ: ЭКСПЛИЦИТНОЕ И ИМПЛИЦИТНОЕ ВЫРАЖЕНИЕ МНЕНИЯ В ТВИТТЕРЕ
ПО ОТНОШЕНИЮ К ДВИЖЕНИЮ "OCCUPY WALL STREET"
В статье представлены результаты изучения лингвистических особенностей выражения личного мнения с помощью Твиттера по отношению к протестному движению в США. В первой части статьи дается краткий обзор движения "Occupy Wall Street" и описывается роль новых медиа в освещении политических событий. В работе также изучается Твиттер как средство коммуникации. Основанная часть статьи посвящена результатам контент-анализа сообщений, собранных с Твитера и подвергшихся лингвистическому анализу. В конце статьи приводятся выводы, опирающиеся на данные исследования, представленные в таблицах.
Ключевые слова: новые медиа, эксплицитное и имплицитное выражение личного мнения, социальные интернет-сети, протестное движение, Occupy Wall Street.
The present investigation is interested in a political campaign with the name Occupy Wall Street (OWS). This protest movement started on September 17th in 2011 in Zuccotti Park. The aim of the campaign was to occupy Wall Street in the financial center of New York. The goal of the event was to attract the attention of public to the crime of financial elite and initiate structural changes in economy. During the whole movement the activists produced and distributed media texts and documentation, using any platform they could access. Social nets were the most important instrument of information distribution. Information was created every day by the participants of the protest movement, while media groups placed the information in social networks (especially on Twitter and Facebook), prepared texts and videos, carried out live stream broadcasting on
