(Luận văn thạc sĩ) 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 THE TRANSLATION OF THE FILM “RIO”
BASED ON NEWMARK’S MODEL
Đánh giá bản dịch bộ phim “Rio” dựa trên mơ 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 mơ 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

i


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.

ii


ABSTRACT
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.

iii


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

iv


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

v


LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
TQA: Translation Quality Assessment
ST: Source Text
TT: Target Text
SL: Source Language
TL: Target Language
AVT: Audiovisual translation

vi

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,
1


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.

2


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.

3


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).

4


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.
5


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:
Source Language Emphasis

Target Language Emphasis

Word-for-word translation

Adaptation

Literal translation

Free translation

Faithful translation

Idiomatic translation

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

6


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 textrealization 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)

7


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
8


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.
9


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,
10


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
11


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:

12


1. SL
writer

9. The
truth of
the
matter

5. TL
relationshi
p
6. TL
norms

2. SL
norms
TEXT
3. SL
culture

7. TL
culture

4. SL
setting and
tradition

8. TL
setting
and

10.
Translato
r

tradition (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 fivestep learning process of translation to help students tackle the source text and its
13


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
14


“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
15


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
16


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.

17