What mainly triggered this study is the negative reception that dubbing performance has in Taiwan. It has multiple factors such as industry ecology, translation and style, many of which have been discussed in previous studies.
First of all, Ishii et al. (1999) records that dubbing in Taiwan is not a favoured option, with more than 50% of its population consider it unnatural. Several studies investigated the industry-related issues of dubbing and generally conclude that the condition is not a desirable one either. Hsu (2007) points out that the working condition of dubbing artists has been worsening over the past decades and attributes
the deterioration to three factors. Firstly, the dramatic growth of demand entailed a huge fall in quality requirements and in turn an increase of new dubbing artists. Also, using celebrities, rather than professional dubbing artists, in projects of larger scales has become a marketing gimmick used universally in show business, and the shift deprives dubbing artists of their already scarce exposure. Finally, technological innovations changed the working condition and greatly lowered the time needed in a project, yet the overall result is a cut in wage and heavier load of work5.
Yang (2010), after investigating the labour rights of Taiwanese dubbing artists, concludes that there has been great difficulty in improving the labour rights. Yang believes there are multiple reasons for the situation. Firstly, it is a rather closed structure with no transparent way for new forces to enter the industry. Also, the members of the union fail to really unite in protesting against the employers for unjust treatments because some of them choose to prioritise personal interest. As a result, although the regulations concerning dubbing certification and contract in theory are appropriate for the industry, it has yet to be implemented.
Lai (2014) also notices the mass production of dubbing projects, attributing the undesirable condition to factors such as the amount of TV channels taking up advertisement resources and the lack of original works. They further points out that the increase of demand is reflected in quantity, not quality of the works. As a result, the dubbing performance in Taiwan has become cliché and unlikeable. Tsai (2015)
5 Indeed, senior dubbing artists have been complaining that they use to enjoy a rather ideal life style and quality, although in the old days it was required for every role to be present in a specific scene to record the scene physically together in the studio and the recording equipment was very intolerant to NGs. Nowadays new technologies allow separate recording sessions of a same scene and swift cut and re-cut to the spots that particularly need to be worked on, and yet the result is they have to rush back and forth among different studios because of the “convenience”. The isolation in recording also results in the lack of real emotional elements in the performance. Overall, the speediness in finishing projects did not bring more free time, but simply more work with lower quality.
further compares the conditions of Taiwanese dubbing industry with that of Japanese dubbing industry and considers the latter a potential role model.
Another widely studied aspect of dubbing is its translation and comparison with subtitling. Studies have been done to compare the translation in dubbing and translation in subtitling, such as Luo (2007). Yeh (1998) compares dubbing and subtitling and concludes that the primary difference resides in the principle of policy.
Due to the limitations from the media, subtitling should follow the principle of brevity to fit in to the capacity of the subtitle line on screen, while dubbing should follow the rule of synchronisation and extend the lines6 to match the oral movement of characters on screen.
Lastly, Cheng & Chiang (2003) study acoustic features such as pitch value, pitch variation, apmplitude value, amplitude variation, speech rate and voice quality of dubbing performance and conclude that there is a fixed stereotypical connection between the acoustic features and characteristics of roles. Their study suggests there may be indeed a certain degree of platitude in Taiwanese dubbing performance.
Outside Taiwan, technical aspects of dubbing have been studied as well. Fodor (1976) in his book provides a guideline, in the framework of linguistic phonemes, of how oral movement can be matched. Translational issue has also been a popular topic. Similar comparisons of dubbing and subtitling have been drawn by Voge (1977) and Koolstra et al. (2002), the former citing professional opinions on the practices.
Luyken (1991) and Goris (1993) discuss translation and dubbing strategy in context of specific languages and cultures. Adachi (2016) in specific compared a film and its translations in perspective of dubbing in different languages, and draws a stylistic
6 Opposite cases, namely dubbing artist having to shorten the lines, exists as well. For a detailed description of the cause and solution, see section 3.1.
implications from the comparison.
Some cases where dubbing has practical function have been reported. Koyama (2016), for instance, introduces in their study a case where dubbing activity is used in a language course. The implementation of dubbing activity is found, according to the survey after the activity, helpful for students to obtain a native-like diction. Overall, dubbing could be fitting as class material for both L1 and L2 learners with appropriate adjustment and scrutinised selection of materials.
Lastly, Danan (1991) points out the social implication of dubbing. They believe the preference of dubbing/subtitling is based on cultural and linguistic identity of a country, and view dubbing as an expression of nationalism.
Danan’s study focuses on cultural and translational aspects of the issue, which is also discussed in this study in the context of Taiwanese linguistic scenario. A rather different pattern can be observed: because of the particular political situation in Taiwan, the rejection of dubbing is the expression of nationalism. The situation is further evidenced in this study by acoustic investigation of dubbing performances, which serves a more substantial analysis of the scenario. This is an innovative but solid approach that sets this study apart from previous ones.
Chapter 3
How Is Dubbing Received: Survey Study
This chapter describes the survey study in this research. It has 3 sections. Section 3.1 gives an introduction on the 20 lines from dubbing performance, which serve as the materials used in this study. Section 3.2 describes the survey that was conducted to see audience’ reception on the materials. Section 3.3 discusses the result of the survey, from both qualitative and quantitative point of view.