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Article published In: Traduire, écrire, réécrire dans un monde en mutation / Writing and Translating as changing Practices: Volume I
Edited by Fayza El Qasem and Freddie Plassard
[FORUM 15:2] 2017
► pp. 288–304

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Subtitling for a global audience

Handling the translation of culture-specific items in TEDx talks

 | Universitat Politècnica de València
Published online: 1 December 2017
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/forum.15.2.07can
Abstract
TED.com is a platform to share ideas through influential talks in video format on topics that range from science and technology to business that engages volunteers from all over the world to help transcribe, subtitle and translate their scripts in more than 100 languages. The justification to engage volunteer transcribers is that transcribed talks can reach a wider audience because they are accessible for hearing impaired individuals, can be indexed in search engines and can achieve TED’s mission of spreading ideas by making transcripts available for translation through TED’s Open Translation Project.
Therefore, talks transcribers play a crucial role in the overall translation workflow and dissemination process as they are responsible for transcribing the contents and foundations of what will be later on translated into different languages. The objective of this paper is to analyse a corpus of talks originally delivered in different variants of Spanish to identify the most common strategies used by volunteer transcribers to handle local or idiomatic expressions and culturally biased items to reach the maximum audience possible and facilitate translation.
Résumé
TED.com est une plateforme de partage d’idées sous la forme de conférences au format vidéo portant sur des sujets qui vont de la science et de la technologie aux monde des affaires, grâce aux traducteurs bénévoles du monde entier qui aident à en transcrire, en sous-titrer et en traduire les scripts dans plus de 100 langues. Les transcripteurs bénévoles s’engagent à transcrire les présentations pour en faciliter la diffusion auprès d’un public élargi, notamment à la communauté malentendante, en permettre le référencement dans les moteurs de recherche et respecter l’objectif de TED, qui consiste à diffuser des idées en mettant les transcriptions à disposition pour traduction dans le cadre du TED Open Translation Project.
De ce fait, les transcripteurs jouent un rôle essentiel dans le processus global de traduction, car ils sont chargés de transcrire le contenu et les fondements de ce qui sera plus tard traduit en différentes langues. Dans cet article, on se propose d’analyser un corpus de conférences, initialement diffusées dans différentes variantes de l’espagnol, dans le but d’identifier les stratégies les plus couramment utilisées par les transcripteurs bénévoles pour traiter les expressions locales ou idiomatiques, ainsi que les expressions culturellement marquées pour atteindre le public le plus large possible et faciliter la traduction.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.TED talks and community translation
    • 2.1Subtitling
  • 3.Culture-specific items in translation
  • 4.Analysis and discussion
    • 4.1Greetings and ways of addressing the audience
    • 4.2Culture-specific references
    • 4.3Idiomatic expressions and lexical differences
  • 5.Conclusions
  • References
References (29)
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