Cover not available

Article published In: FORUM
Vol. 21:1 (2023) ► pp.96–114

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

Chinese audiovisual translation

Strategies and solutions applied in multilingual films

 | University of SzegedSzeged
 | University of SzegedSzeged
Published online: 6 July 2023
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/forum.00028.meh
Abstract
The increasing use of multilingualism in audiovisual products, especially feature films, has attracted attention from audiovisual translation (AVT) scholars; however, such research is missing in the Chinese AVT context. This paper strived to fill this niche by exploring the common methods of the rendition of a third language (L3) in Chinese dubbing, subtitling, and fansubbing. The corpus of the study comprised six English-speaking feature films alongside their fan and professional-created Chinese subtitles and dubs available online, and its contents was mainly selected based on two criteria: (i) the L3s used, for example, French, Indian, Swahili, Xhosa, and Russian, and (ii) the availability of fan and pro-produced Chinese subtitles and dubs. For dubbing, the analysis of the corpus revealed that the Chinese professional dubbing team marked the L3s in a few cases but applied translational patterns inconsistently. the comparison of the pro- and fansubs demonstrated that both did not mark the L3s in their translations and that professional subtitlers performed better than the fansubbers in the rendition of multilingualism in terms of graphic codes and the original films’ storytelling.
Résumé
L’utilisation croissante du multilinguisme dans les produits audiovisuels, en particulier les longs métrages, a attiré l’attention des spécialistes de la traduction audiovisuelle ; cependant, de telles recherches manquent dans le contexte de l’AVT en Chine. Cet article s’est efforcé de combler cette lacune en explorant les méthodes courantes de restitution d’une troisième langue (L3) dans le doublage, le sous-titrage et le fansubbing chinois. Le corpus de l’étude comprenait six longs métrages anglophones ainsi que leurs sous-titres et doublages chinois créés par des fans et des professionnels et disponibles en ligne, et son contenu a été principalement sélectionné sur la base de deux critères : (i) les L3 utilisées, par exemple le français, l’indien, le swahili, le xhosa et le russe, et (ii) la disponibilité de sous-titres et de doublages chinois produits par des amateurs et des professionnels. Pour le doublage, l’analyse du corpus a révélé que l’équipe de doublage professionnelle chinoise a marqué les L3 dans quelques cas mais a appliqué des modèles de traduction de manière incohérente. La comparaison des sous-titres pro et fans a démontré que les deux n’ont pas marqué les L3 dans leurs traductions et que les sous-titreurs professionnels ont obtenu de meilleurs résultats que les fansubbers dans la restitution du multilinguisme en termes de codes graphiques et de narration des films d’origine.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Multilingualism and AVT
  • 3.Methods
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1Taxonomy of methods in official dubbing
      • 4.1.1Neutralization (L3TT=L2)
      • 4.1.2Adaptation
      • 4.1.3No translation
      • 4.1.4Translation by subtitling
    • 4.2Rendition of L3 in prosub and fansubs
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (71)
References
Aloseviciene, Egle. 2020. ”Peculiarities of Multilingual Films in the Context of Audio Visual Translation”. Respectus Philologicus 37 (42): 147–59. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Babayi, Ivankosi, Tessa Dowling, and Rethabile Possa-Mogoera. 2020. “The Language of Wakanda: An Analysis of the Use of IsiXhosa in the Hollywood Science-Fiction Film Black Panther.” South African Journal of African Languages 40 (3): 249–56. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Badstübner-Kizik, Camilla. 2017. “Multilingualism in the Movies. Languages in Films Revisited.” In Audiovisual Translation: Research and Use, edited by Mikołaj Deckert, 233–254. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang GmbH.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baldo, Michela. 2009. “Dubbing Multilingual Films: La Terra del Ritorno and the Italian Canadian Diaspora.” InTRAlinea. Online translation Journal.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bartoll, Eduard. 2006. “Subtitling Multilingual Films.” MuTra 2006 – Audiovisual Translation Scenarios: Conference Proceedings, 1–6.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Berger, Verena, and Miya Komori. 2010. Polyglot Cinema: Migration and Transcultural Narration in France, Italy, Portugal and Spain. Vol. 21. Münster, Germany: LIT Verlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Beseghi, Micol. n.d. “WTF! Taboo Language in TV Series: An Analysis of Professional and Amateur Translation.” Altre Modernità 151: 215–31.
Bleichenbacher, Lukas. 2008. Multilingualism in the Movies: Hollywood Characters and Their Language Choices. Tübingen: Francke.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Braun, Sabine, and Pilar Orero. 2010. “Audio Description with Audio Subtitling – an Emergent Modality of Audiovisual Localisation.” Perspectives 18 (3): 173–88. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bréan, Samuel, and Jean-François Cornu. 2012. “The Translation and Reception of Multilingual Films.” InMedia, no. 2. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chaume, Frederic. 2004. “Film Studies and Translation Studies: Two Disciplines at Stake in Audiovisual Translation.” Meta: Journal Des Traducteurs/Meta: Translators’ Journal 491: 12–24. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2012. Audiovisual Translation: Dubbing. Manchester, England: Jerome, St Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Clark, Paul. 1987. Chinese cinema: Culture and politics since 1949. Cambriegde, England: Cambriedge Univ. Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Corrius, Montse. 2008. “Translating Multilingual Audiovisual Texts: Priorities, Restrictions, Theoretical Implications.” Unpublished PhD dissertation, Autonomous University of Barcelona.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Corrius, Montse, and Patrick Zabalbeascoa. 2011. “Language Variation in Source Texts and Their Translations.” Target 23 (1): 113–130. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cuarón, Alfonso, dir. Roma. 2018. Mexico and United States: Espectáculos Fílmicos El and Netflix.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
De Higes-Andino, Irene., Ana Maria Prats-Rodríguez, Juan José Martínez-Sierra and Frederic Chaume. 2013. “Subtitling Language Diversity in Spanish Immigration Films.” Meta 581 (1): 134–145. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Delabastita, Dirk. 2009. “Fictional Representations.” In Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, edited by Mona Baker and Gabriela Saldanha, 109–112. London, England: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Díaz-Cintas, Jorge. 2011. “Dealing with Multilingual Films in Audiovisual Translation.” In Translation Sprachvariation Mehrsprachigkeit, edited by Wolfgang Pöckl, Ingeborg Ohnheiser, and Peter Sandrini, 215–233. New York: Peter Lang GmbH.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
DisneyMusicVEVO. 2019. “Various Artists – Hakuna Matata (In 28 Languages) (From ‘The Lion King’).” 2019. [URL]
Dore, Margherita. 2019. “Multilingual Humour in Audiovisual Translation. Modern Family Dubbed in Italian.” European Journal of Humour Research 7 (1): 52–70. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Du, Weijia. 2018. “Exchanging Faces, Matching Voices: Dubbing Foreign Films in China.” Journal of Chinese Cinemas 12 (3): 285–99. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dwyer, Tessa. 2005. “Universally Speaking: Lost in Translation and Polyglot Cinema.” New Series–Themes in Translation Studies 41: 295–310.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ebrahimzadeh Poustchi, Mahtab, and Zahra Amirian. 2019. “Strategies Used in Dubbing Multilingual Movies into Persian.” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, December, 1–14. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Favreau, Jon., dir. The Lion King. 2019. United States: Walt Disney Studios and Motion Pictures.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hanes, William Travis, and Frank Sanello. 2002. The Opium Wars: The Addiction of One Empire and the Corruption of Another. Naperville: Sourcebooks, Inc.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heiss, Christine. 2021. “Dubbing Multilingual Films : A New Challenge ? Dubbing Multilingual Films : A New Challenge ? Christine Heiss.”Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
De Higes Andino, Irene. 2014. “The Translation of Multilingual Films: Modes, Strategies, Constraints and Manipulation in the Spanish Translations of It’s a Free World ….” Linguistica Antverpiensia, New Series – Themes in Translation Studies 131: 211–231. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Khoshsaligheh, Masood, Saeed Ameri, and Milad Mehdizadkhani. 2018. “A Socio-Cultural Study of Taboo Rendition in Persian Fansubbing: An Issue of Resistance.” Language and Intercultural Communication 18 (6): 663–80. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Khoshsaligheh, Masood, Saeed Ameri, Farzaneh Shokoohmand, and Milad Mehdizadkhani. 2020. “Subtitling in the Iranian Mediascape: Towards a Culture-Specific Typology.” International Journal of Society, Culture & Language 8 (2): 55–74. [URL]
Khoshsaligheh, Masood, Azadeh Eriss, Milad Mehdizadkhani and Elnaz Pakar. (2022). “Translation of Multilingual Films in Iran in Persian Dubbing.” International Journal of Multilingualism. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lee, Ang., dir. Life of Pi. 2012. United States: 20th Century Fox.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Li, Dang. 2018. “Chinese-Dialect Film and Its Translation: A Case Study of The World (2004).” Journal of Chinese Cinemas 12 (3): 267–84. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lippi-Green, Rosina. 2012. English with an Accent: Language, Ideology, and Discrimination in the United States. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Liu, Jin. 2006. “The Rhetoric of Local Languages as the Marginal: Chinese Underground and Independent Films by Jia Zhangke and Others.” Modern Chinese Literature and Culture 18 (2): 163–205.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lu, Hsiao-peng Sheldon., and Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh, (eds.). 2005. Chinese-Language Film: Historiography, Poetics, Politics. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Massidda, Serenella. 2015. Audiovisual Translation in the Digital Age: The Italian Fansubbing Phenomenon. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2020. “Fansubbing: Latest Trends and Future Prospects.” In The Palgrave Handbook of Audiovisual Translation and Media Accessibility, edited by Łukasz Bogucki and Mikołaj Deckert, 189–208. Cham, Germany: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mangold, James., dir. Logan. 2017. United States: 20th Century Fox.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mehdizadkhani, Milad, and Masood Khoshsaligheh. 2017. “Translation of Graphic Codes: The Case Study of Two Official Persian Dubbed Versions.” Language and Translation Studies (JLTS) 50 (3): 49–69. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2021. “Insertion or Voice-off in Rendition of Graphic Codes: An Experiment in Persian Dubbing.” Visual Communication 20 (1): 81–99. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Minkoff, Rob., dir. The Forbidden Kingdom. 2008. United States and China: Lionsgate and The Weinstein Company.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
O’Sullivan, Carol. 2011. Translating Popular Films. Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pérez-González, Luis. 2012. “Co-Creational Subtitling in the Digital Media: Transformative and Authorial Practices.” International Journal of Cultural Studies 16 (1): 3–21. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. Audiovisual Translation: Theories, Methods and Issues. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pollack, Sydney. 2005. The Interpreter. United Kingdom and United states: United International Pictures.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Russo, Anthony, and Joe Russo, dirs. Captain America: Civil War. 2016. United States: Walt Disney Studios and Motion Pictures.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sasamoto, Ryoko. 2014. “Impact Caption as a Highlighting Device: Attempts at Viewer Manipulation on TV.” Discourse, Context & Media 61: 1–10. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sepielak, Katarzyna. 2014. “Translation Techniques in Voiced-over Multilingual Feature Movies.” Linguistica Antverpiensia, New Series. Themes in Translation Studies, 131: 251–72.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Şerban, Adriana. 2012. “Translation as alchemy: The aesthetics of multilingualism in film” MonTI.Monografías de Traducción e Interpretación 41: 39–63. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sofia Coppola, dir. Lost in Translation. 2005. United States: Focus Features.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sun, Hongkai, Hu, Zengyi, and Huang, Xing, (eds.). 2007. The Languages of China. Beijing, China: The Commercial Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stahelski, Chad., dir. John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum. 2019. United States: Lionsgate.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Szarkowska, Agnieszka, and Julianna Boczkowska. 2020. “Colour Coding Subtitles in Multilingual Films – a Reception Study.” Perspectives 0 (0): 1–17. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Szarkowska, Agnieszka, Jagoda Żbikowska, and Izabela Krejtz. 2014. “Strategies for Rendering Multilingualism in Subtitling for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.” Linguistica Antverpiensia, New Series. Themes in Translation Studies 131: 273–91.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Szarkowska, Agnieszka, Jagoda Zbikowska, and Izabela Krejtz. 2013. “Subtitling for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in Multilingual Films.” International Journal of Multilingualism 10 (3): 292–312. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Taylor, C. 2000. “The subtitling of film: reaching another community.” In Discourse and Community; Doing Functional Linguistics, edited by Eija Ventola, 309–330, Tübingen, Germany: Gunter Narr Verlag.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Toury, Gideon. 2012 (1st edtion: 1995). Descriptive Translation Studies and beyond: Revised Edition. Amsterdam, Netherlands: John Benjamins Publishing. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wahl, Chris. 2005. “Discovering a Genre: The Polyglot Film.” Cinemascope-Independent Film Journal 1 (10): 1–8.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Waley, Arthur. 2005. The Analects of Confucius. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wang, Dingkun. 2017. “Fansubbing in China – With Reference to the Fansubbing Group Yyets.” Jostrans: The Journal of Specialised Translation 281: 165–90.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wang, Dingkun, and Xiaochun Zhang. 2017. “Fansubbing in China: Technology-Facilitated Activism in Translation.” Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 29 (2): 301–18. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yves, Gambier, and Haina Jin. 2018. “Audiovisual Translation in China: A Dialogue Between Yves Gambier and Haina Jin”. Journal of Audiovisual Translation 1 (1):26–39. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zabalbeascoa, Patrick. 2010. “Translation in Constrained Communication and Entertainment.” In New Insights into Audiovisual Translation and Media Accessibility: Media for All 21, edited by Jorge Díaz Cintas, Anna Matamala and Josélia Neves, 153–175. Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Rodopi. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2018. “Solution-Types for Representing Dubbed Film and TV Multilingual Humour.” In Linguistic and Cultural Representation in Audiovisual Translation, edited by Irene Ranzato and Serenella Zanotti, 165–83. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2019. “‘That’s Just What We Need, a Fourth Language’. Multilingual Humour in Film and Television Translation.” Multilingualism in Film, 15–34.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zabalbeascoa, Patrick, and Elena Voellmer. 2014. “Accounting for Multilingual Films in Translation Studies. Intratextual Translation in Dubbing.” Media and Translation. An Interdisciplinary Approach, no. July: 288.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zhang, Xiaochun. 2015. “Cinematic Multilingualism in China and Its Subtitling.” Quaderns, Revista de Traducció 221: 385–398.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zhang, Yingjin. 1997. “From “Minority Film” to “Minority Discourse”: Questions of Nationhood and Ethnicity in Chinese Cinema.” In Transnational Chinese Cinemas, edited by Sheldon Hsiao-peng Lu, 81–104. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zhou, Qingsheng. 2020. Ethnic Minority Languages in China. Boston: De Gruyter Academic Publishing. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Al-Tarawneh, Alalddin & Mohammed Al-Badawi
2024. Corporate Compliance in Multilingual Environments: Translation Strategies for Legal Harmony. In Frontiers of Human Centricity in the Artificial Intelligence-Driven Society 5.0 [Studies in Systems, Decision and Control, 226], ► pp. 671 ff. DOI logo
Zhang, Leticia-Tian & Boris Vazquez-Calvo
2024. Fan Translation and Multilingualism. In The Palgrave Handbook of Multilingualism and Language Varieties on Screen, ► pp. 197 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 9 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue