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Translation of Interjections in Dubbing from English into Persian
Masoumeh Ahmadizadeh a, Masoud Sharififar b, Sima Ferdowsi c
a
b
Department of English Languages , Faculty of Litrature and Humanities , Univercity of Shahid Bahonar, Kerman , Iran
Department of English Languages , Faculty of Litrature and Humanities , Univercity of Shahid Bahonar, Kerman , Iran
c
Department of English Languages , Faculty of Litrature and Humanities , Univercity of Shahid Bahonar,
Kerman , Iran
Abstract
This study aimed at investigating the translation of interjections from English into Persian in dubbing. To carry out this study the
expressive secondary interjections found in the film Four weddings and a funeral and their equivalent in Persian dubbed version
were analyzed through the strategies proposed by Cuenca. The descriptive analysis of the corpus showed that (strategy b) i.e.
translating by using an interjection with dissimilar form but the same meaning was the best and the most frequent strategy used
by the translator. After (strategy b), ( strategy a) i.e. literal translation was proved to be commonly used by the translator. Using
this strategy ignores the pragmaticization of meaning and its frequency and context of use and results in the existence of a certain
degree of pragmatic interference and error in translation.
Keywords: Interjection, Audiovisual Translation, Dubbing, Translation Strategy;
1.
Introduction
For Bruti and Pavesi (2008,P.104) interjection is “an outcry to express pain, surprise, anger, pleasure or some
other emotion[….] interjections belong to the oldest forms of speech and represent the most primitive type of
sentence.” .
Jovanovic (2004) believed that for many authors in philology and linguistics, interjections might have been
among the first utterances or words used by humans at the dawn of language. The reasons for that are the
expressiveness and simplicity of such forms of communication. It is not difficult to imagine how complex and
awkward language might be if we were to omit them from our every day communication. If we substituted a simple
Ouch! With, for example, “This thing you are doing to me is considerably hurtful”, it was quiet long and it was
rather awkward or even humorous. He also maintained that new interjectional forms continue to enter in the
language of popular culture, comic strips, and pop music, for instance. The nucleus of speakers for producing new
and expressive interjections is the younger urbane population as part of their unique linguistic identity. It is either by
the creativity of the speakers of language or borrowing (although there already exist original interjections which
express the same meaning) that new interjections appear in a language.
2
Literature Review
One of the most recent notions which have entered into translation studies is the notion of interjections. Since
interjections contribute to communication, and a constituent element of every speaker’s linguistic competence and
performance is mastering the use of interjections in every day communication, rendering them from one language
into another especially in dubbing is very important and it is one of the major challenges for translators and a feature
of a competent translator.
2.1
Typology of Interjections
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Ameka (1992) claimed that distinguishing between primary interjections and secondary interjections is good for
a better understanding of the phenomenon of the interjections in the languages of the world. For him, primary
interjections are words which are not used otherwise, they are little words or non-words which in terms of their
distribution can constitute an utterance by themselves and do not normally enter into construction with other word
classes, for example, ouch! , Gee!, Wow!, Oho!, Oops! , etc, and secondary interjections have an independent
semantic value but which can be used conventionally as utterances by themselves to express a mental attitude or
state. They thus refer to mental acts too. Such alarm calls and attention getters as Help! , Fire! , Careful! , and swear
and taboo words such as damn! , hell! , heaven! , Christ! , and other emotively used words such as Shame! ,
Bother! , Drat! , fall under secondary interjections.
For Cuenca (2006), primary interjections are simple vocal units, sometimes very close to nonverbal devices
and secondary interjections are words or phrases which have undergone a semantic change by pragmaticization of
meaning and syntactic reanalysis. They are grammaticalized elements.
2.2
Classification of Interjections
Ameka (1992) assumed that one of the ways (but by no means the only one) in which one can classify
interjections is to appeal to the functions of language which have been traditionally proposed by people like Biihler
(1934) and modified by Jakobson (1960).These are the expressive, the conative, and the phatic interjections.
Expressive interjections are the vocal gestures which are symptoms of the speaker’s mental state. They are
subdivided into the emotive ones (those that express the speaker’s state with respect to the emotions and sensations
they have at the time) and the cognitive ones (those that pertain to the state of knowledge and thoughts at the time of
utterance). Conative interjections are those expressions which are directed at an auditor. They are either aimed at
getting someone’s attention or they demand an action or response from someone of a speaker’s wants, and finally
phatic interjections are used in the establishment and maintenance of communicative contact. A variety of
conventional vocalizations such as backchanneling or feedback signaling vocalizations which express a speaker’s
mental attitude towards the on-going discourse are examples of phatic interjections. Moreover, interjections used in
the performance of various interactional routines and interjections for greeting, farewelling and welcoming people
are examples of this class.
2.3
Interjection and Interlanguage Pragmatics
Goffman (1981, P.99) regarded interjection as “response cries” and he said that “we see such expressions as a
natural overflowing, a flooding up of previously contained feeling, a bursting of normal restraints.”
According to Brown and Yule (1983, P. 27) “One of the characteristics of the spoken language is speaker’s
use of different interjections according to the context they are involved in. Restoring to interjections enables the
speaker to keep the conversational turn in communication; to be fluent.”
Fluency, to Richards, Platt, and Weber (1985, P.108), is the use of “…features which give speech the
qualities of being natural and normal, including native-like use of pausing, rhythm, intonation, stress, rate of
speaking , and use of interjections and interruption.”
For Jovanovic (2004), mastering any language would be incomplete without being able to understand
perfectly and use appropriately these kinds of communicative elements. Knowing the communicative functions of
interjections, learners might be able to use language in its appropriate context. Interjections are of dual
communicative value for learners in the sense that they may resort to when they cannot understand or be understood
by others to clarify their message.
2.4
Interjections in Dubbing
According to Matamala (2009) dubbing is a long process which involves different agents and tasks (translation,
adaptation and linguistic revision).These tasks can be carried out by a single professional or different professionals.
For Matamala (2009, P.7)
The translator is in charge of delivering a translation which expresses all the nuances of the original, taking into
account its register, but without paying attention to lip-synchronisation .This does not imply that translators deny
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they are transferring an oral text into a written text which will be received as audiovisual product: on the contrary,
the relationship between the text and image must be taken into account by the translator, who nonetheless will leave
lip-synchronisation to the next professional in the chain.
According to Gilabert, Ledesma and Trifol (2001), the adapter must check the orality of the dialogues and
adapt the translation if necessary. ( as cited in Matamala, 2009).
Matamala (2009) claimed that the adapter’s main task is to synchronize the target language script with the
original length of the sentences (isochrony), the lip movement (lip-synch) and the body movements of the characters
(kinetic synchrony).
Matamala (2009) maintained that during dubbing, some interjections may be added, changed or omitted.
Changes generally occur during the adaptation and linguistic revision process, but sometimes also during the
recording session, although actors do not have the freedom to improvise as they do in original versions. This might
explain why their degree of orality-based solely on the number of interjections-differs.
2.5
Strategies for translation of Interjections
According to Baker (1992, P. 63) interjections are idiomatic because “they are frozen patterns of language
which allow little or no variation in form and […] often carry meanings which cannot be deduced from their
individual components”
Baker (1992, PP. 72-77) distinguished four different mechanisms for translating idioms:
Using an idiom of similar meaning and form.
Using an idiom of similar meaning but dissimilar form.
Translation by paraphrase.
Translation by omission.
Adapting Baker’s (1992, 2009) proposal, Cuenca (2002b) has differentiated six strategies for translating
interjections, either primary or secondary: literal translation (strategy a); translation by using an interjection with
dissimilar form but the same meaning (strategy b); translation by using a non-interjective structure with similar
meaning (strategy c); translation by using an interjection with a different meaning (strategy d); omission (strategy e);
addition of elements (strategy f).
3
Results and Discussion
This section firstly represens some English extracts along with their Persian equivalents, collected from a close
analysis of the corpus. Then the findings of the study regarding the translation of interjections into Persian are
discussed.
3.1
Research Findings
For the sake of restriction, the present study limited itself to analyze the expressive secondary interjections
found in the film Four weddings and a funeral and their equivalents in Persian. At this point for more elaboration
and clarification, one example was provided for each category.
3.1.1
Strategy a.
Literal translation
Sometimes the translator does not take into account the pragmaticization of meaning and just tries to convey the
source meaning of the interjection.
-Matt: Bride or groom?
Wedding guest: It should be perfectly obvious, I’m neither. Great God! (1:37:39)
‫ عروس یا داماد؟‬:‫مت‬
‫ خدای بزرگ‬.‫ باید کامال مشخص باشه من هیچ کدوم نیستم‬:‫مهمان عروسی‬
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3.1.2
Strategy b.
Translating by using an interjection with dissimilar form but the same meaning
When the exact interjection which is exact equivalent of the original does not exist in the target language, the
best option is to use an interjection with dissimilar form and the same meaning.
-Charles: what turn-off? Better not be the B359.
Scarlett: It’s the B359.
Charles: fuck it! (04:04)
‫" نباشه‬395 ‫ کدوم پیچه؟ بهتره "بی‬:‫چارلز‬.
‫" هست‬395 ‫ "بی‬:‫اسکارلت‬.
‫ لعنتی‬:‫!چارلز‬
3.1.3
Strategy c.
Translation by using a non- interjective structure with similar meaning
When finding a suitable interjection is not possible in the target language, the translator can compensate the loss
of meaning by using a non-interjective structure with the same meaning.
- [Charles suddenly sees Carrie in the shop and becomes very happy]
Carrie: What did you get?
Charles: Bliemy! (1:00:13)
Charles: Well, I never! nothing yet. I’m just, you know, deciding.
‫ چی گرفتی؟‬:‫کری‬
‫ هنوز دارم تصمیم می گیرم‬.‫ هنوز هیچی‬...‫ خدای من باورم نمیشه! اه‬:‫چارلز‬.
3.1.4
Strategy d.
Translation by using an interjection with a different meaning.
Sometimes, the translator erroneously insists on reserving the original form and translates an interjection in the
original with another interjection in the target language that has a different meaning.
-Waiter: Your drink, Sir.
Charles: Thank you.
Waiter: and one for the…
Charles: …road. Lovely. (28: 13)
‫ قربان؟‬.‫ نوشیدنی شما‬:‫پیشخدمت هتل‬
‫ متشکرم‬:‫چارلز‬.
‫ و یکی برای‬:‫پیشخدمت هتل‬..
‫ ممنون‬.‫ توی راه‬..:‫چارلز‬.
3.1.5
Strategy e.
Omission
Sometimes, some interjections are omitted in dubbing either due to the constraints and limitations of dubbing or
by the translator’s ignorance that thinks the interjection does not have any special meaning at that context.
- [Charles and Scarlett suddenly see the bride’s car is arriving]
Charles: Bugger! (04: 48)
‫ دوبله نشده است‬:‫چارلز‬.
3.1.6
Strategy f.
Addition of elements
Sometimes, the translator adds some elements to the meaning of the interjection in order to make it easy to be
understood by the viewers, but sometimes this addition happens during the process of dubbing.
- [Charles runs after Carrie to tell her about his feeling but he cannot]
Charles: Excellent, Excellent! Fantastic lovely to see you. sorry to disturb. Better get on. (1: 08: 03)
‫ بهتره دیگه برم‬.‫ ببخش مزاحم شدم‬.‫ خوشحال شدم دیدمت‬.‫ فوق العاده اس‬.‫ عالیه‬.‫ عالیه‬:‫چارلز‬.
3.2
Descriptive Statistics
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At this point, all of the extracted data was thoroughly inserted in tables 1 and 2. Table 3 also reported the results
of each strategy’s frequency.
Table 1: English expressive secondary interjections and their translations into Persian
English
Cases Persian Cases
Fuck
Fuck, Fuck 12
1 ‫لعنت یا لعنتی‬
‫ لعنتی‬،‫ لعنتی‬12
1
Fuck it
3
‫لعنتی‬
3
Fuckity fuck 1
‫ای داد بیداد‬1
Fucky fuck 1
‫اي داد بیداد‬1
Fuck-a-doodle-do
1
‫ای داد بیداد‬1
Shit 1
‫لعنت‬
1
Bugger
1
Ø
Ø
Bugger, Bugger
1
‫ لعنت‬،‫لعنت‬
1
Blast
1
‫ حیف شد‬1
Damn
1
Ø
Ø
Blimey
3
‫خدای من باورم نمیشه‬
‫خدای من‬
1
2
God 2
‫خدایا‬
2
Golly
1
‫ خدای من‬1
Good Lord 4
‫خدای من‬
‫خدای بزرگ‬
‫ خدای من‬،‫ اوه‬2
1
1
Great God 1
‫خدای بزرگ‬
1
Heaven preserve us 1
‫ خدا بهمون رحم کنه‬1
Splendid
Splendid, splendid
2
1 ‫عالی بود‬
‫چه جالب‬
2
1
Excellent
7
‫عالیه‬
Ø 6
1
Excellent, Excellent
1
‫ فوق العاده اس‬،‫ عالیه‬،‫عالیه‬
1
Bravo
2
‫آفرین‬
2
Brilliant, Brilliant
1
‫ عالیه‬،‫عالیه‬
1
Lovely
2
‫ممنون‬
‫چه عالی‬
1
1
Great
‫خوشوقتم‬
2
1
‫عالیه‬
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1
Absolutely
Right
1
‫کامال‬
1
Right, right 2
1 ‫باشه‬
‫خیلی خوب‬
‫ باشه‬،‫باشه‬
1
1
1
Table 2: English expressive secondary interjections combined and their translations
into Persian
English
Cases Persian Cases
Oh, fuck
3
‫ لعنت یا لعنتی‬،‫اوه‬
3
Oh, bollocks 1
‫ دیرم شد‬،‫اوه‬
1
Oh, God
2
‫ خدایا‬،‫اوه‬
‫خدای من‬
1
1
Oh, my God 2
‫ خدای من‬،‫اوه‬
2
Oh, for God’s sake 1
‫ تو رو خدا‬1
Oh, gosh
2
‫ خدای من‬،‫اوه‬
‫خدای من‬
1
1
Oh, fabulous 1
Ø
Ø
Oh, excellent 1
‫عالیه‬
1
Ah, excellent 1
‫ عالیه‬،‫ آه‬1
Uh, great
1
‫ چه عالی‬،‫آه‬
1
Oh, absolutely
1
‫ حتما‬،‫ اوه‬1
Table 3: Strategies used to translate secondary interjections
Strategy
English
Uncombined
Combined
Total (%)
a
a+b
a +c
a+e 6
3
7
1
2
7
1
2
b
b+e
2
2
c
9 (12.33%)
41
41 (56.16%)
3
3 (4.11%)
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d
d+e 2
1
1
e 2
f
f+a
f+b
1
1
1
1
Total
73
3.3
2 (2.74%)
1
3 (4.11%)
57
16
Discussion
Taking into account the aforementioned data and organized in tables 1 and 2 and the types of translation
strategies inserted in table 3, one can conclude that all of the strategies proposed by Cuenca (2002b) are employed
by the Persian translator to transfer interjections into the TL, the most frequent of which is (strategy b) i.e.
translating by using an interjection with dissimilar form but the same meaning. This strategy resembles Nida’s
“dynamic equivalence”. Firstly, since it attempts to produce on viewers an effect as close as possible to that obtained
on the viewers of the original, and secondly, the outcome is a natural translation. Nida (1964a) maintained that in
order to achieve naturalness it is essential to have some adaptations of grammar, of lexical and of cultural
references.
Cuenca (2006) claimed that this strategy is the best option for translating secondary interjections in most
cases, since in this strategy the translator takes into account the semantic and pragmatic meaning of the interjection
and its context of use and benefits the existence of an interjection with identical or similar meaning that crosslinguistically whose conditions of use and frequency may coincide.
After (strategy b), (strategy a) i.e. literal translation was proved to be commonly used by the translator. As
Cuenca (2006) mentioned in the translating of interjections discourse meanings should be taken into account which
are language specific and culturally bound. For Corpas (2000, 2001) the most frequent equivalence between
idiomatic units is that of partial equivalence “ which can be associated with differences in the morphosyntactic, the
semantic or the pragmatic level”. For him, to find the equivalence for secondary interjections, the priority should be
put on the interjective meaning and not on the literal meaning. (cited in Cuenca, 2006).
As corpus revealed, all of the interjections in which there were the words “God” or “Lord” have been
translated literally as the following:
God (‫)خدایا‬, Good Lord (‫ خدای من‬،‫ خدای بزرگ‬،‫ خدای من‬،‫)اوه‬, Great God (‫)خدای بزرگ‬, oh, God (‫ خدای من‬،‫ خدایا‬،‫)اوه‬, oh,
my God (‫ خدای من‬،‫)اوه‬, oh, for God’s sake ( ‫)تو رو خدا‬. These literal translations do not correspond to the meanings of
the English interjections. The interjective meaning which refers to the speaker’s feelings, such as joy, surprise,
disappointment, admiration, anger, sadness and so on has totally ignored by the translator and this translator’s
negligence has resulted in a certain degree of pragmatic interference and error in translation.
Translating by using a non-interjective structure with similar meaning (strategy c), and omission (strategy e)
occupied the next position. Then translating by using an interjection with a different meaning (strategy d) was used
rarely by the translator. Finally, (strategy f) i.e. addition of elements has not been used alone but the translator
applied it in the combinations with the (strategy a) and (strategy b).
It is worth mentioning that using of different strategies especially (strategy e) i.e. omission and (strategy f)
i.e. addition of elements may be due to constraints and limitation of dubbing as a complex modality of translation.
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But according to Cuenca (2006) there is no evidence to attribute the choices in translation to one agent or the other.
So, the translator will be the responsible person for the final translation of interjections.
An important point which worth mentioning here is that the frequency of ( ‫ )لعنت یا لعنتی‬as the translation of
fuck and ( ( ‫ عالیه‬as the translation of excellent is unnatural, at least for standard Persian. In order to create the
similar feelings of anger, disappointment, and joy or admiration in the Persian viewers a wide variety of forms to
express negative or positive feelings can be used. For example, using of (‫ زرشک‬،‫ )کثافت‬for fuck and ( ،‫ مرحبا‬،‫احسنت‬
‫ دمت گرم‬،‫ )بارک هللا‬for the translation of excellent.
4
Conclusion
There are two
different viewpoints as far as interjections are concerned. Wilkins (1992, P.20) said that
interjections are “semantically rich and have a definite conceptual structures”, and are treated as part of language.
By contrast, Goffman (1981, P.100) claimed that an interjection is a “ritualized act”. It ensured that interjections
“are not part of language, and are analyzed in terms of the socio-communicative roles they play, rather than any
linguistic content they may have”.
Regardless of being (not) part of language, interjections are notably means by which we communicate every
subtle nuance of our emotions.
Ameka (1992, P.107) stressed the importance of interjections in intercultural communication, pointing out
that they “form a significant subset of those seemingly irrational devices that constitute the essence of
communication”. So, translation of interjections in general and translation of interjections in dubbing in particular
deserves special attention on the part of the translator. As the analysis of the aforementioned data showed, the
translator can apply six strategies proposed by Cuenca (2006) for translating of English interjections into Persian.
The most frequent of which was the (strategy b), i.e. translating by using a dissimilar form but the same meaning.
Since interjections are highly context bound and express pragmatic values, (strategy b) proved to be the best
solution for transferring them from English into Persian because it avoids the risk of pragmatic errors.
As corpus revealed that using of literal translation (strategy a) is the worst one, since in this case, a pragmatic
error may happen which derives from the misunderstanding of the pragmatic meaning that the interjection conveys.
If the translator is willing to produce a translation which meets the criteria of acceptability and adequacy among the
target audience and to convey the communicative values that interjections have, he or she must avoid the
predominance of literal translation. In this case Cuenca (2006) claimed that literal translation of expressive
secondary interjections often results in the use of an interjection with a different connotation, context of use or
frequency, or even in the use of a form that is not a proper interjection in the target language.
In addition, the findings of the study suggested that although interjections are typically short words some
small changes in dubbing have to do with the translation of interjections. Changes such as omission, addition of
elements and so on may not be the translator’s fault, since Reich (2006) mentioned that the dubbing translator only
has to do a rough translation of the dialogue and then passes it on to the dubbing writers ( or adaptors) who then
write a dubbing conversion which is synchronous with the original one. Therefore, these technical issues limit the
dubbing translator’s choices.
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