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Alexander Burak.

Translating Whole-Text Realia: Film Titles,Bumper Stickers, and Voiceover Dubs

(A paper presented on June 6 at the international conference “Translation in Russian Contexts: Transcultural, Translingual and Transdisciplinary Points of Departure,” June 3-7, 2014, Uppsala University, Sweden.)

Abstract

To a greater or lesser extent, every translation performs an act of cultural transposition and readjustment of complex clusters of textual and extra-textual meanings. I will consider three difficult translation situations requiring the translator to internalize the whole discursive event in the source language and culture and to reinvent it in the form of a translation that would, ideally, resonate and make sense, or, at least, hint at the nature of the culturalproduct in the source culture. Film titles, bumper stickers, and the properties and characteristic use of the translator’s/dubber’s voice in film voiceovers are “global” representations of specific discourses as whole texts, respectively: a film narrative, a significant aspect of a car driver’s worldview and

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personality (i.e., a personal résumé in one or two lines), and the personalities of film characters representing the whole of America or England, for example. In the case of voiceovers, Russians seem to expect the voiceover to show that the English are old-fashioned, pedantic, affected, and adhering to tradition; whereas in the American case, they generallyexpect the voiceovers to sound swashbuckling, earthy and devoid of any pretense and pedantry. Russian voiceover translators and actors anticipate such expectations and generally deliver the expected result – sometimes distorting the nature of the original. I will briefly discuss a few translations of film titles,one or two possible ways of translating some bumper stickers, and the effect of voiceover film translationson the perception by Russian audiences of the film characters’ personalities as representations of entire cultures – in this case American and British. Using specific examples of translations of such whole-text realia, I will demonstrate that effective “global” translations of these realia are performative acts that require a deep immersion of the translator in the two respective cultures and a high level of professional expertise. I will, therefore, also discuss very brieflythe different competencies required of the translator to negotiate the translation difficulties posed by the three types of the whole-text realia in question. (200 words)

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A field of scholarly studies is defined by the existence of a terminological apparatus that is generally accepted by the relevant scholarly community.A scholarly term must be compact, have a precise definition devoid of any connotations, allow only one interpretation in different contexts, and form an integral part of the system of interdependent terms defining the given scholarly field, or discipline. Without a system of specialized terms, a scientific/scholarly discipline cannot exist.

Over the last five years or so, I’ve been playing around with the concept “whole text realium (pl. realia).” I first introduced the term for discussion inmy article “Translating ‘Skaz’ as a Whole-Text Realium”1

in the SEEJ journal and later developed the idea in my book “The Other” in Translation.2

I suggest the term as an addition to the comprehensiveterminological system of realia developed by Vlakhov and Florin, which they presented in their famous book The Untranslatable in Translation.3

In a very general sense, a “whole-text realium” is the unique overall culture-specific imprint made by a verbal product on the mind of its consumer. I will

1 Burak, A.L. “Translating ‘Skaz’ as a Whole-Text Realium.” SEEJ (Slavic and East European Journal – USA). Vol. 54, number 3, fall 2010, pp. 453-475.2 Burak, Alexander. “The Other” in Translation: A Case for Comparative Translation Studies. Bloomington, IN: Slavica Publishers/Indiana University Press, 2013.3 Влахов, С.И, Флорин, С.П. Непереводимое в переводе. Издание 3-е, исправленное и дополненное. М: Р.Валент, 2006 (1-е изд., 1980).

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briefly consider three types of such whole-text realia: film titles, bumper stickers, and voice characteristicsin film voiceover translations. A film title stands forthe whole film narrative. A bumper sticker may be viewed as part of somebody’s résumé, and the distinctive timbre and prosody of a film character are an important cachet of his or her persona in the film narrative. These realia usually incorporate unique, culture-specific linguistic and extra-linguistic features that characterize a communicative act or cultural product as a whole. They do not have direct correspondences in the receiving culture. Such whole-text realia – or voices, in the sense of distinctive styles or manners of expression – make it necessary forthe translator to perceive a discursive event (a film narrative, the “personal résumé” of a bumper sticker, or the distinctive qualities and prosody of a film character’s voice) as a whole and to reinvent and re-express it in the receiving culture in the form of a translation that would, ideally, resonate with, or, at least, hint at the nature of the cultural product in the source culture.

In America, car stickers are very common:

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In Russia car stickers are not as common as in the USA and for that reason are arguably more visible. For example, two common car stickers in Russia are: СпасибоДеду за Победу! (Thank you, Grandpa, for the Victory!) and Хрюши против! (The Piggies are Against [Deceitful Trading Practices]!) The former emphasizes the crucial contribution of the Soviet Union to the victory in WW II. The latter supports a youth movement protesting against grocery store owners selling past-the-sale-dategoods.

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Спасибо Деду за Победу! Could also alternatively be translated as My Grandpa is a WW II Hero! / My GranddadWon the War! / or even My Grandpa Kicked Ass in WW II! The last one is probably the best I can suggest.

The logotype of the Хрюши против! looks like this:

With Хрюши против! a deeper immersion in the current Russian culture is necessary. More of that at the end of my talk.

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Translating film titles also calls for a lot of ingenuity. Here is a representative list of American titles used in Russia:

Hurt Locker (2008. During the Iraq War, a sergeant recently assigned to an army bomb squad is at odds withhis squad mates due to his maverick way of handling hiswork. Director: Kathryn Bigelow) – Буря в пустыне

Hurt locker, slang: (1) a period of immense, inescapable physical or emotional pain This recession has been a real hurt locker.(2) military slang: a bad and painful place (Urban Dictionary)

Observe and Report (2009. On the surface, the story of a bi-polar mall security guard, Ronnie Barnhardt, who is called into action to stop a flasher from embarrassing shoppers. At a deeper level – a harsh satire on American society. Director: Jody Hill) – Типакрутой полицейский

The phrase “Observe and report” is an obvious allusion to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s slogan “If You See Something, Say Something.”

The Expendables (2010. A CIA operative hires a team of mercenaries and a renegade CIA agent to eliminate a Latin dictator. Director: Sylvester Stallone)

– Неудержимые

Green Zone (2010. Faulty intelligence causes a U.S. Army officer to go rogue as he hunts for weapons of mass destruction in Baghdad. Director: Paul Greengrass)– Не брать живым

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The Green Zone is the most common name for the International Zone of Baghdad, Iraq. It is a 10 square kilometers (3.9 sq mi) area of central Baghdad that wasthe governmental center of the Coalition Provisional Authority and remains the center of the international presence in the city.

Kick-Ass (2010. The story of an ordinary teenager who sets out to become a real-life superhero, calling himself "Kick-Ass." Director: Matthew Vaughn) – Пипец

Пипец, молодёжный сленг – цензурный аналог известного бранного слова; означает плохое происшествие, кажущуюсябезвыходность положения, большие проблемы, неприятности(www.slovonovo.ru).

Grown Ups (2010. A buddy comedy film that tells the story of five childhood friends who won their high school basketball championship in 1978. They reunite three decades later to mourn the death of their coach. Director: Dennis Dugan) – Одноклассники

Dark Zero Thirty (2012. The film dramatizes the decade-long manhunt for and elimination of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. Director: Kathryn Bigelow) – Цель номер один

'Zero dark thirty' is military slang for an unspecifiedtime in the early hours of the morning before dawn. Therelevance of this term to the film is that the raid on Osama bin Laden's quarters was executed between midnight and two o'clock in the morning on May 2, 2011.It means 12:30 am.4

4 https://www.google.com/#q=dark+zero+thirty+meaning

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Silver Linings Playbook (2012. After a stint in a mentalinstitution, former teacher Pat Solitano moves back in with his parents and tries to reconcile with his ex-wife. Things get more complicated when Pat meets Tiffany, a mysterious girl with problems of her own. Director: David. O. Russell) – Мой парень – псих

Of these, Пипец, for example, is overly imaginative andgimmicky. But most of the titles are triumphs of their translators’ ingenuity. Thus Одноклассники arguably captures the theme of the movie better than the original title, which is bland and misleading, while Типа крутой полицейский is a slightly gimmicky localization of the Orwellian “Observe and Report.”

An interesting unexplored aspect of translation practice is the translingual and transcultural effect of a combination of prosody, unique individual voice characteristics, and accents in voiceover film translations and dubs. This combined effect also belongs in the category of whole-text realia. Translationvoiceovers are very relevant to Russia as subtitles arepractically never used. In documentaries and news reports, a targeted use of accents is fairly common andsignals a distinct culture or source through defamiliarization. For example, CNN often uses Arab nationals to read voiceovers in English if the report is about an Arab-world situation. The Russian readers of voiceover translations accompanying news reports anddocumentaries are more likely to deploy prosody. In simplified terms, prosody includes stress, rhythm, tempo, pitch variation, and loudness. Timbre is produced by the unique individual qualities of voice,

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some of which may be described as squeaky, breathy, chesty, etc. Accent most prominently manifests itself in individual sound production, stress distribution, interaction of consonants, and degree of vowel reduction. Accents may be socially marked, or just fashionable in certain circles, like the American sexy-baby accent, for example. All of these voice features become an issue in interpreting and voiceover translations. For example, there are two versions of the “Midsomer Murders” series in Russian, whose voiceovers are noticeably different. The Zytrus5 versionemploys a group of actors who read the translation withvarying degrees of a Ukrainian accent.6 Thus, in the British original CDI Barnaby’s wife Sarah comes across as a well-educated, ironic, mildly coquettish English intellectual. She is the director of studies at a localsecondary school. Her counterpart in the dubbed versionproduces a somewhat different impression because she injects a larger dose of coquettishness into her delivery as compared with the original. This is fine, the problem is that she insufficiently reduces Russian vowels in unstressed syllables, which is a distinct feature of a Ukrainian accent in Russian – very audibleto the native Russian ear. This peculiarity produces anoverly defamiliarizing effect. I, personally, find thisdistracting and, after a while, annoying. Truth be told, a native Ukrainian would probably not notice the discrepancy. In another voiceover version, offered by SDI Media,7 the voiceover Sarah’s prosody is very close 5 ZytruS is a voice-over media group: see //zytrus.ru6 http :// smotrim - serial . com / serialengonline /3074- chisto - anglijskie - ubijstva - 14- sezon . html . Affected pronunciation; slight Ukrainian accent; released by Zytrus. TK Media Release Group7 http://zserials.tv/zarubezhnye/midsomer-murders.php. Adequate prosody; no distractions; released by SDI Media.

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to the original and there is no accent. Of course, it can be argued that the Russian viewer has little chanceof comparing the two voice qualities and prosodies and that such niceties do not really matter. It may well beso. But not for the purist translation expert. In general, I have noticed over the years that Russian voiceover translators and dubbing teams of British films tend to maintain the old tradition of creating the impression of a prim, overly precise, slightly artificial way of speaking – the kind a Russian viewer expects from an English lady or gentleman. The tradition goes back to the dubs of the Soviet period and the voiceovers in the post-Soviet period. Sherlock Holmes, Miss Marple, and Hercule Poirot films immediately spring to mind. The impression is maintained even if the characters do not speak in that way. Things are different with voiceovers of American movies. The most popular Russian voiceover film translator Dmitrii Iurievich Puchkov (generally known as Goblin) seems to pander to the Russian viewers’ expectation that Americans have a kind of relaxed, hail-fellow-well-met, or swashbuckling manner of speaking – and he delivers the goods. This is, of course, a very general comparison, based on my subjective perception. The point I am making here is that the voiceover translator’s speech characteristics may or may not conform to those of the English speakingcharacters. The question is, “Does the translator have to study the original and match his/her prosody, timbre, and accent to it or does s/he simply meet the assumed expectations of the audience? In any case, voiceover prosody remains to be underinvestigated.

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To conclude, translating whole-text realia calls for a multifaceted translingual and transcultural effort, combining linguistic, cultural, textual, subject, transfer, and information retrieval and management knowledge. In order to deal with whole-text realia, the translator has to have not only an uncanny, nearly humanly impossible command of the two languages and cultures plus a knowledge of translation strategies, but also – and perhaps equally important – a rich imagination and a creative ability to connect seeminglyunrelated facts and phenomena. To be able to translate whole-text realia, the translator has to give it his or her linguistic, cultural, and imaginative all.

What I have been trying to do recently is to conceptualize an aspect of translation that does not have an established terminological description. I am suggesting a term that might serve to fill a lacuna in the existing realia nomenclature.

Now for the fun part, let us immerse ourselves for two minutes in a Khriushi protiv! situation to gain inside knowledge of the slogan. By the way, alongside the usual translation “The Piggies are Against! I would suggest,” Piggies are against pigging it!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwCMJycMbMM Хрюши против(2:45); потасовка на Москворецком рынке