Babel - Volume 68, Issue 4, 2022

Abstract

This study investigates a special category of euphemism, i.e., euphemizers (Farghal 2012). It makes a key distinction between euphemism which is normally engineered to mitigate the impact of a certain specific expression in a structure through substituting it by a milder one, and euphemizer which is seen as a scene-setter for and an impact-softener of the entire topic or discourse in any given communicative situation. As far as the Politeness Principle (Leech 1983) and the Cooperative Principle (Grice 1975) are concerned, the study shows that euphemizers in Jordanian Arabic have been found to be exploited to generate particularized rather than generalized conversational implicatures or floutings as to achieve certain communicative politeness-related purposes, such as softening the overarching negative force of the entire discourse, soothing the fury of interactants, showing respect, high-esteem, friendliness, warmth, and hospitability. These purposes emerge as the raison d’être behind such a pervasive “socio-discoursal deodorization.” Analysis also shows that the pragmatic translation proved to be an appropriate, but to a large extent, a dominant strategy that has aptly been opted for in dealing with many cases that match with English, whereas the deletion or zero-translation strategy, to a lesser extent, has been applied to unmatchful ones.

Abstract

Transcreation is a practice with a status that has to date not been consolidated in the field of Translation Studies. While some authors consider that the term brings little value to the discipline (Bernal Merino 2006; Gambier and Munday 2014), others define transcreation as a service involving the creative adaptation of marketing and advertising content (Pedersen 2014; TAUS 2019) or as a strategy adopted in creative areas like AVT (Malenova 2017; Chaume 2018), localization (Mangirón and O’Hagan 2006; Crosignani and Ravetto 2011) and literary translation (Lal 1996; De Campos 2013). The above definitions reflect the perspectives of the language services industry and academia. However, the points of view of individual language professionals have not usually been considered when conceptualizing transcreation. The purpose of this paper is to address these perceptions by adopting a social qualitative approach by means of an instrument called “The DTP Survey.” The results of this survey seem to point to a dual definition of transcreation as both a service and a strategy, with both approaches being compatible and not mutually exclusive as they have been in previous characterizations of the practice.

Abstract

This paper takes a meta-analysis and synthesis approach to emphasize systemic functional linguistics’ contribution to translation studies. A coding book was designed to analyze 123 studies collected through email inquiry, database search, and manual examination. The paper reports on the substantive features and methodological features of the studies. Content analysis was presented on four major research themes: general translation, genre translation, interpreting, and translation training. After discussing the synthesis results, the paper is concluded with implications for future research.

Abstract

Through the analysis of a case of translation and censorship, this study offers a recreation of the microhistory of La terre (1883), by Émile Zola, at the time when this foreign French novel was imported into the Francoist literary system, focusing on the processes of reception, conditioning and appropriation to which this work was subjected by the Franco regime in order to ensure its ideological adequacy. The study of the two Spanish versions published during the dictatorship will show that Zola’s controversial novel went through an exercise of self-censorship and metacensorship which aimed mainly at silencing a clear anti-religious sentiment among the French peasant community depicted in the original text, seen as unacceptable under the catholic and agrarian society ruled by Franco.

Abstract

As films are distributed across the globe, film song translation has become a subject of study, which entails considering multi-modal factors. This paper aims to explore the major dimensions and parameters involved in film song translation. Based on previous research on music and translation, this paper proposes a framework for studying film song translation from verbal, vocal, and visual dimensions. The verbal dimension involves semantic meaning, metaphors, images, mood, and emotion. The vocal dimension includes the number of syllables and musical notes, the length of musical notes, rhyme and parallelism, the rise and fall of the melody, and the segmentation of a line. The visual dimension covers the plot, characters, and background pictures. This paper uses this framework to analyze the Chinese translation of Amazing Grace in the film Forever Young to demonstrate how film song translation can be flexible in tackling verbal, vocal, and visual restrictions and possibilities.

Abstract

The translation of taboo words has attracted scholars’ interest in studying it in the audiovisual context over the last decades. The surge of research on this predominant form of translation in everyday life has brought to light the communicative, pragmatic, and semiotic aspects as well as the technical constraints for subtitling taboo words. Previous research has primarily taken a quantitative method, discussed issues that justify their results, and suggested possible outcomes from a potential receiver’s point of view. While contributing to existing related literature, this paper argues that there is a need for a thorough, detailed examination of translation options in subtitling taboo words. The paper presents a three-layered typology of methods, strategies, and techniques, which provides a comprehensive description of audiovisual translators’ options. Following a bottom-up/top-down approach, the proposed typography is then put to the test in a corpus-based case study comprising six movies and their professional subtitles broadcast on Portuguese televisions.

This article reviews Multimodal Approaches to Chinese-English Translation and Interpreting

This article reviews Translations of Security: A Framework for the Study of Unwanted Futures