Dubbing

Broadcasters will pick the most suitable form of translation depending on the genre or the target audience. Undoubtedly, out of all the modes of translation mentioned above, dubbing and subtitling are the two most commonly used methods by the media, and have received the majority of attention in academic research as well (Chiaro, 2009). The two will be discussed in greater detail in the following sections.

2.1.1 Dubbing

Dubbing, also known as lip-synchronization, or lip-sync, is a process where the original source language voice track is replaced by the target language voice track that attempts to follow as closely to the timing and lip movement of the on-screen actor as possible (Luyken et al., cited in Chiaro, 2009; Munday, 2008). As the dubbing script is translated and written to maintain audio communication in the target culture setting, dubbing can be seen as a process of

original actors are speaking the target language in order to fully enhance viewers’ enjoyment. It is important to note that where cultures differ greatly, “a dichotomy of foreignization versus domestication has [to be] put forward to explain linguistically diverse translation from the same source in a cultural dimension” (He, 2009, p. 63).

Similar to subtitling, there are two types of dubbing – interlingual and intralingual. Interlingual dubbing is a transfer from one language to another;

whereas intralingual consists of re-voicing or replacing the original audio. This practice is mostly done in countries where many dialects exist, such as Italy, the UK, and China. For example, the first twenty minutes of Trainspotting, a film which the characters were talking in heavily-accented Scottish English, has to be dubbed⁴ (The Independent, 1996); just as Harry Potter has been translated into American English, so that the audience can fully comprehend the dialogues (Gambier, 2003). Moreover, almost all screen productions and foreign releases in China are dubbed for different reasons, such as accent issues, or matching the character with a suitable voice.

The dubbing process is not as simple as it appears to be, and it involves many highly complex steps from start to finish. Martínez (2004, pp. 3-5) discussed the process of dubbing in great details in her article Film Dubbing, its

Process and Translation. The process includes the following steps:

4 Trainspotting (1996), a British black comedy directed by Danny Boyle, follows a group of heroin addicts in an economically depressed area of Edinburgh and their passage through life. When the film was set to release in the US in July, 1996, the US film distributor had asked the British producers to dub the first 20 minutes of the film,

“[f]earing that audiences will find the Edinburgh vernacular incomprehensible” (The Independent, 1996).

1. Client sends a copy of the film, the script, and instructions to the dubbing studio;

2. Translator translates or transcreates the script;

3. A proofreader proofreads the translated dialogue and prepares it for synchronisation;

4. Synchroniser goes through the script so that it matches the actors’ lip movements;

5. Production assistants prepare the script, divide the texts into segments and draw up a schedule to facilitate the dubbing process 6. Dubbing actors record their assigned parts.

Although dubbing is favoured by central and southern European countries such as France, Italy, Germany, Spain, and Austria, as well as China, Japan, and Latin American nations, dubbing is bound by many constraints.

Firstly, many scholars (Lu, 2009; Zhang, 2009) mentioned that dubbing suffers from three major problems, 1) non-synchronised lip movements; 2) mismatched body language; and 3) the loss of musicality and cadence of the original language.

On top of that, the dialogue writers often criticize the quality of the translated script on the grounds that the translators are “incapable of producing credible, oral text” (Chaume, 2004b, p. 37). Thus, the final product is not natural or domestic for the target audience. In other words, the translated script and dialogues should produce the same effect as the original, making the target audience to share the same experience as those who speak the source language.

Secondly, since foreign film productions only make up a low percentage of the entire industry, production companies seldom dub films. The article by Chiaro (2009) used the UK as an example, stating that in 2006, less than four per cent of the UK’s box office gross revenue is generated from foreign language films, of which Hindi only made up approximately two per cent; while non-English speaking films was as low as two per cent of all the films broadcast on television.

Although dubbing may appear to be unpopular nowadays, dubbing has many advantages and still holds a strong stand around the world. Dubbing allows the audience to enjoy watching the film without having to concentrate on reading the subtitles shown at the bottom of the screen. Moreover, films and programmes for children are almost always dubbed, even in countries that prefer subtitling to dubbing, so that they can enjoy foreign productions too (Chiaro, 2009). A dubbed film is almost for certain to suffer various kinds of losses due to the constraints mentioned above, it also pushes the translators to be creative when they write the dialogues, and tries to match the original to the target language.