Introduction
Long ago, the focus of translation research shifted from the source text as the fundamental element in the translation process to the target text and its impact on recipients. Translation has long been portrayed as the essential component of intercultural communication. Languages and cultures of the modern setting are included in the globalization trend, involving movies being filmed in English and adapted for another language in other countries. The fast pace of innovation has an impact on the presentation of more material in audiovisual formats, including CD, DVD, and others, which creates connections between languages, cultures, and technologies. Subtitled video is one of these types of progress, and it has become the foundation for communicating with a broader scope of users than ever before.
Chosen Video
The video chosen for this audiovisual translation assignment is called Principles Self Improvement Course and was retrieved from YouTube. The video covers the basic ideas behind personal development. The reasons behind the choice of this video lie in the simplicity of the content. The source language of this video is English, and the target language is Arabic. Since the recipients of the material are people from the Middle East and the original material is focused on the Western community, choosing a more complex text would result in such problems as the adaptation of realia and possible puns. Therefore, it was decided to select a video with general information to make the subtitles available for a wider audience.
Subtitling Techniques
Subtitling is a sort of translation that is commonly used in the multimedia industry and comprises “dubbing, voice-over, and audio description” (Khalaf, 2016, p.122). Essentially, the audiovisual language of shows or movies is translated in specific ways to make it accessible to target audiences who are unfamiliar with the original language. The viewers of a foreign movie may understand the movie by examining the translated text at the bottom of the display with no confusing notions owing to subtitling.
One may argue that subtitling is more beneficial since it does not cover the original audio of the video material. Subtitling, being the most common form of audiovisual translation, entails the least amount of disruption of the original idea (Khalaf, 2016). Therefore, it helps a recipient catch a grasp of the source language and the culture. As a result, it can be understood that subtitling is a method of translating a foreign movie without altering the original audio or language as dubbing does.
To delve deeper into the subtitles, it is vital to understand their types. There are three types of subtitles: hard (or open) subtitles that employ a wide range of colors, styles, widths, and animation, prerendered (or closed) subtitles that are connected to a DVD, and soft subtitles that look like captions (Khalaf, 2016). The subtitles for the selected video are soft subtitles, which can be switched on or off and are included with the video file.
As for the strategies for translation of the source text, it has been mentioned that the material chosen for the assignment lacked complex information for the sake of good perception by a wider audience. Therefore, among the strategies for the translation of the source text is the literal translation. Literal translation, also referred to as direct translation, is the literal and most straightforward interpretation of original text into a chosen language, as the name implies. The literal translation uses existing material in the given language and interprets it into another language verbatim. It is the most basic sort of translating, and it is the method utilized by a lot of translators who wish to deliver the product as quickly as possible.
However, even though the literal translation is the most straightforward kind of translation, it does not imply that it is without value. In reality, verbatim translation is advantageous for a variety of reasons. For example, the direct translation is the quickest sort of translation of the text, reducing task timeframe. Additionally, it translates text into the target language while keeping it plain and precise. As a result, it guarantees that no critical information is left out of the original text.
Nevertheless, literal translation involves a lot of challenges for the translator, and the most significant issues with this kind of translation stem from idioms and context. For instance, many English idioms cannot be translated literally into other languages. One of the examples of the English idioms used in the video is to put somebody down, the meaning of criticizing someone (PureFinal, 2021, 0:37). In this situation, the literal translation may distort the overall idea, and the message will hard to render for the recipients. Therefore, in this situation, the technique of paraphrasing was used to convey the message without disrupting the meaning.
Additionally, culturally specific aspects create an additional burden for the translator. Different cultural traditions and perceptions across nations emerge when language is used and translated from one language into another, particularly when subtitling is used since it interacts with audiovisual products. All of this may be expressed by the translator’s preferred approach, such as employing “domestication, foreignization, functionalism,” and others (Khalaf, 2016, p.125). For example, names of prominent locations, people, and so on that the audience is unfamiliar with. Due to the simplicity of the text, there was no need to adapt the source text.
The last possible obstacle to the translation of a source text could be humor, which is by far the most common type of intercultural difficulty for translators since, in some TV shows, laughter is more crucial than the message. Multinational puns, which can be translated literally and are simple to comprehend, are one type of humor. The biggest cultural issue for translators is to translate national or regional jokes and community puns. However, the central message of the video was to influence the viewer through educational content and, therefore, did not include any puns.
Conclusion
Hence, the subtitles for the chosen video Principles Self Improvement Course were created by translating the material from the source language, English, into the target language, Arabic. The video can be characterized by the simplicity and clarity of the material, which was the reason behind this choice. As a result, there were few translation techniques used to interpret the text and provide subtitles for the Arabic audience. The primary technique was literal, also known as direct, translation which involved translating the material verbatim. Since literal translation can distort the meaning of the sentence or idiomatic phrase, it was essential to implement another technique. The second technique was paraphrasing, which helped to maintain the message of the material. Subsequently, the implementation of these two approaches facilitated the easy-to-perceive result.
References
Khalaf, B.K. (2016). An introduction to subtitling: Challenges and strategies. International Journal of Comparative Literature and Translation Studies, 3(1), 122-129.
PureFinal. (2021). Principles Self Improvement Course [Video]. YouTube. Web.