189 The challenge of dubbing bird names: shifts of meaning and translation strategies used in the German version of The Big Year (2011)
Nadja Weisshaupt
University of the Basque Country, Spain
ABSTRACT
Despite the growth of the English-speaking audience, audiovisual translation is still widespread and appreciated by a considerable proportion of media users, who watch audiovisual products in their native tongue. These products are translated using different transfer modes, such as subtitling, dubbing or voice-over.
This study focuses on the quality of one of these modes: dubbing, which is measured considering appropriate register, cultural background, as well as the synchronisation between the translating voice and the speaking actor/actress or the on-screen activities. In order to evaluate the dubbing strategies used for translating English bird names in the German dubbed version of the film The Big Year, qualitative features from scientific and audiovisual translation theory have been applied in consideration of established standard scientific terminology and human factors in the birding community. Constraints and challenges arising and their effects on the quality of dubbing are discussed. Various shifts in meaning were identified and classified as to their impact on the general understanding of the scenes. The majority of the shifts were of minor importance, but there were some severe distortions in key scenes, which caused obvious though avoidable incoherence and consequently affected the overall quality of the dubbing.
The present study identified both successful and unsuccessful dubbing strategies. It concludes that a systematic adherence to established standard ornithology terminology is not always pursued and that, although some deviations are occasionally suitable due to dubbing constraints, this lack of consistency is overall detrimental to the factual and scientific content of the film.
KEYWORDS
Dubbing, ornithology, synchronisation, shifts, scientific translation, audiovisual translation.