The Quality of Culture-Specific Items’ Translation in Rob Marshall’s Film Memoirs of a Geisha

Anahtar Kelimeler:

audiovisual translation, voice-over, culture-specific items, translation strategies, quality

The Quality of Culture-Specific Items’ Translation in Rob Marshall’s Film Memoirs of a Geisha

This study analyzes cases of culture-specific items, which are often challenging to translate. Lithuanian voice-over version of Rob Marshall’s film Memoirs of a Geisha is being examined, taking a deeper look into translation of culture-specific items in terms of quality. Quality assessment is one of the most important aspects when evaluating translations. However, audiovisual translation differs greatly from traditional translation, and it can pose difficulties not only translating, but also evaluating translation quality or trying to justify certain choices made by the translator. Hence, the paper seeks to define quality of translation having voice-over and its constraints in mind, and to discuss translation strategies of culture-specific items in the film. To this end, the study relies on definitions of quality provided by Juliane House (2013), categorization of culture-specific items by Willy Vandeweghe (2005), and their translation strategies by Eirlys E. Davies (2003). It is found that the mode of the text in the target language remains the same as the text is always spoken, and it includes narration and dialogues. Mismatches between the source text and the translation mainly appear with culture-specific items that are more difficult to translate (for example, ethnographic references). Overall, the translation quality can be deemed to be good enough, with the translator using translation strategies wisely trying to maintain authenticity where possible.

Keywords:

audiovisual translation, voice-over, culture-specific items, translation strategies, quality,

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