Semiotics and Hermeneutics of the Everyday

Semiotics and Hermeneutics of the Everyday

Edited by

Lia Yoka and Gregory Paschalidis

Semiotics and Hermeneutics of the Everyday Edited by Lia Yoka and Gregory Paschalidis This book first published 2015 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2015 by Lia Yoka, Gregory Paschalidis and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-7192-3 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-7192-1

TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: That Bloody Riddle ............................................................. viii Lia Yoka and Gregory Paschalidis Chapter 1: Concepts and Categories of the Everyday The Everyday is “Insignificant” .................................................................. 2 Hecate Vergopoulos ‘Twelve thousand breakfasts’: Banalizing Anti-Epiphany – A Mathematical View ................................................................................ 14 May Chehab The Semiotics of Situationist Urban Theory ............................................. 25 Alexandros Ph. Lagopoulos Chapter 2: The Everyday as Marketing Method and Ritual Practice Lifestyle and Consumerism: Neoliberal Biopolitics and Islamist Experiences in the Muslim World ............................................................. 60 Fotini Tsibiridou “Carving the Body”: Ta Moko and the Eternal Play of Being in the Everyday and the Everlasting .......................................................... 82 M.-G. Lily Stylianoudi Trivial Objects, Economy and ‘Attainable Luxury’ ................................ 105 Dimitris Charitatos and Anastasia Christodoulou Everyday Fantasy .................................................................................... 115 Karin Boklund-Lagopoulou

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Chapter 3: Style versus Constraint in the Languages of the Everyday The Clay of the Earth: Everyday Objects, Functions and Thoughts in the Poetic Creation of the Generation of the 1880s ............................. 130 Georgia Pateridou Writing Under Daily Constraint(s): The Case of Administrative Writing ..................................................................................................... 142 Helene Campaignolle Subtitles: A Dominant Text Type in Everyday Life ................................ 166 Anthi Wiedenmayer Stilling the Flow of Signs: Everyday Creative Actions and the Discontinuities of Museum and Gallery Display ........................ 176 Chris Dorsett with Sachiyo Goda Everyday Practices on the Internet and the Expansion of Crowdsourced Translation ............................................................................................... 193 Titika Dimitroulia Chapter 4: Representing the Quotidian The African Quotidian of the Ivorian Society as Seen through the Eyes of Aya of Yopougon ................................................................... 238 Karen Ferreira-Meyers Aesthetics of Everyday Life in Two Arab Movies: The Time that Remains, or the Staging of Silence; and Living Here, or the Poetry of Ordinary People ............................................................. 249 Sana Mselmi The Visibility of the Other in Greek Everyday Life: A Semiotic Study of Contemporary Greek Cinema .............................................................. 260 Rea Walldén The Semiotics of Subtitling of Language Variations in Television Advertisements in Greece ........................................................................ 279 Evangelos Kourdis

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“Any day is a whole story, even when you believe nothing’s happened”: Jacques Réda and the Everyday ............................................................... 290 Alexander Hertich

THE SEMIOTICS OF SUBTITLING OF LANGUAGE VARIATIONS IN TELEVISION

ADVERTISEMENTS IN GREECE

EVANGELOS KOURDIS

1. Some Preliminary Thoughts This study attempts to show the semiotic dimension of subtitles in

television advertisements in Greece. It examines television advertisements that were subtitled from provincial Greek (and more precisely from the regional accent of Epirus) and from the Pontic dialect in standard Greek (Modern Greek Language). There is a difference between the two language varieties: the regional accent of Epirus belongs linguistically to the northern regional accents of Greece, while Pontic belongs to the dialects of Greek language. It is, therefore, interesting to enquire into the reason for their translation into standard Greek in Greek television. Gonzalez (2008: 15) mentions that « intralingual subtitles were traditionally addressed at minority audiences, such as immigrants wishing to develop their proficiency in the language of the host community or viewers requiring written support to fully understand certain audiovisual texts shot in non-standard dialects of their native languages». For Munday (2009: 6), the subtitling of dialects, « as well as being either intralingual or interlingual, [...] is also a form of intersemiotic translation, the replacement of a source text (ST) spoken verbal code by a target text (TT) written verbal code with due regard for the visual and other acoustic signs ».

Moreover, it is interesting to investigate why advertising, which tries to promote and impose models of everyday life (do this, choose that, we recommend this product, etc.), prefers to introduce into it, both through the linguistic system and subtitling, varieties of Greek language which are not related – from a linguistic point of view – to the everyday life of the average Greek. Is it possible that advertising may try to persuade us that it is a bad idea to underestimate or not use language varieties in everyday life? If we take into account the financial and commercial objective of advertising, its moralist character is called into question: after all, the

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purpose of an advertisement is to promote a product, not linguistic positions.

2. Television and Advertisements as Everyday Activities

We know that intralingual translation is not the rule in television advertisements. Translation is considered by De Certeau (1984: 160) as a « mechanism, perfected over the generations, that makes it possible to move from one language to another, to eliminate exteriority by transferring it to interiority […] this notion of translation assumes the ‘‘translatability’’ of all languages (whether iconic, gestural, or voiced) into ‘‘natural everyday languages” ». However, how is exteriority eliminated through translation in our case, given that the language varieties that are subtitled in Modern Greek are actually already Greek? Furthermore, how is subtitling, which is semiotically linked to the translation of foreign natural languages, helping eliminate this exteriority? One should remark here that the subtitling of language varieties is not a diffused practice in Greek television advertisements.

Lotman & Ouspenski (1990: 177) observe that « there are eras when art intrudes life by aestheticizing its everyday course. Such were Renaissance, the Baroque, Romanticism, and the art of the beginning of 20th century». However, after the diffusion of diverse media, the influence of art in the course of everyday life is no longer so strong. Other means of influence, such as television, the Press and advertising penetrate everyday life in order to influence and sometimes change it. This penetration is recorded by a cultural industry established by the media. For Silverstone (2004: 110), « the cultural industry produces a standardized, homogenized mass culture, in which the market, like a lava flow, consumes everything of value in its path ». Television advertising normally obeys this norm because it profits from the standardized media culture, which mainly uses language in order to impose a communicational homogenization, increasing in this way the number of consumers who receive the message of the advertisement.

Nevertheless, if one accepts such a practice in everyday communication, it is difficult to reply to Silverstone’s remark (2004: 110) that « advertising offers signs without meaning ». Signs without meaning – as is the case with the linguistic varieties in question, which remain incomprehensible for the large majority of Greek television viewers, whence comes the need for their subtitling – constitute major obstacles to everyday communication. Of course, according to Silverstone (2004: 119), «advertisers […] orient their campaigns in such a way as to make their products appear and appeal

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to socially defined and located groups and individuals ». However, we think that such localization could be not linguistic but commercial, taking into account the consumers’ needs and their purchasing power. Moreover, it could not be moralizing, given that advertising exploits values and does not serve them. Therefore, it is difficult to justify the choice in question, of language varieties, by Greek advertisers, a choice which does not facilitate wide public communication and which is, for this reason, usually excluded from the Greek media.

3. Subtitling Language Varieties in Greek Television

One must stress that «subtitles differ from the common notion of target text, because they are part of a polysemiotic text» (Pedersen, 2005: 13) and that, additionally, they are additive (Gottlieb, 1997: 141), because they add information to the source text. According to Lambert & Delabastita (1996: 40), subtitling can be defined as «repetition of signs that compose the original [text] mediating a partial substitution of verbal signs for visual and non-verbal signs ». We think that this repetition implies intersemioticity, considering that we are dealing with a verbalization – occasionally partial – of non-verbal signs. Moreover, we observe that in the television advertisements under examination there is no dialogue, no interaction, only monologue, a fact that facilitates, we think, their subtitling and the viewers’ concentration on the content of the subtitled verbal message. One should notice that in general no text is monosemiotic. Accordingly, in our case, we observe the synergy of semiotic systems, such as song, kinetics, proximity, color, image, and the oral and written languages.

Furthermore, in Karamitroglou’s (2001: 311) words, «subtitling seems to be firmly established as an overall norm not just because of its broad applicability across the whole spectrum of audiovisual modes but also because of the complementary motivations that lie behind it». We share this position and we think that the advertisers’ choice to subtitle the varieties of Greek into standard Greek is characterized by the motivation to diffuse latent messages and connotations. These connotations may be the reason why Diaz Cintas & Remael (2007: 185) remark that «the current trend is for film language to exhibit more rather than less variation».

According to Peeters (1999: 188), « the dialectalisation of language is in the core of translation », because dialectalisation poses problems of communication. In television, subtitling seems to be a solution to communication problems caused by the use of dialect varieties. Greimas &

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Courtés (1993: 113) consider that the «natural languages are reservoirs, places of manifestation and construction of multiple and diverse semiotics ». One of the semiotic constructions of which they are bearers is identity, individual or collective. Gauntlett & Hill (1999: 286) observe that « people’s individual identities are clearly touched by the media in very gentle ways», and they go on observing that the ways «in which people see themselves and others may be subtly influenced by many different television elements». We think that one of these ways is the subtitling of language varieties, which are bearers of both ethnic and ethnotic identity. Karamitroglou (2000: 5) remarks that subtitling may be either intralingual (or vertical), when the target language is the same as the source language, or interlingual (or diagonal), when the target language is different from the source language. In our study, we are going to examine the former case, given that the Pontic dialect is a particular form of Greek, not only spoken but also written, while the regional accent of Epirus is an oral form of Greek.

In this frame, a positive connotation of these Greek language varieties remains the only reason that could justify their being chosen by the Greek advertisers. Gambier (2006: 269) observes that «for its defenders, marketing cannot ignore the linguistic diversity, without concluding that the more languages are offered, the more viewers there are». Therefore, the issue that arises is to find out why the advertisers have chosen to use in their advertising messages these two Greek linguistic systems, knowledge of which is limited to two specific linguistic communities, instead of using the standard language, Modern Greek, which is understood by the entirety of the Greek population, avoiding thus the process of subtitling. According to Lambert & Delabastita (1996: 53), «advertising illustrates the degree in which the local accent functions as a seduction or as a marketing strategy».

3.1. Television Αdvertisements in Pontic

We are going to use as a typical example of these advertisements, the advertisement in Pontic (fig.1) which presents two musicians playing Pontic music and singing1, while another person is dancing a Pontic dance. The scene takes plays in a restaurant (at the background plane, we also see momentarily a waiter). The song is about a stomach ache and that is why,

1 Drettas (1999: 92) remarks that there is a contemporary literary production in Pontic, especially works for the theater and, above all, songs, with the very large audience they enjoy.

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toward the end of the advertisement, the dancer offers the drug Maalox which heals digestion problems. It is interesting that what is subtitled in standard Greek is not a dialogue or narrative but a song. At the end of the advertisement, a commentator continues in standard Greek (change of linguistic code) to advertise the drug and ensure the transmission of the message, using the standard language which is present in all advertisements and which links semiotically the non-everyday (the Pontic dialect) with the everyday (Modern Greek). In the table that follows, we see in the first column the song in Pontic, in the second column the subtitling of the song and its translation in English, and in the third column the words of the narrator and their translation in English.

Song in Pontic transliterated in Modern Greek

Song subtitled in Modern Greek and our translation in English

Discourse of the commentator in Modern Greek and our translation in English

OOh...βογκίζω και κοιλοπονώ, επρέστεν η κοιλία μ’.

Βογκάω και κοιλοπονώ, πρήστηκε η κοιλιά μου (I am moaning and I have a stomach ache, my tummy is bloated)

Επειδή όλα περνάνε από το στομάχι, μην σκας. Maalox plus. (Because the way to the heart is through the stomach, don’t you worry: Maalox plus!).

With regards to the subtitling of songs, Diaz Cintas & Remael (2007:

127) mention that « most languages prefer to italicize the content of the subtitles and put them in the same place in the screen as the other subtitles». They add that «in the case of companies, the subtitles of a song are punctuated following the conventions of poetry: each line starts with a capital letter and no punctuation is used at the end of a line». In our case, we observe that the content of the subtitled song is not in Italics, that each line doesn’t start with a capital letter and that there is no punctuation at the end a line. We think that this happens because the entire advertisement is constructed around the Pontic song, the only text to subtitle, a fact which allows the subtitlers to use different conventions and not the ones used in poetry. We also observe that the advertisers have chosen to use the Pontic dialect in the advertisement message, despite the fact that it is not understood by a large number of the viewers, in order to show that the advertised product can be used by everyone, even by language communities with a very strong ethnotic identity, such as the Pontic community.

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Fig. 1. Frame from the television advertisement

3.2. Television Advertisements in the Regional Accent of Epirus

Let us now examine a typical example of the second type of advertisements (fig. 2), which is about cooked meats. In this television advertisement, a young woman in sport apparel is jogging at the bank of a small river, then stops and utters a few phrases in the regional accent of Epirus, which are subtitled. The beauty of the natural surroundings, the characteristics of the young woman (blonde with green eyes), and the language system she uses, are all in synergy so as to connote the region of Epirus, a region of great natural beauty, known for its agricultural produce. The region of Epirus, along with the utterance « ας φάμε σαν άλλοτε» (let us eat as we used to), are mentioned by the commentator, who speaks after the young woman, in Modern Greek (change of linguistic code) and in the written slogan at the end of the advertising message. This advertising choice links an everyday event of the past, eating, with the present event, trying to transfer to the contemporary time the connotation of consumption of natural products made the old way.

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Fig. 2. Frame from the television advertisement

With regards to the subtitling, we observe that the letters are very small and not in Italics. We also observe that the ellipsis mark appears at the end of a subtitle when the period continues to a second subtitle. What is interesting is that the advertisers subtitle in Modern Greek a language variety which is not far from the standard language and of which the differences lie at the levels of phonetics and vocabulary alone. Although the northern regional accents are looked down on, the advertisers have preferred to use them in their advertising message because they connote an everyday life of the past, characterised by simplicity and proximity to nature.

4. Intralingual Subtitling as a Semiotic Means

Lambert & Delabastita (1996: 54) consider it important to establish «at which point the subtitle accomplishes a function simply informative, in the service of the screen and the non-verbal semiotic signs (or even of verbal signs in a non-accessible language), or rather a function deliberately narrative, and consequently mimetic and cultural, linked to determined sociolects and value systems ». In our case, the intralingual subtitling accomplishes a double function: on the one hand, informative, as the Pontic dialect and the regional accent of Epirus are verbal signs non-accessible to the viewers who don’t speak these varieties, and on the other, simultaneously, narrative, because the subtitling becomes a cultural and ideological sign, linked to specific ethnotic groups and specific values (a

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simple and natural way of life), introduced into the everyday life of contemporary Greece.

One should also notice that the subtitling of Greek language varieties in Greek television presents certain particular characteristics. Thus, we observe that no advertisement in our research sample includes dialogue in these language varieties, and that there is always an utterance in Modern Greek at the end of each advertisement, which presents the qualities of the advertised product. This shows that although the advertisers may use language varieties in order to exploit the connotations transferred from the past to the everyday life of the viewers, they don’t risk a confusion which would possibly damage the launching of the product. This is the reason why they use the commentator in Modern Greek at the end of each advertisement. Moreover, this shows that it would be incorrect to suppose that advertising serves noble ideals, such as multiligualism, ethnotic consciousness and expression, and the protection of cultural tradition – ideals which are now considered European, because of the European Union. One should not forget Eco’s famous words (1985: 154): «advertising wakes up desires; however, by doing this, not only does it compel the world to desire, it also tells them what they should want and what it would be good to want» (our translation from the Greek text).

The change of linguistic code, the recourse to the standard language, is not the only means the advertisers use in order to make certain of the reception of their advertising message. They also use intersemiotic translation in order to create a phenomenon of redundancy of semiotic signs. We observe that at the end of all the advertisements there is an intersemiotic translation between the advertised product (visual semiotic system) and the discourse of the actor or the commentator (verbal semiotic system). The intersemioticity, present in a great number of human activities – for certain semioticians, everywhere – remains one of the principal characteristics of television discourse.

This intersemioticity is put to the service of the diffusion of underlying, connotative messages. Therefore, nowadays, television exploits the positive connotations produced by the use of language varieties at a time when the predominance of the standard language is well established. Furthermore, the standard language in Greece is not linked to connotations of the same kind as the several varieties, because it is a neutral system, devoid of specific connotations and used as a common code. One should mention that the launching of these language varieties constitutes an ideological choice as « the media transfer these ideologies that the receivers use as codes which originate from the social situation in

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which they live, their level of education and their psychology at the moment» (Eco, 1985: 31).

5. Instead of a Conclusion

The connotations shared by all the television advertisements studied here concern the traditional, a notion which covers, according to the advertisers, the ethnotic group (Pontic, of Epirus), as well as health, eating and the past. It is these connotations reflecting the everyday of yesteryear that the advertisers try to revive in our actual reality. More precisely, the choice of the Pontic celebration invokes a representation of the Pontic tradition with music, dance, singing and tempting rich food. These values are historically invariable. Then again, the television advertisement of Epirus chooses to invoke a traditional way of life, with natural products that come from an environment far from urban activity. These cultural signs are diachronic for the Greeks. Fabbri (2008: 52) remarks that «the signs of a culture become the equivalents of the words of a culture», and it is these signs that one has sometimes to subtitle, even intralinguistically.

Lotman & Ouspenski (1990: 246) consider that “the more far away from us is an era in history, geography or culture, the more evident is the fact that its everyday behaviour deserves to be specifically studied”. To this is linked the fact that the documents that fix the norms of the everyday, the ordinary behaviour for a determined socium, generally originate from foreigners or are written for the use of foreigners. They suppose an observer external to the given socium. May the advertisers play this role of external observer? We think that they may, particularly considering how other studies on the traditional in Europe (Germany, Switzerland, France, Italy and Finland) remind us that the same semantic fields are forming the traditional in these countries too (see Wehn, 2001: 67). Wehn also claims that the advertising industry distinguishes between standardised and non-standardised advertisement, the former actualising the philosophy of selling the same things in the same way everywhere, the latter varying locally the messages and their verbal and visual actualisations. It is obvious that the television advertisements that we have studied belong to the latter category. However, they are constructed on values and connotations which, we think, are common everywhere. This shows that the contemporary everyday can also be composed of diachronic and diatopic elements.

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