CC BY
12УДК 81
Tyulubaeva V.D.
student of the Department of Foreign Languages Ural Federal University named after Boris Yeltsin (Ekaterinburg, Russia)
TRANSLATION SIMULATOR FOR A NOVICE TRANSLATOR (ON THE BASIS OF CANADIAN DOCUMENTARY FILM «OASIS» AND ITS TRANSLATIONS INTO RUSSIAN AND ENGLISH)
Аннотация: the present paper analyses the translation of the subtitles of the Canadian shortfilm Oasis (2022) by Justine Martin into Russian and English. The aim of this study is to identify and assess the quality of translation solutions and to develop an algorithm of actions when translating subtitles. It is proved that such practice is expedient for novice translators, as it allows them to test one of the algorithms for assessing translation quality.
Ключевые слова: subtitles, translation quality assessment, verification algorithm.
Introduction.
In the era of globalisation, translation is all around us. Books, films, advertisements, instructions, games and much more — all of this requires quality translation in order to convey the recipient the information embedded in the source text.
The first thing that is essential to produce an accurate translation is to define the Translation Quality Assessment (TQA) criteria: what parameters should guide the translator for achieving the right result by fulfilling the task in a professional manner. According to Evgenia Gilmullina, the assessment principles depend on various factors: conditions of text creation, type of source text, individual requests of the customer. All of these factors need to be taken into account, hence a "perfect" TQA model seems impossible. [1, p 4]
It is extremely useful for a novice translator to analyse a variety of translation quality assessment models in order to further create a convenient and practical algorithm for verifying and making correct translation decisions, as well as to train one's own skills and professional qualities. For the sake of it, the following topic seems more relevant than ever.
Materials and Methods.
The current investigation involved pre-translation analysis, translation transformations and most common translation mistakes. Materials were taken from I. S. Alexeeva's scheme of pre-translation analysis, classification of translation transformations by V. N. Komissarov and, finally, the translation assessment scheme proposed by Nikolay Garbovsky. Russian and English subtitles of Canadian documentary film Oasis (2022) were analysed on the basis of above mentioned schemes in terms of translation solutions made in the process and their motivation in order to investigate the most effective ones and to create a convenient pre-translation algorithm.
First of all, it is necessary to define the term subtitles. According to Merriam Webster Dictionary, subtitle is a printed statement or fragment of dialogue appearing on the screen between the scenes of a silent motion picture or appearing as a translation at the bottom of the screen during the scenes of a motion picture or television show in a foreign language. (Merriam Webster Dictionary online).
Even though subtitle translation has developed considerably, the process of subtitling still remains difficult in terms of saving the individual style of the author, understanding of extra-linguistic information (for example peculiarities of speech and culture of the original work) and, finally, conveying meaning to the viewer while minimising the amount of space on the screen. Many researchers have addressed this problem. Thus, for example, H. Gottlieb emphasises that perceiving a movie with subtitles causes the loss of auditory perception, the viewer acquires information visually and verbally. This means the viewer focuses attention on the subtitle text rather than on picture [3].
Like any other text, subtitles require pre-translation analysis for better comprehension of the author's motives and extra-linguistic factors that can make it harder for viewers to understand the idea of the film. According to W. Koller, text analysis is the essential prerequisite for translation and the task of translation theory is to develop a methodology for relevant text analysis. A. Kozulyaev emphasises the importance of determining the genre before direct translation, as well as identifying the characteristic features of the genre of audiovisual discourse and ways to convey these features in the target language. In addition, it is necessary to identify the target audience of the translated video material. [4]
As a first step before subtitle translation, this article adopts the pre-translation analysis of subtitles developed by Alexeeva, as it seems the most detailed one. The scheme includes the following points:
1. Gather external information about the text:
— author of the original text,
— the time of creation and publication of the original text,
— source (book, website, magazine or newspaper).
— the recipient of the text.
External information is necessary for the translator to better understand the features of the text, its cultural differences, and to understand the spirit of the time in which the text was written. For example, if the original text was written in the 19th century, the translation needs to be archaised. The present data will help to choose a translation strategy.
2. Determination of information composition and density.
I. S. Alekseeva distinguishes four types of information:
— cognitive,
— operational,
— emotional,
— aesthetic.
3. Communicative purpose or communicative task of the text.
The purpose of the text may be to communicate new information, to establish contact, to persuade people to buy goods, to instruct, etc. Establishing the communicative purpose of the text helps the translator to determine the dominants of the translation.
4. Speech genre.
Determining the genre of translating text helps the translator find the right language means of translation. As a rule, texts of the same speech genre are similar in different languages.
The advantage of Irina Alekseeva's scheme is its holistic character. The scheme takes into account all aspects of the analysed text, helping to avoid translation errors and improve the quality of translated texts. [5, p 352]
The second problem that a novice translator can face is translation is not meaning by meaning, but word by word. The application of translation transformations helps to avoid literal translation and to save language means. The study of translation transformations has been investigated by many translation theorists throughout the entire period of development of this discipline. The most correct and complete classification of translation transformations seems to be the one given by V. N. Komissarov, who believes it can help to make a transition from the original units to the units of translation in the specified meaning. The scholar suggests distinguishing between lexical, grammatical, and complex lexico-grammatical transformations. Among lexical transformations
V. N. Komissarov emphasises translation transcribing and transliteration, calcination and lexico-semantic substitutions (concretisation, generalisation, modulation). [6, p 159- 165]
Another problem a novice translator may face is self-monitoring at the stage of checking the work for mistakes. This stage is very important for the quality of the work, as it allows one to identify and correct inaccuracies in the translation. The present paper uses the translation assessment classification proposed by Nikolay Garbovsky. [7, p 387] The author focuses on typical errors caused by, first of all, the translator's misunderstanding of the source text. In the most general form, the typology of causes
of translation errors when deciphering the system of meanings of the source text can be presented as follows:
1. Insufficient knowledge of the original language.
2. Insufficient cognitive experience. Lack of knowledge about the area of the surrounding reality described in the source text.
3. Inattention to the system of meanings contained in the source text. Failure to understand what the author is saying about the subject.
4. Inability to distinguish the peculiarities of the individual style of the author of the original work of speech.
Results and Discussion
From now on the article focuses on pre-translation analysis of a current film.
1. Thematic relevance.
The current investigation involved analysing Russian and English subtitles on the basis of Canadian documentary film Oasis (2022) by Justine Martin. The subtitles were selected from the My French Film Festival 2024 website. Subtitling was provided by TitraFilm company.
Justine Martin is a screenwriter and director from Montreal who graduated
from Concordia University with a degree in filmmaking. Feminism, ecology and childhood are themes that inspire her. In 2021, she made her first short documentary film, Oasis, which was awarded at the Clermont-Ferrand, IDFA, FNC festivals and won the Collégial du cinéma québécois (PCCQ) prize in the short film category. Since its world premiere at the New Film Festival 2021, Oasis has travelled to sixty-five festivals, collecting some fifteen awards, including a nomination for Best Short Documentary at the RiverRun International Film Festival in North Carolina. In Quebec, the film won the Best Documentary Short at the Rendez-vous Québec Cinéma Festival (RVQC) and the Prix collégial du cinéma québécois (PCCQ) in the short film category.
The 14-minute film centres on two twins on the verge of adolescence, Raphael and Rémi Cormier, whose relationship deteriorates as one of them, suffering from a
mental disability, remains childish. Justine pays a lot of attention to images of nature, as she herself spent much of her childhood camping.
Source: individual, director of the above film.
2. Purpose of the original.
In the interview with Unifrance Justine Martin tells the story of twin brothers Remy and Raphael Cormier, whose family she once worked for as a nanny. She admits that she wanted to tell the story of their difficult relationship, but also to show the development of a person with a disability and the complexities of growing up. Justine pays great attention to images of nature, as she herself spent much of her childhood camping. Moreover, the title of the film — Oasis — is also directly linked to the many images shot in nature. The forest, the lake, the fields became a kind of metaphor for that very oasis, a small universe in which the characters can forever remain carefree children. The director was also interested in making a documentary film, as she felt it required a great deal of intellectual effort.
3. The purpose of the translation is to convey the cultural specificity and meaning of the text, to draw attention to the problems of people with disabilities, to share the author's own reflections on childhood and growing up.
4. Addressee: The film is aimed at a wide audience, in particular people interested in the work of the author, as well as those interested in French cinema.
5.
• Text composition: Narrative.
• Type of text: subtitles.
• Character of the composition: free.
• Leading function: expressive.
• Genre: short documentary film.
• Style: feature.
• Leading architectonic and speech form: dialogues.
• Tonality: neutral.
• Types of information:
This text contains the following types of information:
— Emotional:
1) Emotionally evaluative words: petite, grave,
2) Use of ordinary words and expressions: Hey, Ouias, Crotte,
3) At the level of the text: temporality, linking the content to a specific time,
4) At the level of the sentence: personal subject, impersonal constructions, active voice for the predicate, semantically complete verbs,
(Je t'aime. Souvent, on pense aux mêmes choses. Ça serait bien. Attends, on va aller sur le pont.)
— Aesthetic:
Lexical repetitions: J'ai le droit de pédaler avec toi? J'ai le droit, Remi? (anaphora),
The distribution of these types of information in the translated text is homogeneous.
6. Genre-stylistic characteristics of the text: chronicle-documentary.
7. Extralinguistic information: pédalo — (here) a water bike.
The second step on the way to translate subtitles is to find and analyse translation transformations. Some of them are presented in the table below.
'Я л Й з-
à Й
'Й л Й 'О
о
S4 Й
Original subtitles Russian translation English translation Comments
Qui veut moil chapeau? Qui veut? Qui est-ce qui le veut? Qui est-ce qui le veut? Кто хочет такую шляпу? Кому шляпу? Кто хочет шляпу? Кто хочет шляпу0 Who wants my hat? Who wants it? Who wants it? Who wants it? Replacing a pronoun with a concrete noun in the Russian version. In this example, it is acceptable to leave lexical repetition as this tendency, i.e. repetition of ready-made phrases, is often observed in children with developmental delays. I11 the English version, the lexical repetition is preserved with the pronoun.
Raph reste à gauche Раф, держись слева Raph, stav 011 your left. Translation at the phrase level. The expression "reste a gauche" is translated by a functional analogue.
Crotte. Je suis obligé de te les donner? Блин... Я все должен тебе отдать? Crap. Do I need to give them to you? "Crotte" in this case serves as a substitute for the more obscene language, so that the Russian and English equivalents cany the meaning corresponding to the original.
C'est pas si pire. Это нормально. Overall it's not that bad. Ant011 ymous translation in the Russian version. In the English version the antonymous translation technique is not used.
Ça va? Всё окей? You OK? I11 the Russian version, anglicism is used because a) this feature is typical for the speech of Russia 11-speaking teenagers: b) "окей" (2 syllables) is shorter than the Russian word "хорошо" (3 syllables), i.e. the economy of language means 011 the screen so that the viewers reading the subtitles had time to read them. At the same time in the English version "To be" is omitted with the same purpose of economy of language means. Moreover such simplifications are also seen in English speech.
> > >
The analysis of translation transformations used in the subtitle translation of the short film "Oasis" has shown that the most frequent among the lexical type transformations is omission.
The next step taken for a quality subtitle translation is to analyse it according to the Garbovsky translation evaluation system. The following translation inaccuracies have been identified in this article:
Example 1.
The original subtitles Russian subtitles English subtitles
Hé. t'a amené ton jumeau? Ты привел брата? Hey, you brought your tween?
In the given example, the original French word "jumeau" (a twin) is replaced by the word "брат" (brother) in the Russian version. As it can be seen, in this case the use of generalisation is inappropriate, because the important idea of the original is lost. The main characters are twin brothers and there is a special connection between them. In order to solve this problem, this article proposes to replace the word "брат" with "близнец", as it was done in the English version - twin.
Example 2.
The original subtitles Russian subtitles English subtitles
C'est la vie. On ne peut pas être tout le temps ensemble. Придет время, когда мы не сможем быть все время вместе. Because at some point that's life, we can't be together forever.
The omission of the fixed expression "C'est la vie" in the Russian version fails to save an emotional charge unlike English subtitles — "That's life". Probably, in this case it would be acceptable to avoid the omission.
Example 3.
The original subtitles Russian subtitles English subtitles
Eh bien... Souvent, on pense aux mêmes choses. C'est quand même drôle. Ouais. Ну... Мы часто думаем об одном. И это довольно странно. Well... Often we think about the same things.
Change of emotional colouring from positive to negative. The word "drôle" ("funny") is translated with the word "странно" ("strange") in the Russian subtitles. Perhaps the equivalent of "забавно" ("funny") should have been used in this instance. Interestingly, in the English version of the subtitles, the equivalent of the word "drôle" is omitted completely, which also leads to a loss of emotional charge. The solution is to use the word "funny", which is very close in connotation to the original word "drôle".
From now on the present paper focuses on the suggested algorithm to visualise the result. First of all, the sentence below was taken from the original text and analysed for extra-linguistic information.
" — Je veux aller faire du pédalo. Je veux en faire. Rémi. Rémi, je veux en faire. Laisse-moi embarquer.
— Attends, on va aller sur le pont."
1) Ppédalo — (here) a water bike.
2) The aesthetic type of information: "Je veux en faire. Rémi. Rémi, je veux en faire." (lexical repetition that can often be seen in the speech of children with developmental delays).
3) At the level of the sentence: personal subject (Je veux aller faire du pédalo. Je veux en faire), impersonal constructions (Laisse-moi embarquer. Attends, on va aller sur le pont).
сл Й О
• 1—i
£
сл g
Й О
• у—i
сл g
£
0) О й 0)
й
0)
сл
й
0)
ь Й о
0) л
<и N
'сЗ g
л
0)
сл
й о о 0)
сл
0) Л H
Je veux aller faire1 du pédalo. Je veux en faire2. Rémi3. Rémi, je veux en faire. Laisse-moi embarquer 4
— Attends, ou va aller sur le pont.5
Хочу1 на водный велосипед! Водный велосипед. Хочу на нем покататься.2 Реми3! Ремн, очень хочу! Я пересяду на водный велосипед.4
— Сначала причалим.5
I wanna to pedal1 boat! I warn a to pedal boat2.1 want to! Rémi!3 Rémi, I want to! Let me go into the pedal boat'4
—Watch out, we're goingunder the bridge.5
1) Omission of verbs "aller" and "faire"
2) Division of sentences in Russian translation: «Водный велосипед. Хочу на нем покататьея.» Hie character who utters this sentence is a child with special developmental needs. It is natural for such children to break their speech into short, simple sentences.
3) This is a proper name, so it is translated using transcription.
4) The omission of the phrase "Laisse-moi'' (Позволь мне) in Russian subtitles, and the semantic development in English version.
5) The omission of "Attends" (Wait) in Russian subtitles and the semantic development: "on va aller sur le pont'' (Literally: Мы подплывем к пристани) is shortened to "Сначала причалим", with a shift of meaning from "Attends " to "Сначала".
hi the English version "Attends" is replaced by "Watch out" — semantic development.
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The third and final step is error checking. The work was checked according to Garbovsky's assessment classification. All the screen-linguistic information needed to understand the film has been carefully examined. Meanings contained in the source text have been passed on. The peculiarities of the individual style of the author of the original work of speech were distinguished.
Conclusion.
Prior work has documented the effectiveness of pre translation analysis and building of translating algorithm in improving quality of final translation results. For example the analysis of translation transformations shows the omission as the prioritised transformation, as it is an economy of language means on the screen. However, there is no perfect algorithm that can ensure a successful translation result. The algorithm presented in the article is one of the possible ways for translation solutions. In this study we tested the scheme of pre-translation analysis by Alexeeva to specify extra information of particular text, classification of translation transformations by Komissarov to investigate possible instruments of translator and, finally, the translation assessment scheme proposed by Nikolay Garbovsky for self-control after translation. It was found that extralinguistic information is sometimes hard to interpret without specific knowledge and translator's own experience. Therefore, the algorithm consists of three points: 1) pre-translation analysis, 2) investigation of translation transformations and 3) identification of translation errors. Significant improvements in translation quality were observed when subtitling features (i.e., number of words per line) and character speech features were taken into account. Thus, this study shows that the benefits of a translation algorithm can help a novice translator in the initial stages of translation work, as well as in checking one's own work for errors and minimising them.
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