846 research outputs found
Language Variation and Multimodality in Audiovisual Translation. A New Framework of Analysis
No full textSociety is characterized by a constant flow of multimodal products, which increasingly blur the lines between screen and reality, and audiovisual translation allows overcoming geographical and linguistic frontiers between small realities across the planet. However, research has long struggled to adapt its methodologies to effectively analyze such phenomena, and even more to scale its results through larger corpus analyses. Dora Renna proposes a pioneering framework, informed by the latest trends in audiovisual translation and multimodality and fit to achieve the complex task of operatively including multimodality in a rigorous corpus analysis of source and target versions of films characterized by language variation as a key element of character design. While language is at the core of her analysis, its role in the broader audiovisual context is explored thanks to a solid network of relations that shed light on linguistic and translational choices as well as on their implications. Framework and methodology are explained in detail and thoroughly applied to the case study to show how this perspective contributes to move a step forward in corpus-based audiovisual translation studies. The results obtained are unexpected and urge readers to overcome old attitudes towards audiovisual translation and multimodal corpora
Re-shaping Languages and Stereotypes in Dubbing. David Ayer’s End of Watch (2013) from Chicano English to Italian.
No full textThe present paper aims to investigate the role of language and Italian dubbing in the construction of ethno-types in a movie where Chicano English speakers are portrayed. Textual and non-textual elements will be taken into consideration altogether, in order to account for the multimodal nature of movie characters’ profiles creation. After a general overview on Chicano communities, including historical, linguistic and stereotypical features, the topic will be tackled by taking David Ayer’s movie End of Watch (2013) as a case study, along with the Italian dubbed text. The non-textual features of the movie will prove to be related to the existing tradition of stereotypical portrayals. Source and target text will be analysed quantitatively, so as to find the frequencies of the features that distinguish Chicanos as the different from white Americans: Spanish code mixing and use of slang and profanities. Once explained what the main challenges of translating Chicano language and culture into Italian might be, a presentation of the frequencies of the target version will follow. By observing the procedures adopted by the translators at a micro level, it will be possible to state a hypothesis on which macro-level strategy might have inspired their work. A comparison between the two versions will also allow to infer the diegetic functions of the ethno-types in both source and target text, taking into account both common and dissimilar traits
Genres and persuasion: Linguistic and argumentation perspectives
No full textThe vinvestigation sits at the interface of argumentation and discourse studies, exploring different genres belonging to public debate across different domain
Recensione del volume Multimodal Pragmatics and Translation: A New Model for Source Text Analysis di Sara Dicerto
No full textThis volume by Sara Dicerto aims at contributing to a recent development of translation studies, which have started to become interested in multimodality and pragmatics. The author introduces the topic by outlining a state of the art of the research concerning the interaction between those disciplines. She argues that, although some authors have already taken on the challenges of intersecting Translation Studies in these non-verbal directions, the attempts have generally been “scarce and fragmented” (9). Indeed, Dicerto shows that the most innovative contributions to the investigation of multimodal products derive from media studies and semiotics. By reinterpreting the findings in these fields in terms of Translation Studies, Dicerto pursues the goal of understanding the way in which the different modes interact with each other to create a message that contains both explicatures and implicatures. This also allows to infer which mode carries the crucial information and how the others complement the communication process
Shaping Stereotypes in a Space of Absence: A Linguistic Analysis of Wayne Wang’s “Chan Is Missing”
No full textWayne Wang’s Chan Is Missing (1981) was acclaimed by the critics and broadly appreciated by the public for its innovative style and its lively depiction of San Francisco’s Chinatown. Academic discourse has focused on the film’s ability to embody the essence of Asian Americans (Tajima 1990), and on the challenges it poses to the common assumptions concerning this specific minority within the United States (Feng 1996). Indeed, the film is a milestone for cinema in general, and for the representation of Asians and Chinese Americans in particular, for it manages to be many different films at the same time.
The aim of this paper is to use Systemic Functional Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis to investigate the linguistic image construction of Chan (whose name echoes the notorious Charlie Chan from the beginning of the 20th century) within the film. His identikit is (and at the same time fails to be) the outcome of a chorus of different voices. While the two protagonists, Jo and Steve, look for the missing Chan Hung, they talk to several people who have met him. Each character delivers a fragment of a shapeless portrait that does not help the protagonists finding him, actually causing even more confusion on his location and his identity. Each description has little to do with Chan himself, as it only represents the characters’ confrontation with the stereotypes attached to the Asian and Chinese American community. This attempt to use Chan as an image of what each character wants to detach from in order to define themselves is made possible and at the same time invalidated by his continuous absence, which represents the essence of the stereotype itself—only real in the words of the beholder
Methodological Challenges in Audiovisual Translation: Experimenting New Software for Multimodal Corpus-based Analysis
No full textAudiovisual translation has long struggled to strike a balance between corpus-based analysis of large amounts of text and the need to systematically integrate multimodality in its research scope, in order to fully acknowledge the complex nature of the audiovisual product. This paper aims to relate on the experimentation that is currently being conducted at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, with the collaboration of the University of Basel (Switzerland): using an existing software (created for pragmatics) for audiovisual translation. The main aim is to make sure this software is able to support the researcher in transcribing, annotating, adding metadata, managing and querying text and video files. The experimented software has never been used for parallel aligned audiovisual text so far. The contribution here presented first briefly describes a framework developed to analyse language variation and multimodality (with a focus on character design) in audiovisual translation, which was then immersed in the software. Subsequently, the software itself is described in detail, with specific attention to its potential and limits in the use within the field of Translation Studies and audiovisual translation. This is done by showing examples from a pilot study that belongs to a broader corpus currently under construction
Language and identity of the British Indian teenage diaspora: Gautam Malkani’s Londonstani, a case study.
No full textThe article aims to shed some light on the role of language during a crucial step of life when it comes to identity, that is to say youth – the age of uncertainty par excellence, in which every convention, every belief is put into question and re-elaborated. The analysis focuses on the teenagers of the British Indian diasporic community, for whom the research of an identity also includes the definition of belonging. The issue is tackled by reading Gautam Malkani’s debut novel, Londonstani (2006). The amazing ability of Malkani is to disclose how the issue of identity is played into language – each unanswered question, each attempt to find a definition (both failed and successful), to establish or break bonds of belonging, to disobey institutions and to adapt to the rules of a subgroup. That is the reason why the present work focuses on language, trying to reveal how it can simultaneously reflect and determine belonging in itself, thus becoming more than just a tool to communicate: the means becomes the message, transcending its content
Rappresentatività e variazione linguistica nella traduzione audiovisiva
No full textThe underrepresentation of ethnic and linguistic minorities, as well as their stereotyped images, are intrinsic to US society, which seems to want them to disappear in order to survive (Macedo 2013). These minorities are often absent from the screens, and when they appear, they are transformed into stereotypes and used as diegetic devices that the public is able to recognise. Even when the films are produced by minorities, they often end up reinforcing these stereotypes while trying to explain or confute them, ultimately surrendering to their social marginality. Indeed, these representations emerge from policies aiming to delete ethnic difference by stigmatising linguistic (Lippi-Green 1997) or social ones (Bender 2003). The power of cinema lays in its ability to shape memory and reality, actively contributing to social and individual narrations (Fluck 2003). In this sense, translation also plays a crucial role in re-presenting minority images to the target audience (van Doorslaer et al. 2016). The aim of this article is to tackle the issue of minority translation as a way to ensure them access to a broader public, in order to present the latter with their own voice and language. More specifically, this article explores the representativity issue as a matter of access by providing answer to the question: what does access mean for a discriminated minority
- …
