An evaluation of the translation of the film “Rio” based on Newmark’s model

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ********************************* TRẦN THỊ NGÂN AN EVALUATION OF

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

*********************************

TRẦN THỊ NGÂN

AN EVALUATION OF THE TRANSLATION OF THE FILM “RIO”

BASED ON NEWMARK’S MODEL

Đánh giá bản dịch bộ phim “Rio” dựa trên mô hình của Newmark

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field : English Linguistics Code : 60220201

HANOI – 2016

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

*********************************

TRẦN THỊ NGÂN

AN EVALUATION OF THE TRANSLATION OF THE FILM “RIO”

BASED ON NEWMARK’S MODEL

Đánh giá bản dịch bộ phim “Rio” dựa trên mô hình của Newmark

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field : English Linguistics Code : 60220201

Supervisor : Assoc Prof Dr Lâm Quang Đông

HANOI – 2016

DECLARATION

I declare that the thesis entitled „An evaluation of the translation of the film

“Rio”, based on Newmark‟s model‟ reflects the findings of the study conducted

by myself The thesis is submitted to University of Languages and International Studies – Viet Nam National University, Ha Noi for the Degree of Master in English Linguistics It has not been submitted for the award of any degree or diploma in any other tertiary institutions

Hanoi, 2016

Trần Thị Ngân

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This thesis would not exist without the immense encouragement which I received along the way from my supervisor, my family, my colleagues and my friends

First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc.Prof Lam Quang Dong, who has lent his expertise to flesh my ideas and provide reference sources I am indebted to him for his enthusiasm, kindness and dedication during my course of study

I also take this opportunity to thank all my lecturers and classmates at Faculty of Graduate Studies for their inspiration to me

Besides, I am grateful to my friends and my colleagues for their valuable advice and great encouragement Last but not least, I would like to deliver special thanks to my husband for his kind support which helps me a lot in completion of this thesis

This thesis assesses the translation quality of the Vietnamese version of the

film “Rio”, which was translated and dubbed in the project of MegaStar Media Ltd

Company, Viet Nam in April 2011

To reach its aim, the study used four methods including analysis and

comparison, which were based on Newmark‟s model In addition, statistical and observational methods were also applied to examine the synchronisation of each

utterance and its translated version

The research instrument was “Aegisub”, a free open-source cross-platform subtitle editing program designed for timing and styling of subtitles The researcher‟s purpose was to see how well utterances in both versions of the film are synchronised with each other

The research findings show that in general, the film was well-translated in terms of structures, proper nouns, hierarchical pronouns, borrowed words and puns Weaknesses of the translation were found in the title and several mistranslations The study also reveals that the translated utterances were synchronised with the original ones quite well, especially in terms of duration

TABLE OF CONTENTS

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ii

ABSTRACT iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iv

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi

PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1 Rationale 1

2 Aims and objectives of the study 2

3 Research questions 2

4 Scope of the study 2

5 Method of the study 3

6 Significance of the study 3

7 Organization of the thesis 3

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT 5

Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

1.1 Theoretical Background 5

1.1.1 Definitions of translation 5

1.1.2 Translation methods 6

1.1.3 Translation equivalence 8

1.1.4 Translation quality assessment 9

1.1.5 Synchronisation in dubbed films 14

1.2 An overview of previous studies 16

Chapter 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 18

2.1 The film 18

2.2 Restatement of research question 19

2.3 Research approaches 19

2.4 Research instrument 20

2.5 Data collection and analysis procedures 20

2.6 Summary 21

Chapter 3: ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION 22

3.1.A brief analysis of the SL text 22

3.1.1 The author‟s purpose 22

3.1.2 Characteristic of the readership 23

3.1.3 The topic 23

3.2 The translator’s interpretation 23

3.2.1 Omission of the original text 24

3.2.2 The translator‟s method 26

3.2.3 The translator‟s prospective readership 27

3.3 Comparison of the translation with the original 27

3.3.1 The title 29

3.3.2 The structure 29

3.3.3 Proper names 32

3.3.4 Hierarchical pronouns as a cultural feature 33

3.3.5 Borrowed words 36

3.3.6 Puns 36

3.3.7 Some minor issues 37

3.4 Synchronisation of the translated film 38

3.4.1 Duration synchronisation 38

3.4.2 Lip synchronisation 41

3.5 Further discussion of the translation 432

3.6 Potential importance of the work within the target language culture…… 43

PART 3: CONCLUSION 45

1 Concluding remarks 45

2 Limitations of the study 47

3 Suggestions for further studies 47

REFERENCES 49 APPENDIX I

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

It is said that translation has received a lot of attention from linguists, scholars and especially translators Typically, in the era of globalization and integration, interaction among nations and the need to exchange information and cultures have become greater Translation has been regarded as one of the most effective tools that satisfy people‟s need to entertain and enrich their knowledge about the world It

is undeniable that translating a film from one language into another is really a challenging task because of its important role in bringing understanding of the texts

to the “readers” with different knowledge backgrounds

In fact, film translation is a widely discussed topic among linguists Adapting

a film from the source language to the target language requires a lot of translators‟ efforts In film translation, not only is the translator dealing with basic issues of translation, such as linguistics, ideological and cultural barriers, but he or she is also facing with the multimedia constraints such as synchronisation in dubbing or the appropriateness of the characters‟ lip movements, the syllables or even the number

of syllables

In the field of film industry, “Rio” is the first Hoolywood 3D cartoon dubbed

in Vietnamese under a project of MegaStar, one of the biggest film importers in Viet Nam, and the 20th Century Fox (Sai Gon Times Online Newspaper) Review from website Rottentomatoes.com, an 18-year-old American review aggregator website for film and television, and a variety of others, indicates that “Rio” is really highly appreciated by viewers and critics From the day of its release, “the film was also a box office success, grossing over $143 million in the United States and $484 million worldwide” (Wikipedia) The author of this study is impressed with the high elaborateness in the process of dubbing According to Vietnamnet Online Newspaper, Vietnamese voice actors, including actress Minh Hang, actors Minh Tiep and Dai Nghia, were selected by the film director himself Then the voice dubbing was carried out under the supervision of American experts Furthermore,

the dialogues were translated in Viet Nam while songs were translated in the United States of America After that, Vietnamese musicians edited the songs Next, Vietnamese artists sang the songs and sent them back to the U.S for editing

In fact, there are different ideas about how film translation should be defined and what should be the methods, as well as the criteria to assess its quality Therefore, conducting a research to examine the success and drawback of the translation of a film is expected to bring about benefits to language learners, translation assessors and especially to the film industry

2 Aims and objectives of the study

This study was conducted with the aim of applying Newmark‟s TQA model to evaluate the quality of the translated version of the film “Rio” With this aim, the objective of this study is to examine the success and the shortcomings of the

translation of the film “Rio”, based on Newmark‟s model

3 Research question

The study addressed the following question:

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the translation of the film “Rio”, according to Newmark’s model?

4 Scope of the study

As previously mentioned, this study was undertaken to assess the translation quality of the film namely “Rio” Both the original and translated film scripts were chosen for analysis based on Newmark‟s TQA model Additionally, the audio of the two versions of the film was also measured to see the duration, the starting time and ending time of each utterance Furthermore, articulatory movements and postures in the film were observed to examine the phonetic synchronisation between the original utterance and its translated version

5 Methods of the study

The study was carried out with four methods as follows

- Analysis method: film scripts in both English and Vietnamese were examined

in terms of the topic, the prospective readership, the translation method, the title, the structure, proper names, hierarchical pronouns, borrowed words and puns

- Statistical method: the software named “Aegisub” was applied to measure the duration, starting time and ending time of each utterance in the film scripts

- Observational method: phonetic features of the close-up of each utterance in the 2 versions of the film

- Contrastive method: Data collected by the above methods were compared to assess the advantages and disadvantages of the translation of the film

6 Significance of the study

Currently there have been devoted researchers interested in audiovisual translation; however, studies on the quality of the translated version of a specific film have not been conducted yet Therefore, the very first purpose of the researcher when conducting this study is to figure out how good the English-Vietnamese translation of the film “Rio” is The assessment lay not only on the film scripts based on Newmark‟s model but also on the duration, starting time, ending time and

phonetic features of each utterance in the two versions of the film In terms of

implication for film translation, the thesis is expected to offer several useful lessons

to the film industry

7 Organization of the thesis

The thesis is composed of three main parts

Part One is the INTRODUCTION in which the rationale, the objectives, the

scope,the research questions and the organization of the thesis are presented

Part Two, the DEVELOPMENT, consists of three chapters

Chapter 1, Literature Review, reviews the previous studies related to the topic and a

brief theoretical background with concepts such as definition of translation, translation methods and procedures, translation equivalence, and Newmark‟s model

of translation quality assessment

Chapter 2, Research Methodology, describes the research-governing principles, data

collection and data analysis procedure

Chapter 3, Analysis and Discussion, offers a detailed analysis of the data, the results

obtained and discussions of these results

Part Three is CONCLUSION

This is the last part which provides a recapitulation of the main points presented, together with implications for film translation, limitations and suggestions for further studies

Last but not least, the Appendix presents the film script in both English and

Vietnamese In the analysis, examples taken from the scripts to be examined are abbreviated for convenience For illustration, the text numbered 10 in page I of the appendix will be shortened as (A10 – p.I)

PART 2: DEVELOPMENT Chapter 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Theoretical Background

1.1.1 Definitions of translation

For most people, translation is simply understood as to transfer the meaning

of speech or written texts from one language to another In fact, however, theorists approached translation studies differently with various definitions of translation Translation is the procedure leading from a written SL text to an optimally

equivalent TL text, and requiring the syntactic, semantic, stylistic and text pragmatic comprehension by the translator of the original text (Wilss, 1982:112)

Weber (1968), on the other hand, provides another widely-agreed definition

of translation as follows, “Translation is the transposition of a text written in a

source language (SL) into a target language (TL) The translated version must be absolutely accurate in meaning, contain all nuances of the original, and must be written in clear, elegant language that can be easily understood by the reader Needless to say, punctuation spelling and grammar must be flawless” However,

this definition is not so persuasive since it over-appreciates the role of grammar in translation

For a formal notion, Dubois claims “translation is the expression in another language (or target language) of what has been expressed in another, source

language, preserving semantic and stylistic equivalences” (Bell, 1991:5)

In 1959, Roman Jakobson, a structural linguist, offers a quite detailed definition of translation that is distinguished among three kinds as follows:

o Intralingual translation, or rewording, is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of other signs of the same language

o Interlingual, or translation proper, is an interpretation of verbal signs by means of some other language

o Intersemiotic translation, or transmutation, is an interpretation of verbal signs

by means of signs of nonverbal sign systems

After discussing the three aspects of meaning, House proposed a tentative definition of translation: “translation is the replacement of a text in the source language

by a semantically and pragmatically equivalent text in the target language” (1977:29) It could be seen that these are only for written texts

Newmark (1981: 7) defines translation as “a craft consisting in the attempt to replace a written message and/or statement in one language by the same message and/or statement in another language”

Then, in A Textbook of Translation, he claims that translation is “rendering

the meaning of a text into another language in the same way that the author

intended the text” (1988: 5)

General speaking, those definitions of translations mentioned above all share the basic idea that translation does not deal with language as a system, but with language in use However, with regards to the aspect of sound in translation, it is just mentioned slightly by Newmark in his theory That is the reason why the author

of this study chooses his approach for the theoretical background in the evaluation

of a film translation

1.1.2 Translation methods

According to Newmark (1988:45), there are eight methods of translation, which could be classified into two main groups as follows:

Semantic translation Communicative translation These methods are briefly explained as:

- Word-for-word translation: The SL word-order is maintained and words are

translated individually by their most common meaning, without being situated in context In addition, cultural words are translated literally

- Literal translation: The SL grammatical structures are transferred to their closest

TL equivalents but the lexical words are again translated individually, without being contextualized

- Faithful translation: A faithful translation attempts to reproduce the precise

contextual meaning of the original within the constraints of the TL grammatical structures It attempts to be completely faithful to the intentions and the text-realization of the SL writer

- Semantic translation: Semantic translation differs from 'faithful translation' only

in as far as it must take more account of the aesthetic value (that is, the beautiful and natural sounds of the SL text, compromising on 'meaning' where appropriate

so that no assonance, word play or repetition jars in the finished version) Further,

it may translate less important cultural words by culturally neutral third or functional terms but not by cultural equivalents The distinction between 'faithful' and „semantic' translation is that the first is uncompromising and dogmatic, while the second is more flexible, admits the creative exception to 100% fidelity and allows for the translator's intuitive empathy with the original

- Adaptation: This is the “freest” form of translation It is used mainly for plays

and poetry; the themes, characters, plots are usually preserved, the SL culture converted to the TL culture and the text rewritten

- Free translation: Free translation reproduces the matter without the manner, or

the content without the form of the original Usually it is a paraphrase much longer than the original, a so-called “intra-lingual translation”, often prolix and pretentious, and not translation at all

- Idiomatic translation: Idiomatic translation reproduces the “message” of the

original but tends to distort nuance of meaning by preferring colloquialisms and idioms where these do not exist in the original

- Communicative translation: Communicative translation attempts to render the

exact contextual meaning of the original in such a way that both content and language are readily acceptable and comprehensible to the readership

(1988: 45-47)

1.1.3 Translation Equivalence

From different definitions of translation by scholars and linguists, it is obvious that equivalence is the central issue in translation theory Translation equivalence refers to the relationship between a SL text and a TL text that allows

the TL text to be regarded as a translation of the SL text In the book “A Linguistic

Theory Translation” (1965:21), Catford points out, “the central problem of

translation-practice is that of finding TL equivalents A central task of translation theory is that of defining the nature and conditions of translation equivalence." For that reason, equivalence is considered the key criterion in evaluating the quality of a translation, that is, a good translation must have a certain degree of equivalence to

ST

According to Julian House (1977:25), “The essence of translation lies in the

preservation of meaning across two different languages.”, that is, meaning

equivalence is the most important in translation

The following are several elaborate approaches to translation equivalence

- Nida claims that there are two different types of translation equivalence, namely dynamic equivalence and formal equivalence, in which the later in the second edition by Nida and Taber (1982) is referred to as formal correspondence The two theorists provide a very detailed explanation of each type of equivalence In formal correspondence, the message in the TL should be conveyed by elements

as closely matching as possible with those in the SL At the same time, dynamic

is achieved when the SL and TL words have the same effect on their effective readers (Nida and Tiber, 1974) In their point of views, the achievement of equivalent response in the two languages, or dynamic equivalence in other words, is the goal of a successful translation

- Newmark emphasizes the importance of functional equivalence in his statement,

“The overriding purpose of any translation should be to achieve equivalent effect,

i.e to produce the same effect (or one as close as possible) on the readership of the translation as was obtained on the readership of the original.” (1995:48) In

his opinions, equivalence effect is a desirable result rather than the objectives of any translation except for two cases (a) if the purpose of the SL text is to effect and the TL translation is to inform or vice versa, (b) if there is a pronounced cultural gap between the SL and the text

- Koller (1979) establishes translation equivalence classification including various types of equivalence among which are denotative, connotative, text normative, pragmatic, and formal equivalence

o Denotative equivalence: Denotative equivalence is the type of equivalence in which the SL and the TL words refer to the same thing in the real world It is

an equivalence of the extra-linguistic content of a text It is also the purpose

of any translation procedure, which is to find the referential identity between

SL and TL units

o Connotative equivalence: Connotative equivalence provides additional value and is achieved by the translators‟ lexical choice of synonymous words or expressions, especially between near-synonyms

o Text-normative equivalence: The SL and the TL words are used in the same

or similar context in their respective readers

o Pragmatic equivalence: Pragmatic equivalence is oriented towards the

receiver of the text or message This type of equivalence is chosen to translate a text for particular readership where the expectations of the target readers must be considered Pragmatic equivalence is also used when the translator wants to make an impact on the readers

o Formal equivalence: This type of equivalence is related to the form and aesthetics of the text, including word plays and individual stylistic features of the source text It is particularly used in translation of poems, songs, etc

1.1.4 Translation quality assessment

1.1.4.1 Definition of translation quality assessment

Peter Newmark names translation quality assessment as translation criticism and considers it an essential link between translation theory and its practice

Malcolm Williams at University of Ottawa, another scholar, presents a more detailed definition of translation quality assessment basing on several factors including evaluating sources (their usefulness and authenticity), evaluating authors and their translators (their aesthetic, their influences and how this informs their

work), evaluating source texts and evaluating target texts Hence, translation quality assessment could be regarded a type of evaluation, which can be quantitative or

qualitative, i.e it can be based on mathematical or statistical measurement or on

reader response, interviews, and questionnaires Besides, translation quality

assessment can be diagnostic (when measuring progress and giving feedback during

a course of study), formative (when measuring progress and giving feedback during

a course of study) or summative (when measuring the results of learning) In his

opinions, whether we focus on products, performance or competence, it is important

to determine degrees of goodness when we perform translation quality assessment The approach can be prescriptive, assessing translation against criteria of aesthetic effect, usability, and intrinsic compliance with standards of target language correctness and fidelity

1.1.4.2 Translation Quality Assessment Models

There have been a number of linguists and scholars proposing models of translation quality assessment such as Wilss (1974), Koller (1974), or Reiss (1974) Peter Newmark (1995) and Juliane House (1997) are the two brilliant researchers who create their own models to repair the deficiency and limitation of the preceding authors

Juliane House’s TQA Model

Juliane House is famous for functional-pragmatic model of translation evaluation, which was first designed in the mid-1970s (House, 1977, 2d.ed.1981) and recently revisited (House, 1997) This kind of model is based on a theory of translation as re-contextualization, translation texts are doubly contextually bound:

to their originals and to the new recipients‟ contextual conditions As appropriate use of language in communicative performance is what matters most in translation,

functional pragmatic equivalence plays a very important role This type of equivalence underpins this functional translation model The model explicates the way semantic, pragmatic and textual meanings are re-constituted across different contexts

Following is a view of function and context-text underlying the analytic framework of the model

- Translation is conceived as the replacement of an L1 text by a semantically and pragmatically equivalent L2 text An adequate translation is then a pragmatically and semantically equivalent one

- A first requirement for this equivalence is that a translation text has a function equivalent to that of its original

- The function of a text – with its ideational and interpersonal components – is simply the application of a text in a particular context, and there is a systematic relationship between context and the functional organization of language-in-text, which can be revealed by breaking down context into a manageable set of “contextual parameters” To grasp a text‟s meaning, it must be referred to the particular “context of situation” which envelops it According to Lê Hùng Tiến (2006), the model of translation quality assessment has a clear linguistically theoretical base and concrete, detailed steps However, this model also requires linguistic knowledge and high professional skills

of the critics and the criticism mainly aims at researching languages and translation Therefore, this model has not been applied widely and just at experimental level in Translation Studies

Peter Newmark’s TQA Model

Peter Newmark‟s theory of translation pedagogy in 1988 revolves around the notion of text This theory is explained in the book “A textbook of translation” (1988:5) and has been selected in many translation-teaching contexts Basing on Nida and Taber‟s model, Newmark starts explaining his theory with the question:

what is translation? He suggests that it is often, but not always, rendering the

meaning of a text into another language in the way that the author intended the text This means the text is pulled in ten different directions:

1 The individual style or idiolect of the SL author;

2 The conventional grammatical and lexical usage for the type of SL text, depending on the topic and the situation;

3 Content items referring specifically to the SL culture;

4 The typical format of a SL language text in a book, periodical, newspaper, etc., as influenced by the tradition at the time;

5 The expectations of the putative readership, bearing in mind their estimated knowledge of the topic and the style of language they use, expressed in terms of the largest common factor;

6 The conventional grammatical and lexical usage for the type of TL text, depending on the topic and the situation;

7 Content items referring specifically to the TL culture;

8 The typical format of a TL text in a book, periodical, newspaper, etc., as influenced by the tradition at the time

9 What is being described or reported, ascertained or verified (the referential truth), where possible independently of the SL text and the expectations of the readership;

10 The views and prejudices of the translator, which may be personal and subjective, or may be social and cultural

This can be visualized as follows:

(Newmark, 1988:4) Newmark defines translation as the reproduction in the receptor language of the closest natural equivalent of the source-language message, firstly in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style This idealized definition of translation brings as a consequence a series of polar distinction which force the translator to choose content as opposed to form, meaning as opposed to style, equivalence as opposed to identity, the closest equivalence as opposed to non-equivalence, and naturalness as opposed to formal correspondence These decision-making processes carry the misleading underlying message of ideal, one-to-one and perfect matches between languages

His theory is also based on an unrealistic three-level activity process, by which

translators receive, analyse the SL text and then transfer it into the TL However,

professional translators and scholars alike have demonstrated that translators do not first receive and analyse an SL text and then transfer it into the TL, but that the process of reception and analysis operate according to the purpose of translation Thus, the translator does not receive and analyse the SL in a neutral way, but with a view to translating it for a certain purpose The eclectic approach proposes a five-step learning process of translation to help students tackle the source text and its

p

6 TL norms

7 TL culture

8 TL setting and

tradition

9 The truth of the matter

10

Translato

r

translation more confidently and with more and better arguments to account for their decisions Therefore, rather than getting students to proceed following a linear structure (receive – analyse – transfer), they learn to approach the text from different angles and perceive the different factors existing in the translation such as linguistic, extra-linguistic, pragmatic or professional

Discussion on House’s model and Newmark’s model

Generally, in House‟s model, both ST and TT are analysed along the dimensions of field, tenor and mode, then the ST and TT are compared Then, an evaluation of their relative matches is established: what the similarities and differences between the two texts are, in terms of different linguistic and cultural constraints

In Newmark‟s model, the TT is compared to the ST in order to see the accuracy, correctness, preciseness and faithfulness of the TT In this

“comprehensive criticism of a translation” (Newmark, 1988), the translator does not receive, analyse and convey the meaning from the SL into the TL in a neutral way, but with a view to translating it for a certain purpose Also, Newmark‟s model pays much attention in the readership, which is a really important factor in translating media products

In short, as this study attempts to assess the English-Vietnamese translation quality of a film, Newmark‟s practical model seems to be the best to match the research‟s purpose

1.1.5 Audiovisual translation (AVT)

According to the Oxford Dictionary, the adjective audiovisual is defined as

“using both sight and sound, typically in the form of images and recorded speech or music”

In Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, Luis Perez Gonzales

(2009) gave a brief definition that “audiovisual translation is a branch of Translation Studies concerned with the transfer of multimodal and multimedial texts into another language and/or culture” Besides, Diaz and Cintas (2006) defined AVT as

“the translation of products in which the verbal dimension is supplemented by elements in another media.”

In short, AVT refers to the translation of audiovisual texts In this study, the researcher examined the strengths and weaknesses of a film translation, where the

film is considered an audiovisual text

1.1.6 Synchronisation in dubbed films

According to Varela (2004), synchronisation, also known as lip-sync, is one

of the key factors at stake in film translation, particularly in the context of dubbing This author also established three types of synchronisation including kinetic synchrony, phonetic synchrony and synchrony between utterances and pauses Firstly, kinetic synchrony is a kind of body movement synchrony in which the translation must also agree with the movements of the screen characters For illustration, in most cultures, a shaking head indicating negation cannot be accompanied by an affirmative “yes”, or a character raising his hands to his head must pronounce an interjection to match the gesture (Whitman, 1992:33)

Regarding phonetic synchrony (or lip synchrony), Whitman (1992:20) claimed that it consists of adapting the translation to the articulatory movements of the on-screen characters, especially in close-ups and extreme close-ups According

to Goris (1993), in order to attain the reality and naturalise the product to make it appear less foreign and more familiar, the translation should particularly respect the open vowels pronounced on screen

Concerning synchronisation of duration of the translation, Varela (2004) stated that the translated dialogue must fit exactly in the time between the instant the screen actor opens his/her mouth to utter the source text dialogues and the instant in which he/she closes his/her mouth Most criticisms of a badly dubbed film are grounded in deficiencies of duration synchronisation as it is here that the viewer

is most likely to notice the fault For example, when the character‟s lips have closed

at the end of an utterance but the viewers still hear the translated speech, or when an actor is obviously speaking, while the viewers hear nothing; these are frequent

grounds for justified criticism by both critics and the public

1.2 An overview of previous studies

Film industry has been one of the most outstanding entertainment tools that people are much interested in In that context, film resources within a nation’s boundary are not enough to meet entertainers’ demands It is undeniable that film translation has received a lot attention of translators and scholars who love transferring the meaning and messages from the language of a foreign film to the language of the audience

There have been dedicated overseas researchers investigating the topic up to now Ndaga (2011) evaluated subtitles in the translation of colloquial expressions and ended up with the conclusion that meaning was not adequately transferred due

to the lack of professionals in the field Next, in 2013, Arrey‟s thesis was an assessment of the translation quality of auto-subtitles in the film “Le temoin de l‟ombre” (The Shadow Witness) It is revealed from his study that without training

in subtitling, a film producer will face enormous problems in auto-subtitling his or her own product The studies cover many facets of film translation such as translating film scripts or translating idioms in films but dubbed films

In Viet Nam, there have been several researchers interested in film translation Lê Thị Thanh Vân (1999) and Lê Thị Thanh (2001) are the two typical authors in this field, to name but a few Their studies cover several facets of film translation such as translating film scripts or translating idioms in a film, etc However, an assessment of translation quality of a dubbed film has not been addressed in these studies despite its importance

In recent years, Nguyễn Thị Thu Hiền (2012) examined the translation quality of a short story named “The Call of the Wild” It is shown from her study that although the translation text has achieved a lot of success in conveying the author‟s message, it still reveals several mismatches between the source text and the translated text Besides, Bui Thi Mai Anh (2014) also investigated the quality of

translated version of the novel named “The Notebook” and came to a conclusion that the work is quite well-translated except for several shortcomings related to mistranslation or omission Both of these two studies applied Newmark‟s model in evaluating the quality of translated text; however, the subjects of their studies are not a dubbed film

In general, translation quality assessment has been a quite interesting topic that has received due attention from researchers However, there exists a gap in evaluating the translation quality of a dubbed film Hopefully, this study will help to raise people‟s awareness of translation of a dubbed film and bring about positive contributions to the film industry

Chapter 2: RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

This part presents general information about the film, restatement of research questions, research approaches, research instruments, data collection procedure and methods of data analysis

2.1 The film

The study was conducted on the American 3D computer-animated musical adventure-comedy entitled “Rio” This highly-appreciated film with a feature of length of nearly 100 minutes was produced by Blue Sky Studios and directed by Carlos Saldanha in 2011, and then it was dubbed in Vietnamese in May 2011 The reason for choosing this film includes:

(i) This is the first Hollywood 3D cartoon dubbed in Vietnamese under a project

of Mega Star and the 20th Century Fox;

(ii) The author of the study is inspired with the success of the film when it has received generally positive reviews from film critics (Rottentomatoes.com)

In addition, the film has been widely welcomed by not only children but also adults The audience not only enjoys the film in their own mother tongue but also is able to hear background sound like melodious music in a scene This factor reflects how the film is outstanding in comparison with others as it applied Hollywood dubbing technology;

(iii) The author of this study is impressed with the high elaborateness in the process of dubbing According to Vietnamnet Online Newspaper, Vietnamese voice actors, including actress Minh Hang, actors Minh Tiep and Dai Nghia, were selected by the film director Then the voice dubbing was carried out under the supervision of American experts In addition, the dialogues were translated in Viet Nam while songs were translated in the United States of America After that, Vietnamese musicians edited the songs Next, Vietnamese artists sang the songs and sent them back to America for editing

2.2 Restatement of research question

The study addressed the following question:

What are the strengths and weaknesses of the translation of the film “Rio”, according to Newmark’s model?

2.3 Research approaches

2.3.1 Qualitative analysis approach

The original and the translated film scripts were examined thoroughly and comprehensively in terms of the author‟s purpose, the topic, characteristic of the audience, the title, as well as several linguistic features such as structure, pronouns

or puns, etc

In addition, phonetic features in the close-up of each utterance in both versions were also examined to see how well the translation was adapted to suit the on-screen characters‟ lip movement

2.3.2 Quantitative approach

In order to get the quantitative data, the software “Aegisub” to measure the duration, starting and ending time of each single ST and TT when they are uttered The process of collecting this kind of data was quite complex and challenging task When a single utterance is made, the researcher must listen to the characters‟ speech attentively many times to decide the starting and the ending time This step requires

the researcher to be really patient and careful to get the most exact timing

2.3.3 Contrastive analysis approach

In this thesis, the ST was compared to its translation under the framework of Newmark‟s translation quality assessment model

Besides, another comparison was made to see how well the TT was synchronised with the ST in terms of duration, starting time, ending time and

phonetic features in the close-up of an utterance

2.4 Research instrument

In order to obtain the quantitative data, the software named “Aegisub” was applied to measure the duration, starting time and ending time of each utterance in the original film and its translated version

According to Wikipedia, “Aegisub” is a free open-source cross-platform subtitle editing program, which has been designed for timing and styling of subtitles The software is considered the standard in well-known subbing groups and is extensively used in creating subtitle for films

2.5 Data collection and analysis procedure

This study was conducted in stages as follows

Firstly, general information about the film such as its context, scenario writer,

producer, plot or characters is collected

Secondly, both the English and Vietnamese film scripts are noted by watching

the two versions of the films The researcher can make use of the English script which is available on the Internet while the Vietnamese one is transcribed by the researcher herself when watching the dubbed film many times

Thirdly, the translated text was compared to its original text under the

framework of Newmark‟s TQA model with five steps as follows:

- A brief analysis of the SL text stressing its intention and its functional

aspects This may include a statement of the author‟s purpose, that is, the attitude he takes towards the topic; characterization of the readership; an indication of its category and type;

- The translator‟s interpretation of the SL text‟s purpose, his translation

method and the translation‟s likely readership;

- A selective but representative detailed comparison of the translation with

the original in terms of both semantics and syntactic You do not take the points successively; you group them selectively under general headings: the title; the structure, including the paragraphing and sentence

connectives; proper names; cultural words; shifty metaphors; translationese; neologisms; “untranslatable” words; ambiguity; level of language; and, where relevant, meta-language, puns, sound-effect

- An evaluation of the translation: (a) in the translator‟s terms, (b) in the

critic‟s terms, (c) as a piece of writing, independently of its original

- Where appropriate, an assessment of the likely place of the translation in

the target language culture or discipline In the case of a serious text, say a novel, a poem, or an important book, you assess the work’s potential importance within the target language culture

(Newmark, 1988: 186-189)

Next, the software named “Aegisub”, a free open-source cross-platform

subtitle editing program designed for timing and styling of subtitles, was applied to measure the duration, starting time and ending time of each utterance in both versions of the film

Fifthly, phonetic features of an utterance in both versions were also examined

In steps four and five, a comparison between the original utterance and its translation were made in terms of timing and phonetic features to see how well the two versions are synchronised with each other

Finally, data were consolidated and categorized The results then were

analysed and presented in forms of tables

2.6 Summary

This study uses a combination of three approaches including qualitative, quantitative and contrastive for the data analysis The generalisation of the conducted data was expected to provide relatively exact information about the translation quality of the film There may exist inevitable shortcomings during the study but it is hoped that the trustworthy basis for the data analyses and findings will be provided

Chapter 3: ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

In this chapter, the translated texts are analysed by means of Newmark‟s model (1988) with five steps mentioned in the previous section Besides, the researcher investigated the synchronisation of utterances in the original film and in the translated version in terms of duration (including starting time and ending time), lip movements and even the number of syllables in each utterance

3.1 A brief analysis of the SL text

In “Textbook of translation”, Newmark affirms, “In your analysis of the SL

text, you may include a statement of the author‟s purpose, that is, the attitude he takes towards the topic; characterization of the readership; an indication of its category and type You assess the quality of the language to determine the translator‟s degree of license, assuming for example that he can reduce cliché to natural language in informative but not in authoritative texts You briefly state the topic or themes, but do not précis the text and do not „plot-monger‟ (painfully retell the plot)” (1988:186) From this theory, the researcher is going to give a brief analysis of statement of the author‟s purpose, characterization of the readership, and the topic of the chosen literary work

3.1.1 The author’s purpose

According to Wikipedia, director Saldanha developed his first story concept

of Rio in 1995 when a penguin was washed up in Rio Then, he learned of the production of some other films and changed the concept to involve macaws and their environments in Rio It is obvious that the title “Rio” refers to the magnificent Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, where the film is set It is said the filmmakers aim

at introducing the landscape beauty and culture of Brazil in general, and of Rio de Janeiro in particular, to the audience worldwide

Especially, the film describes the relationship between the macaw, namely

Blue, and Linda, the main supporting protagonist in “Rio” Through the film, the

audience can see how they and other birds fight against smugglers to escape to

freedom It is obvious that the scenario writer‟s purpose is to celebrate love and freedom spirit, which can fight against all smugglers or traffickers

On the other hand, it could be easily seen that, at the beginning and the end

of the film is the image of birds singing and dancing happily together It is reflected that the birds in particular, and animals in general, also have feelings and emotions like human They feel happy when living in freedom; they are wretched when being kidnapped; and they have solidarity and willing spirit to help each other That is also another message the scenario composer wishes to bring us

3.1.2 Characteristic of the readership

As an animated film with colourful scenes and cute characters, “Rio” centres

on children viewers Besides, the film tells the story of Blu, a male Spix macaw who was taken to Rio de Janeiro to mate with a free-spirited female Spix's macaw, Jewel The two eventually fell in love, and together they had to escape from being smuggled by Nigel, a cockatoo In the film, the audience can see a few flirting scenes between the two birds or between Linda and Tulio Hence, the audience could also be young adults as well Both kinds of audience, children and young adults, are those whose love discovering novel and creative things

3.1.3 The topic

As discussed in the above section, there are various ideas about the topic or the theme of this adventure cartoon; however, the most outstanding one is that true love can conquer all The love between Linda and Tulio, or the love between the two macaws, as well as the relationship between Linda and the bird Blue finally win all ferocious smugglers to have freedom

3.2 The translator’s interpretation

In this second step, a review is made to see whether the translator has omitted any section of the ST and whether it affects the message that the author wishes to express Besides, the researcher wishes to investigate the translator‟s method and the translation‟s likely readership

3.2.1 Omission of original text

Careful analyses of the SL text of the film Rio reveal that several phrases and sentences in the original have not been translated

1 Tall and tan and young and

lovely, the girl from Ipanema goes

walking

(singing)

(A.618 – LXIII) (untranslated)

2 And when she passes, each one she

passes goes, ah! (singing)

(A.620 – LXIII) (untranslated)

thua cuộc!

8 No, no, guys, really, I'm fine

The cage is great

(A.174 - XVIII) Không Đủ rồi, tôi ổn Cái lồng rất tốt

9 Yes! And unfortunately, the poor

birds are often hurt

(A.190 – p.XIX) Đúng! Đáng tiếc những con chim tội nghiệp thường bị thương

10 - Blu?

- Where?

(A.538 – p LIV) Blu?

11 Hey! My watch! (A.646 – p.LXVI) Ê, cái đồng hồ!

Master, master, master, master

14 You're choking! Okay! All right! (A.961 – p.XCIX) Ối ối… Anh bị nghẹn

thiệt kìa!

15 Hey! Wait for us! (A.1185 – p.CXX) Ấy… Đợi đã!

16 It's Blu! Look, Tulio, it's Blu! (A.1278 – p.CXXX) Chính Blu! Tulio,

chính Blu!

The table above clearly shows that examples 1, 2 and 3 are the translator‟s omissions of the original text Generally, an omission when conveying meaning from the SL to the TT can make readers or viewers miss the lines For literary translation such as a translation of novels, stories or fictions, etc., this kind of omission is unacceptable as readers must base on the reading material to understand the meaning of the text However, for the film “Rio”, untranslating these sentences and phrases may not cause misunderstanding to the audience When watching the film, they not only listen to dialogues and music but also watch the background and characters‟ acts and postures Hence, they can get most of the point Especially, examples 1 and 2 are the lyrics of the song Rafael sings when this bird persuades its

“wife” to help Blue and Jewel see Luiz In the original film, Rafael appears as a romantic bird who sings not very well Hence, if these 2 sentences are translated and then dubbed by a Vietnamese singer, the audience may misinterpret the quality

of the voice actor For the third example, the original text, “Hasta la vista”, is from

Spanish language, which means goodbye When following this scene, the audience

may be confused about its meaning The researcher herself must listen several times and then see the English subtitle to see what the character says

In addition to three totally-untranslated texts above, the translator seems to have overlooked several words in other sentences Examples 4, 5, 6, and 9 in the table illustrate this point - they refer to the exclamation words which mean “Ừm, à,…” in Vietnamese The omission of those words does not cause much change in the meaning of the original version

Examples 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 demonstrate the missing of some

words in the sentences Particularly, in examples 12 and 13, where and master,

master, master, master, master is totally ignored However, this sentence is from

the lyrics of the song at the beginning of the film The translator not only has to interpret the meaning of the original text but also make it suitable with the melody Therefore, this adaption is reasonable

Examples 10, 13, 14 and 16 reflect the disappearance of the equivalence of the translated version of some words Yet, it is agreeable as these texts are uttered in conversations where there exist many different kinds of sounds such as characters‟ voice or the music Therefore, the audience cannot realize any signals of this omission

In general, all the above-mentioned texts show that a few words, phrases and even sentences in the translation of the film have been intentionally or deliberately left out As previously discussed, in most cases, the omission of the words or phrases has no significant impact on general meaning of the original text The translator may suppose that conveying the whole meaning of the dialogue is more important than translating every single word Besides, as the influence of this on the audience‟ understanding is immaterial and they can still grasp the main gist of the film, this kind of translating is still acceptable However, it seems insupportable in

one case: the phrase Hasta la vista is not translated, which affects the understanding

of the audience who only have chance to watch the Vietnamese version of the film This may result from literary translation where the translator has to comply with the principles of the target language; hence, he might not be able to maintain the format

of the original version

3.2.2 The translator’s method

Viewers praise “Rio” not only because the message and meaningfulness the film brings about but also because its language is simple and easy to understand In fact, the glossary and expressions in the film are not complex; hence, translating the film is not a hard job Nonetheless, how to convey as much as the beauty of the content of the film, especially of content of the song, is a challenging task

Generally, the translator has stuck to the communicative translation method as it

attempts to produce the message from the original film to the audience in a very

smooth and natural way The Vietnamese version of “Rio” can be considered a

target language biased translation because of its accessibility of thought and cultural

content of original to viewers On the other hand, in a long and complicated work

like a film, the complexity of communicative language is inevitable; therefore, the

translator certainly has to combine some methods of translation along with a chief

method Especially, for the song sung by the birds in the film, adaption translation

method is also utilized

3.2.3 The translation’s prospective readership

Resembling the original, the translated version generally aims at young

audience such as children or young adults who love watching foreign animated

cartoons The methods and language the translator has used suggest that the targeted

readership is mostly of these two types of audience and even those who are

interested in discovering Brazilian culture

3.3 Comparison of the translation with the original

The third step of assessment, also considered as the heart of the study, will deal

with how the translator has solved the particular problems of the SL text The researcher

will pick out the most selective and representative examples of the accomplishments and

shortcomings of the translated version in comparison with the original text Then, they

are grouped under general headings including the title, the structure, proper names, and

cultural words (Newmark, 1988:187) In addition, a discussion of translation problems

will be presented as well

3.3.1 The title

In Viet Nam, editorial staff of film producers often determine titles of

translated films Potential viewers decide whether they will watch a film or not by

some scenes of the film narrative which starts with film titles (Hillman, 2011:388)

Briffa and Caruana (2009:14, 2) pointed out the complexity of title translation

Comment [A1]: The intended audience includes

children and young adults only, or all, young and old? This paragraph seems to contain conflicts Revise

because it is “governed by non-detachability” considering that “the title derives its identity from the context and translation must take this into account.” Peter Newmark (1988:56) argues that the translated title “should usually bear some relation to the original, if only for identification”, but it should also “sound attractive, allusive, suggestive” to attract the potential readers In general, a translator is entitled to “change” the title of the text (Newmark, 1988:156) However, translating titles is not simple because the only true unit of translation (the minimal stretch of language that has to be translated together, as one unit) is the whole text (Newmark, 1988:54), that is to say, it is necessary to take the title into serious consideration as a part of the whole text when dealing with title translation

It is compulsory that a translator understands the whole text before translating its title Newmark (1988: 57, 156) suggests that all titles are either descriptive, which describe the topic of the text, or allusive, which have some kind of referential or figurative relationship to the topic; the latter ones are suitable for imaginative literature, and may have to be changed

Titles of films need to be attractive, allusive, and suggestive in order to catch the attention of the viewers For this purpose, itles should be able to attract the readers emotionally because, as Nida and Taber (1974:91) states, “we do not only understand the reference of words; we also react to them emotionally This aspect

of the meaning which deals with our emotional reactions to words is called connotative meaning.”

Concerning the film, both the original and the translated name is “Rio” The title itself refers to the magnificent Brazilian city of Rio de Janeiro, where the film

is set It seems that one of the film-makers‟ purposes is to introduce the picturesque scenery and culture of Brazil in general, and of Rio de Janeiro in particular to the audience worldwide The title is quite interesting, especially with those who have already had some knowledge about Rio de Janeiro or at least they have heard this name before However, for those who have never heard of Rio, then the title seems

to carry too little information to attract potential viewers Hence, it is suggestible

that the translated title should have additional features to be more attractive, allusive, and suggestive

3.3.2 The structure

This section of the thesis will present several key points with remarkable examples that reflect the differences between the ST and the TT

3.3.2.1 Simple sentences vs compound sentences

After the thorough examination of the ST and the TT, it is noticeable that in general, structures in both versions are mostly retained Reasons for this may come from the fact that most of the texts in the film are parts of dialogues or of a song, which usually does not contain long and compound sentences Thus, it is obvious that the translator is quite lucky as he/she does not have to modify structures from the original to the translated version

3.3.2.2 Active voices vs passive voices

1 I'm protected by this magical

force-field called glass

(A.51 – p.V) Tui đƣợc bảo vệ bởi một

lớp màn chắn gọi là kính

2 This poor guy was found last

night

(A.197 – p.XIX) Anh bạn khốn khổ

này được tìm thấy tối qua

3 Many of the birds here were

rescued from smugglers

(A.118 – p.XIX) Hầu hết chim ở đây

được cứu từ tay bọn buôn lậu

4 I've always been mesmerized by

those big round, intelligent eyes

(A.289 – P.XXIX) Và lúc nào tôi cũng

bị thôi miên bởi mắt to tròn và thông

8 Something seems to be lodged in (A.400 – p.XLI) Có cái gì đó dính

my beak trong mỏ của ta

9 We have no ideas We’re having

him tested

(A.602 – p.LXI) Cũng hổng biết nữa,

nó đang được chuẩn đoán

10 It can't be done! (A.639 – p.LXV) Làm sao mà đi nổi!

11 You were locked up and now

you're rolling with a hot-wing

In examples 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9 and 11, sentences in both the ST and the TT are

in passive voice More specifically, the translator has transformed the structures of original text in examples 1, 2, 3 and 9 into passive voice in the translated version,

adding được as the signal of passive voice in the target language On the other hand, the source text in examples 4, 7 and 11 is translated with the addition of bị

Example 5, remain passive in both versions However, the TT is slightly changed in

the word order: một con chim nhỏ lông trắng in order to make it sound more

natural

Example 6 is also an illustration of the change from passive voice into active voice

in the structure of the TT Especially, the translator also adds Bộ phim as the subject

in the TT This makes the translated film more lively and easier to understand

In examples 8 and 10, the translator has transformed the passive action into an active one Of these two, the TT in example 10 is totally different from the ST with

the addition of Làm sao as an exclamation This also makes it sound more natural

In short, basing on the difference between the two languages – the source language and the target language – in using active and passive voices, the translator has skilfully switched between the two voices, helping viewers understand the text more easily and clearly However, in most cases, it is noticed that passive voice in English has still been maintained in Vietnamese In spite of great efforts of the

translator, instances such as 1, 2 and 9 seem to sound strange to the Vietnamese people as they are more familiar with active voice Hence, it is more judicious to alter the original structure of the text in the translated version

3.3.2.3 Order of clauses

There is nothing natural about being

thrown halfway across the room

(A.111 – p.XI) Bị ném quăng ở

phòng, chẳng có gì là tự nhiên cả

As the example above indicates, the structure in the TT is a complex sentence whose complement is a dependent clause The translator has transported the position of the clauses when translating this ST into the TT In this way, the translator has solved the complexity of the sentences and made them easier to understand as well as more natural in the target language

3.3.2.4 Use of antonym

… but I wouldn't make you do this

if it wasn't the right thing to do

(A.134 – p.XIII) …nhƣng tớ sẽ không ép

cậu làm điều này nếu nhƣ nó là điều sai trái

In this example, instead of translating the present word used in the original film, the translator has conveyed the connotation of the dialogue by using antonym

of the word together with a negative elimination This helps the utterance become colloquial in the target language

3.3.2.5 Change of subjects

No! It's not what you think (A.233 – p XXIV) Không! Tôi có nghĩ thế đâu

The example above demonstrates the adjustment in the structure of the TT

In the ST, subject it is not translated Instead, Tôi is added as the subject of the

translated sentence Obviously, this modification in the TT makes the text much more intelligible to the audience

3.3.3 Proper names

3.3.3.1 People’s names

No Original version Translated version

1 Thanks, Linda! (A.35 – p III) Cám ơn Linda!

2 Good morning, Blu (A.28 – p.III) Chào buổi sáng, Blu

4 Yeah, sing it, Lionel (A.240 – p.XXIV) Đúng rồi, hát nữa đi, Lionel

In short, all people‟s names in the film remain the same in both original and translated versions

3.3.3.2 Geographical names

According to Newmark (1988:216), “we have to be up to date in your rendering to check all terms in the most recent atlas or gazetteer and, where necessary, with the embassies concerned We have to respect a country‟s wish to determine its own choice of names for its own geographical features” Furthermore,