An investigation into difficulties in translating movie subtitles challenging english translation and interpreting majored seniors at can tho university

CAN THO UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND CULTURE
--------

B.A THESIS

An Investigation into Difficulties in Translating Movie
Subtitles Challenging English Translation and
Interpreting Majored Seniors at Can Tho University
Field of study: English Translation and Interpreting

Supervisor:

Student:

TRƯƠNG THỊ NGỌC ĐIỆP, M.Ed

LÊ SANG THIÊN PHÚ
Student code: 7116869
Class: XH11Z8A1
Course: 37

Can Tho, May 2015



STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY
I certify that this thesis “An Investigation into Difficulties in Translating Movie
Subtitles Challenging English Translation and Interpreting Majored Seniors at Can
Tho University” is the product of my own work under the supervision of Ms. Truong

Thi Ngoc Diep, M.Ed, Department of English Language and Culture, School of Foreign
Languages, Can Tho University. This study has not been submitted by any organizations
or individuals and all of the sources and materials I have used or quoted have been
mentioned in the references.
Lê Sang Thiên Phú
May, 2015

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
First, I would like to send my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Ms.
Truong Thi Ngoc Diep, M.Ed. who has given me precious advice and guidance. Without
her dedicated support and tireless correction, I could not have finished the thesis.
I would like to express my appreciation to students in English Studies major,
especially Ms. Nguyen Do Phuong Lien, who helped me with the test and translation.
My sincere thank is to 35 English Translation and Interpreting seniors of the
School of Foreign Languages, I could not have finished this thesis without their
participation.
Finally, I wish to send my acknowledgements to my classmates and my friends
who gave me their encouragement and support, which helped me a lot to finish the thesis.
They were great motivation for me to overcome difficulties in doing this study.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
STATEMENT OF ORIGINALITY ............................................................................. i
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .......................................................................................... ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................. iii

LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................... v
LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................... vi
ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................. vii
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................ 1
1.1 Rationale ................................................................................................................... 1
1.2 Aims of Research ...................................................................................................... 2
1.3 Significance of Research ........................................................................................... 2
1.4 Thesis Organization .................................................................................................. 2
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .................................................................... 4
2.1 Definition of Translation ........................................................................................... 4
2.2 Kinds of Translation .................................................................................................. 4
2.2.1 Common Classifications ............................................................................. 4
2.2.2 Audiovisual Translation .............................................................................. 6
2.2.2.1 Subtitles ............................................................................................. 7
2.2.2.2 Subtitling Process .............................................................................. 8
2.3 Difficulties of Movie Subtitles Translation .............................................................. 9
2.3.1 Cultural Difficulties .................................................................................. 10
2.3.2 Linguistic Difficulties ............................................................................... 10
2.3.3 Spatial and Temporal Restrictions ............................................................ 13
2.4 Translation Strategies .............................................................................................. 14
2.5 Research Questions ................................................................................................. 17
CHAPTER 3: RESEARCH METHODS .................................................................. 18
3.1 Research Design ..................................................................................................... 18
3.2 Participants .............................................................................................................. 18
3.3 Data Collection........................................................................................................ 19
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3.3.1 Instrument ................................................................................................. 19
3.3.2 Procedures ................................................................................................. 20

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS, DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION ........................... 21
4.1 Translation Test Results ......................................................................................... 21
4.2 Discussion of Translation Test Results ................................................................... 23
4.2.1 Cultural Difficulties .................................................................................. 23
4.2.2 Literary Style Difficulties ......................................................................... 24
4.2.3 Vulgarism Difficulties .............................................................................. 26
4.2.4 Dialect and Slang Difficulties ................................................................... 27
4.3 The Methods Students Preferred in Translating Subtitles ...................................... 30
4.4 Conclusion............................................................................................................... 31
CHAPTER 5: LIMITATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS ............................. 32
5.1 Limitations .............................................................................................................. 32
5.2 Implications ............................................................................................................. 32
5.3 Recommendations for Further Research ................................................................. 32
References
Appendix 1: Translation Test

iv


LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1. Kinds of translation by Larson ......................................................................... 5
Figure 2. Gottlieb’s Schematic representation of subtitling and revoicing ..................... 8
Figure 3. The subtitler’s work ......................................................................................... 9
Figure 4. A dialogue and translated subtitles in the movie “Blood Diamond” ............. 11
Figure 5. Baker’s translation strategies ......................................................................... 15
Figure 6. Items with high percentage of inappropriate-answer choices for subtitles .... 22
Figure 7. Items with high percentage of appropriate-answer choices for subtitles ...... .23

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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1. The result of Clip 3 translation – from the movie “Captain America” .......... 24
Table 2. The result of Clip 7 translation – from the movie “Tangled” .......................... 24
Table 3. The result of Clip 10 translation – from the movie “The Dictator” ................ 25
Table 4. The result of Clip 11 translation – from the movie “Battle: Los Angeles” ..... 26
Table 5. The result of Clip 12 translation – from the movie “Big Hero 6” ................... 26
Table 6. The result of Clip 4 translation – from the movie “Captain America” ........... 27
Table 7. The result of Clip 9 translation – from the movie “The Wolf of Wall Street” 27
Table 8. The results of Clip 1 translation – from the movie “Life of Brian” ................ 28
Table 9. The result of Clip 2 translation – from the movie “Gone with the wind” ....... 29
Table 10. The result of Clip 5 translation – from the movie “The Avengers” .............. 29
Table 11. The result of Clip 6 translation – from the movie “Tower Heist” ................. 30
Table 12. The result of Clip 8 translation – from the movie “The Help” …………….30

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ABSTRACT
Watching movies is one of the most popular ways of entertainment. Though the
majority of foreign movies are subtitled when they approach Vietnamese audience, the
quality of subtitles is still not stable since many mistakes exist. In fact, this field of study
has been developed very quickly in the world, little has been found in Can Tho
University. A twelve-item online test is used in this thesis to investigate (a) difficulties
that English Translation and Interpreting seniors at Can Tho University have to face
when translating movie subtitles, and (b) the strategies they prefer to use to translate
those difficult terms. With the participation of 35 students, the test results showed that
participants had difficulties when facing cultural and stylistic elements. The most
frequently chosen strategies that students preferred in translating movie subtitles were
literal translation that was applied in nine out of twelve items, and as swearwords

appeared in spoken language of movies very often, the strategy of translation by a more
neutral/less expressive word was also frquently used. This thesis can be used as reference
for those who want to learn about translation in general and subtitles translation in
particular.

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TÓM LƯỢC
Xem phim là một trong những phương tiện giải trí phổ biến nhất ngày nay. Mặc
dù phần lớn các phim nước ngoài đã được làm phụ đề khi đến với khán giả Việt Nam,
nhưng chất lượng của phụ đề vẫn chưa được ổn định khi vẫn còn tồn tại nhiều lỗi. Trên
thực tế, lĩnh vực này đang được phát triển nhanh chóng và mạnh mẽ trên thế giới, nhưng
ở Đại học Cần Thơ lại có rất ít nghiên cứu về chủ đề này. Luận văn này sử dụng một bài
kiểm tra dịch thuật 12 câu để tìm hiểu về (a) các khó khăn mà sinh viên năm cuối ngành
Biên dịch – Phiên dịch tiếng Anh ở Đại học Cần Thơ gặp phải khi dịch phụ đề phim, và
(b) là các phương pháp họ sử dụng để dịch khi gặp các khó khăn đó. Kết quả kiểm tra cho
thấy sinh viên gặp khó khăn khi gặp phải những yếu tố về văn hóa và văn phong. Phương
pháp dịch thuật được chọn thường xuyên nhất khi sinh viên dịch phụ đề phim là dịch theo
nghĩa đen của từ, phương pháp này được chọn trong 9/12 câu hỏi. Vì ngôn ngữ của phim
là ngôn ngữ nói nên từ ngữ thô tục xuất hiện rất thường xuyên, do đó phương pháp làm
giảm mức độ thô tục của từ ngữ cũng được sử dụng thường xuyên. Luận văn này có thể
được dùng làm tài liệu tham khảo cho những ai muốn tìm hiểu về dịch thuật nói chung,
và dịch thuật phụ đề nói riêng.

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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale
Watching films is one of the most popular recreational activities nowadays.
However, many people do not consider films as an only way for relaxation; they can be
a perfect way to learn a language as well as the culture of that language. In the past,
people in developing countries like Vietnam only had chances to watch old-fashioned
films on television with relatively poor quality subtitles or voice-over. One of the first
kinds of subtitles appeared in the world (a more precise term for this is „intertitle‟) was
in 1902 in the film Dorothy‟s Dream (Liepa, 2005). There was a short description of the
content before each scene was displayed. Thanks to the development of technology,
people now have various means to enjoy latest blockbuster films beside other countries
in the world. Television, cinemas, computers, and mobile phones are becoming common
and almost integral to our daily life, which allow us to watch films almost everywhere.
We see them at home, in our work place, on public transport, and restaurants (Cintas and
Remael, 2007). Therefore, the need of better quality subtitles is taken into account. The
quality of subtitles translation is in great concern not only in Vietnam but also in other
countries. In the past, the subtitling process was very hard and costly, so movie
producers had to be extremely careful with every word they added to the movie (Ho,
2012). With the advances in technology, adding subtitles for a film is relatively easy
today; and quality of subtitles now depends on translators, which may affect greatly to
experiences of audience of the target language.
Nguyen (2012) states that translation of subtitles has become a common concern
for many researchers; however, most studies found in Vietnam were only the about
translation of specific movies and the titles of English movies.
In addition, in two last semesters, the students of Interpreting 3 and 4 courses had
chances to organize a movie show at the Learning Resource Center of our university to
serve English learners; although they showed typical classic works of the world cinema,
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dozens of the audience noticed that the subtitles had errors and sent their reflection to

them. The research on “An investigation into difficulties in translating movie subtitles
challenging English-major seniors at Can Tho University” is conducted to explore this
potential field and contribute to the general translation field as well.
1.2 Aims of Research
This research aims to discover (a) difficulties that English Translation and
Interpreting students at Can Tho University have to face when translating movie
subtitles, and (b) the strategies they prefer to use to translate those difficult terms.
1.3 Significance of Research
The research would be of benefit to translation-majored students if they have
interest in translation in general and subtitling in particular. Hopefully, my thesis would
be a useful material for those who are interested in being translators in general and
movie translators in particular. Furthermore, the study results could be used as a
reference for lecturers to know the problems their students have when translating in a
new kind and new medium of translation so that they can diversify their syllabus.
1.4 Thesis Organization
The research is divided into 5 chapters as follows:
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Literature Review
Chapter 3: Research Methods
Chapter 4: Results, Discussion and Conclusion
Chapter 5: Limitations and Recommendations.
Chapter 1 presents the current situation of movie subtitles in Vietnam, background
information and the reasons to conduct this research. Besides, the thesis organization is
also presented.
Chapter 2 presents definition of terms and reviews previous studies related to this
research.
Chapter 3 includes research design, participants and data collection procedures.
2

Chapter 4 illustrates and discusses the findings of the test as well as answers the research
questions.
Chapter 5 is about limitations and recommendations for further research.

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CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1

Definition of Translation
One of the most prominent definitions of translation is stated by Newmark (1988,

p.5) who defines translation as “rendering the meaning of a text into another language in
the way that the author intended the text.” This definition indicates that the translators
have to keep the message of the source language as much as possible. Besides, Hatim
and Munday (2004) define translation as the process in which a written text is
transferred by translators from source language to target language in a concrete sociocultural context. In this definition, they merely state that translation is a process without
mentioning the meaning or the message of the source text. In addition, Catford (1965,
p.20) states that translation is “the replacement of textual material in one language by
equivalent textual material in another language”. Although the definition seems to be
unclear at first, he advocates that it is intentionally to be wide.
Mansella (2005) believes that translation is the rendering of written
communication across barriers created by different languages and cultures. In this
definition, the barriers in terms of language and culture are mentioned, which makes
translation more challenging. More than that, Bassnett (2002) states that translation is
usually known as rendering the source language text into the target language text, which
fairly remains the similarity of the meaning and preserves the source language‟s
structures as closely as possible but not to distort the target language‟s structures

seriously.
As a whole, translation is the process that reproduces the meaning from the source
language text to the target language text and tries to keep the style, the author‟s tone and
idea as much as possible. Moreover, translators have to be proficient in both the source
and the target language so that they are able to transfer the culture to the readers.
2.2

Kinds of Translation

2.2.1 Common Classifications
According to Larson (1984), translation has two main kinds: literal and idiomatic
translation. Literal translation is called form-based whereas idiomatic translation is
4


called meaning-based. In some cases, literal translation can be helpful to reproduce
linguistic features of the SL text; for example, when the SL and TL are in the same
language, they may have the same grammatical forms. However, in other cases, literal
translation may sound nonsense when translating into another language. Sometimes,
translators who tend to translate literally actually make a partially modified literal
translation. They modify the word order and the grammatical structure enough to make
the text become acceptable in the target language. However, the result still does not
sound natural in the target language. He illustrates this by the following example, a text
in Papua New Guinea language translated into English:
ro

ahombo

ngusifu

pamariboyandi

I

her

heart

I-fastened-her

I fastened her in my heart.

(literal)
(modified literal)

The structure of the modified literal translation is acceptable; however, it does not sound
naturally in English. He suggests the idiomatic translation should be, “I never forgot
her,” or “I‟ve kept her memory in my heart.” Therefore, translator‟s goal is to find the
idiomatic level because a real idiomatic translation would sound like it was written in
the target language. However, it is not easy to make a completely idiomatic translation.
Those kinds of translation are depicted by the following continuum:
Figure 1: Kinds of translation by Larson
Very
literal

Literal

Modified
literal

Inconsistent
mixture

Near
idiomatic

Idiomatic

Unduly
free

Translator‟s goal
Jacobson (1959, cited in Gerzymisch-arbogast, 2008) states that translation types
include intralingual translation (the SL and TL are the same), interlingual translation (the
SL and TL are different languages) and intersemiotic translation (text is transferred to
unwritten text). However, they are considered „traditional forms‟ of translation
(Gerzymisch-arbogast, 2008). As the modern technology is developing rapidly, a new
special kind of translation was brought into the world that the source language is spoken
5


language; and the target language can be either oral or written text. This kind of
translation is called „audiovisual translation‟ and it has a close connection with the
development of technology (Cintas, 2005).
Finally, Roberts (1988) notices that none of the available classification is
comprehensive and well-established, so a more detailed classification of translation
types needs to be developed. She presents a preliminary typology of translations with
some major characteristics for classification as follow:
1. Overall source text function, in which translations are divided into literary and
pragmatic.

2. General purpose of translating, the translations can be classified as professional
and non-professional.
3. The third is translation approach, which is used in producing the text in the target
language; translations can be divided as semantic and communicative.
4. Medium of translation, which means whether the translation would be produced in
oral or written way. Oral translation here is not only for interpretation but also for
translation, which is done aloud for a customer, or for audiovisual translation (for
example, dubbing or subtitling).
5. Direction of translating, the translations can be divided into two kinds as “being
into the dominant language or out of the dominant language” (p. 74).
2.2.2 Audiovisual Translation
Audiovisual translation (AVT) is considered a new field of translation, but it is
now a well-established field of Translation Studies (Denton and Ciampi, 2012).
According to Mujagic (2013), audiovisual translation has been neglected for a long time;
however, it has become one of the fastest developing areas of translation. Chiaro (2012)
defines audiovisual translation as the transference of verbal components in audiovisual
works and products from one language to another language. Audiovisual translation is
developing in accordance with the development of modern technology, so its
classification is also diversified.
In terms of linguistic aspects, Reich (2006) divides AVT into two groups:
intralingual and interlingual. In intralingual audiovisual translation, the source and target
6


language are the same, which is mostly used for hearing impaired, blind people, and
language learners. On the other hand, interlingual translation aims to make the audience
of target language understand the content of the source language production.
Gambier (1994) and Cintas (1999) distinguish up to ten different ways of
translating audiovisual programmes (Cintas and Remael, 2007), but there are three main
ones that are most familiar with our daily lives: dubbing (also known as lip-sync), voiceover and subtitling. In fact, before a movie reaches the audience, one of those kinds of

translation will be applied.
However, this thesis only concentrates on translating interlingual subtitles for
movies because of some following reasons. Firstly, only subtitling can keep abreast with
the number of newly released movies, especially serial movies, since it is increasing
more and more. Secondly, subtitling is easier and cheaper than other techniques like
dubbing or voice-over (Reich, 2006). Basically, this work is suitable for students
because they only need a computer to carry out the whole subtitling process. Another
reason is that the need of learning English in Vietnam is augmenting, and watching
movies with subtitles is one of the best ways to learn languages. In fact, films and
programmes with translated subtitles from other languages help the audience to develop
and expand their linguistic skills, as well as contextualize the language and culture of
other countries (Cintas and Remael, 2007).
2.2.2.1 Subtitles
Subtitling is a branch of audiovisual translation in which viewers can read
statements of dialogues on the screen while watching the images and listen to the
dialogues (Reich, 2006). According to Antonini (2005), one of the most frequently used
forms of audiovisual translation is subtitling. Subtitling is adding condensed texts
written in the target language on the screen. Subtitles as defined by Luyken et al. (1991,
cited in Reich, 2006) are lines of text translated from the original dialogue, which
usually appear at the bottom of the screen. Similarly, Gerzymisch-arbogast (2008)
claims that subtitles are the condensed written translation of film dialogues appearing
synchronously with the corresponding dialogues produced on the screen. In short, most
scholars share the same idea that subtitles are on-screen concise written texts that are
7


translated from the source language dialogue. In American English, sometimes the word
„caption‟ is used instead of „subtitle‟.
2.2.2.2 Subtitling Process
All translation methods involve the translation of an SL text into the TL.

However, subtitles translation is unique and different from traditional translation: spoken
words are transferred to written words on the screen, two different forms but the
meaning and the sense of both forms have to be equivalent and synchronized. A general
view on subtitling process besides revoicing is illustrated by Gottlieb‟s Schematic
representation of subtitling and revoicing (1994, cited in Georgakopoulou, 2003). While
revoicing is a horizontal type of translation and its schematic representation coincides
with that of interlingual interpreting, subtitling is a different type and can be either
vertical or diagonal. Vertical (intralingual) subtitling is usually used for hearingimpaired people or for foreign language learners, whereas most subtitles belong to
diagonal (interlingual) subtitling to serve a wider range of viewers.
Figure 2: Gottlieb’s Schematic representation of subtitling and revoicing

SOURCE LANGUAGE
SPEECH

speech

revoicing

vertical
subtitling
WRITING

TARGET LANGUAGE
speech

diagonal
subtitling
writing

writing

In fact, subtitling deals with spoken dialogue, so the process of subtitling involves
a triple adaptation as follow (Nir, 1984, cited in Gerzymisch-arbogast, 2008):
1)

from one language to another

2)

from verbal speech to a written text

3)

from a non-condensed (verbatim) to a condensed (nonverbatim) form of text.
8


Therefore, through the process, subtitling reduces the spoken language text by about one
third (Gerzymisch-arbogast, 2008).
Antonini (2005) describes the process of subtitling by the following figure:
Figure 3: The subtitler’s work
From audio to written
Transcription
Spotting
Translation

Adaptation

Condensation
Rendering

Elimination

Simplification

Synchronization
When the information in aural text and the dialogue are excessive, the subtitler
must make the translated text condensed by carrying out three main operations:
elimination, rendering and simplification. The first one involves eliminating all elements
that do not modify the sense of the message; the second involves reproducing or
depriving the features such as dialects, slang, humor, acronyms, taboo language; and,
finally, the third is what translators do to make the target text more concise and simple to
read.
2.3

Difficulties of Movie Subtitles Translation
The fact that when the medium changes from oral to written, problems will occur

(Lever, n.d). Catford (1965) and Abdellah (2002) believe that translation difficulties
include linguistic and cultural ones. However, according to Cintas and Remael (2007),
subtitling is constrained by new translational parameters of image and sound (subtitles
9


should be synchronized with what the characters are doing on screen), and time (the time
that subtitles appear and disappear should coincide with the original speech). Therefore,
besides cultural and linguistic difficulties, the restrictions of time and space would
greatly affect the subtitles translators‟ work because they have to encounter difficulties
of literary translation together with the additional constraints of subtitling (Luyken et al.
1991, cited in Antonini, 2005).

2.3.1 Cultural Difficulties
Newmark (1988) comments that translation problem appears due to the culture
gap or distance between the source language and target language. He does not regard
language as a component or feature of culture because translation would be impossible if
it were so. He adds that most cultural expressions are easy to spot, as they are associated
with a particular language and cannot be literally translated. Durdureanu (2011) says that
culture and translation are so interrelated to the extent that translators can no longer
ignore cultural elements. Moreover, the difficulty to transfer a message from one culture
to another is related to the signifier/signified relation because even in the case of the
same country, the signifier can signify something else that it is socially signifying in
another region. An example for subtitles affected by cultural elements is the movie
“Olympus has fallen” (Vietnamese translated as “Nhà Trắng thất thủ”), which is a
fiction film about the patriotism of the American. In the original movie, it directly
specifies that the culprits attacking the White House are from North Korea, but in the
Vietnamese subtitle, they are only described as “a small group of terrorists”. The
subtitles were adapted to make the source language suitable to the culture of target
language.
2.3.2 Linguistic Difficulties
Newmark (1988) suggests the stylistic scales from officialese to taboo with
examples that are:
Officialese

The consumption of any nutriments whatsoever is categorically
prohibited in this establishment.

Official

The consumption of nutriments is prohibited.

Formal

You are requested not to consume food in this establishment.
10


Neutral

Eating is not allowed here.

Informal

Please don't eat here.

Colloquial

You can't feed your face here.

Slang

Lay off the nosh.

Taboo

Lay off the fucking nosh.

Ideal subtitles should correspond with the language use of each character.
However, most Vietnamese subtitles use too formal language illogically even in a normal
context of daily life, which makes they hard to convey the meaning and sense of the
movie scene completely. In the movie “Blood Diamond”, most characters use very vulgar
words, but that way of speaking is appropriate to the context. The following dialogue and

its subtitles are from a scene in that movie.
Figure 4: A dialogue and translated subtitles in the movie “Blood Diamond”
(Subtitles from website www.phimmoi.net)
Original dialogue

Vietnamese subtitles

Hey! What the fuck?

Chuyện quái gì thế?

What‟s going on there?

Chuyện gì xảy ra?

Come on! Fix that shit now!

Nhanh lên, sửa nó ngay!

Wasting my time here!

Mất thời gian của tao!

What in the shit is that?

Cái quái gì thế?

Fuck that stuff! Fix that shit!

Khốn kiếp, sửa nó ngay!

The target audience should feel a film the same way the source audience does –
this means the subtitles should also include swearwords and vulgarisms. The given
subtitles to some extent can express the anger, but they cannot convey the rude, obscene
style in a threatening, frightening and deadly context. Hence, it leads to another issue:
should vulgar words be literally translated in subtitles?
Swear words, dirty words, vulgarisms, profanities, taboo words are many names
can be used to call “bad” words (Ferklová, 2014). It shows how important their role is in
human languages, cultures and in some contexts, nothing is more suitable than those

11


words. Andersson & Trudgill (1990, cited in Lie, 2013) suggest three criteria for
constituting swearwords that the expression:
(1) refers to something that is taboo and/or stigmatized in the culture;
(2) should not be interpreted literally;
(3) can be used to express strong emotions and attitudes.
The second criterion is of the same idea with Cintas and Remael (2007) that in
subtitles, taboo words, swearwords and interjections are often moderated or even deleted
because of spatial restriction. More than that, a swearword can have different meanings
depending on the context.
For example, Pujol (2006) analyzes the word „fuck‟ in the movie “From Dusk till
Dawn”. He states that this word expresses six different emotions depending on the movie
scene, they are: extreme anger, emphasis, disgust, contempt, surprise and happiness.
Pujol gives an example that when the mood of the character in the move is amused, he
said, “Oh baby, we did it. We‟re in Mexico. We‟re fuckin‟ in Mexico, you little piece of
fuckin‟ shit!” When the character felt surprised, he said, “What the fuck?” Since such
words have their own function in expressing the character‟s mood, in the dialogic
interaction and, in the film story, deleting them is surely not the only or the best choice

available (Cintas and Remael, 2007).
In addition, Cintas and Remael (2007) also believe that linguistic choices are
never random in film, so the translator has to be careful not to suppress them too much as
they may affect character‟s presentation and the film‟s message. Therefore, translators
must ascertain and evaluate the effect and emotional value of those bad words or
expressions in the source language, and then translate them into the target language by
equivalents that are suitable for the context of the target language culture.
It is not easy to define the term dialect; moreover, factors like geographical
location, social class and ethnic origins contribute to the varieties of dialect (Trudgill,
2000, cited in Hamaida, 2007). Besides, dialect refers to differences in the way that
speaker use vocabulary and grammar and pronunciation as well. This can be illustrated in
the following extract from the movie “The Full Monty”:
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A character named Gaz’s words in Sheffield dialect:
“I‟m trying to get some brass together…so as you and me can keep seeing each
other.”
Standard English version of Gaz’s words:
“I‟m trying to earn some money so that we can continue to see each other.”
Slang is somehow similar to dialect and often refers to the non-standard use of
words in a language as well as involving informal and colloquial spoken language
(Hamaida, 2007). As the language is ceaselessly developing, new slangs are also created.
Some particular forms of slang are often used as a means of expressing identity among
members of a group, for example, the slang used by teenagers. Hamaida (2007) and
Cintas and Remael (2007) have the same conception that accents and pronunciation are
very difficult to render in subtitles, but they may be important. That difficulty could be
seen in the following example; this is an extract from “The Life of Brian” that Pilate, a
character in the movie, cannot pronounce the letter “r”. Although it can make hilarious
effect, the subtitle is almost illegible.

Pilate’s pronunciation:
“Stwike him, centuwion, vewwy woughly.”
Standard English version:
“Strike him, centurion, very roughly.”
Georgakopoulou (2009) states that when the mother tongue of the subtitler is not
English, he or she may have problems in understanding the source language, especially
spoken slangs and colloquialisms, which can only really be acquired by living in the
country where the language is spoken. However, as dialect and slang are both developing
and changing, if the translator lives in an English-speaking country for some time, he or
she may lack language knowledge of new words in their own mother tongue. Therefore,
it is necessary to update knowledge in both source language and target language.
2.3.3 Temporal and Spatial Restrictions
According to Mujagic (2013), audiovisual translation has been neglected because
many people consider it as adaptation instead of translation. They argue that it is an
adaptation because of its spatial and temporal limits that were imposed by the
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medium itself. Cintas and Remael (2007) believe that a normal viewer can comfortably
read two lines of subtitles in six seconds, which is known as „the six-second rule‟, each
line has 35-37 letters, and the space between two words is counted as one letter.
Therefore, an average viewer is able to read 70-74 letters in six seconds. The subtitle
lines should appear when a person starts speaking, and should disappear when that
person stops speaking. If subtitles stay on screen longer then the time the viewer actually
needs to read it, they may tend to read it again. Thus, the six-second rule is considered as
a standard reading speed that the viewer can read leisurely. Subtitling process requires
dialogues to be condensed because they only appear on screen for a limited time, and
viewers need time to read them without missing any of the action on the screen
(Antonini, 2005; Munday, 2009)
The standard position for subtitles is horizontal at the bottom of the screen

because this part of the screen is usually less important for the action. Nevertheless,
subtitles can be moved from the bottom of the screen to another position if the
background at the bottom of the screen is too light; some important action is taken at the
bottom of the screen; some important data are displaced at the bottom of the screen
(Cintas and Remael: 2007). In addition, Caimi (2006) argues that factors such as
duration of subtitles, the screen space, the speed of the dialogues, and the
viewers' reading speed all influence comprehension. In other words, the subtitles must
link up with what the viewer is seeing and hearing on the screen, so they are able to
maintain their coherence.
2.4 Translation Strategies
Translation strategies include the basic tasks of choosing the foreign text to be
translated and developing a method to translate it (Venuti, 2000). In this section, some
suggested strategies would be presented.
Baker (1992) calls translation difficulties non-equivalence, she offers eight
strategies for professional translators to overcome the non-equivalence.

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Figure 5: Baker’s translation strategies
Translation strategies connected with non-equivalence on the word level.
1) Translation by a more general word (superordinate)
2) Translation by a more neutral/less expressive word
3) Translation by cultural substitution
4) Translation using a loan word or loan word plus explanation
5) Translation by paraphrase using a related word
6) Translation by paraphrase using an unrelated word
7) Translation by omission
8) Translation by illustration
Cintas and Remael (2007) propose nine strategies for subtitling that some of

which are very similar to Baker‟s ones. Some of the strategies are more commonly used
in subtitling than others. These strategies are loan, calque or literal translation,
explicitation, substitution, transposition, lexical recreation, compensation, omission and
addition.
First, loan means the word in the source language is incorporated into the target
language, because in some cases translating would be unnecessary or impossible. In fact,
most Vietnamese know what TV, radio or Internet mean when they see those words
without any translation.
Calque is a literal translation and sometimes it needs an accompanying
explanation. At first, a calque may sound nonsense in the target language but when it is
accepted widely, it will sound natural in the target language. For example, „black
market‟ can be translated as „chợ đen‟ in Vietnamese or „heavy industry‟ can be
transferred as „công nghiệp nặng‟.
In the strategy of explicitation, the translator attempts to make the source text
familiar with the viewers either by specification - using a more specific word, or
generalization - using a more general word. Cintas and Remael (2007) are of the same
opinion with Baker that hypernyms or superordinates are one of the most common used
strategies in translating because it provides general information for the context, whereas
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