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High felicity: A speech act approach to quality assessment in subtitling

  • Jan Pedersen
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Abstract

This paper contains some thoughts on how an approach based on speech act theory can be used for quality assessment in subtitling. It is assumed here that subtitling is a pragmatic form of translation and that it might be more felicitous to give a speaker’s primary illocutionary point (what is meant to get across) precedence over what is actually said, if there is a conflict. Analyses of subtitled utterances containing Extralinguistic Cultural References (ECRs) illustrate the approach, showing that there is a difference in kind between more or less felicitous translations and translation errors. By considering the sender’s primary illocutionary point first, a felicitous subtitle is faithful to the original message, despite the media-specific constraints, while giving the viewer/reader guidance to access the message. In this way, high fidelity is achieved through high felicity.

Abstract

This paper contains some thoughts on how an approach based on speech act theory can be used for quality assessment in subtitling. It is assumed here that subtitling is a pragmatic form of translation and that it might be more felicitous to give a speaker’s primary illocutionary point (what is meant to get across) precedence over what is actually said, if there is a conflict. Analyses of subtitled utterances containing Extralinguistic Cultural References (ECRs) illustrate the approach, showing that there is a difference in kind between more or less felicitous translations and translation errors. By considering the sender’s primary illocutionary point first, a felicitous subtitle is faithful to the original message, despite the media-specific constraints, while giving the viewer/reader guidance to access the message. In this way, high fidelity is achieved through high felicity.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface vii
  4. Introduction: Audiovisual translation comes of age 1
  5. Recent developments and challenges in audiovisual translation research 11
  6. Part 1. Electronic databases and corpora
  7. ICT approaches
  8. Forlixt 1 – The Forlì Corpus of Screen Translation: Exploring macrostructures 37
  9. Forlixt 1 – The Forlì Corpus of Screen Translation: Exploring microstructures 51
  10. New tools for translators: INTCA, an electronic dictionary of interjections 63
  11. Linguistic approaches
  12. Spoken language in film dubbing: Target language norms, interference and translational routines 79
  13. High felicity: A speech act approach to quality assessment in subtitling 101
  14. Inserts in modern script-writing and their translation into Spanish 117
  15. Part 2. Perception and quality
  16. Empirical approaches
  17. The perception of dubbese: An Italian study 135
  18. Acceptance of the norm or suspension of disbelief? The case of formulaic language in dubbese 149
  19. Measuring the perception of the screen translation of Un Posto al Sole : A cross-cultural study 165
  20. Cultural and psycholinguistic approaches
  21. Taming teen-language: The adaptation of Buffyspeak into Italian 183
  22. From darkness to light in subtitling 197
  23. Subtitles and line-breaks: Towards improved readability 211
  24. Socio-economic approaches
  25. The localization of promotional discourse on the internet 227
  26. Issues of quality in screen translation: Problems and solutions 241
  27. References 257
  28. Filmography 285
  29. Index 289
https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.78.11ped

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Preface vii
  4. Introduction: Audiovisual translation comes of age 1
  5. Recent developments and challenges in audiovisual translation research 11
  6. Part 1. Electronic databases and corpora
  7. ICT approaches
  8. Forlixt 1 – The Forlì Corpus of Screen Translation: Exploring macrostructures 37
  9. Forlixt 1 – The Forlì Corpus of Screen Translation: Exploring microstructures 51
  10. New tools for translators: INTCA, an electronic dictionary of interjections 63
  11. Linguistic approaches
  12. Spoken language in film dubbing: Target language norms, interference and translational routines 79
  13. High felicity: A speech act approach to quality assessment in subtitling 101
  14. Inserts in modern script-writing and their translation into Spanish 117
  15. Part 2. Perception and quality
  16. Empirical approaches
  17. The perception of dubbese: An Italian study 135
  18. Acceptance of the norm or suspension of disbelief? The case of formulaic language in dubbese 149
  19. Measuring the perception of the screen translation of Un Posto al Sole : A cross-cultural study 165
  20. Cultural and psycholinguistic approaches
  21. Taming teen-language: The adaptation of Buffyspeak into Italian 183
  22. From darkness to light in subtitling 197
  23. Subtitles and line-breaks: Towards improved readability 211
  24. Socio-economic approaches
  25. The localization of promotional discourse on the internet 227
  26. Issues of quality in screen translation: Problems and solutions 241
  27. References 257
  28. Filmography 285
  29. Index 289
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