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Abstract: The major part of the movie language is constituted by the dialogues whose quality of translation directly determines the entire quality of dubbed movies, even the art level of the dubbed movies. This paper first introduces the basic requirements and present situation of movie dialogue translation and then analyzes the characteristics and techniques of English movie dialogue translation based on the “functional equivalence”.
Key words: dialogue translation; functional equivalence; dubbed movie
1. Introduction
The movie is a special cultural artistic form, which is the combination of pictures, sounds, and captions. It has opened a leaf of window for millions of Chinese audience to understand the world. The translation of the movie industry in our country has gone through a period of more than 50 years with glorious history. However, in the academic world, the importance of movie translation is infrequently recognized. The famous scholar in the movie translation Qian Shaochang once said that “The translators pay too little attention to the movie translation and this situation is disproportional with the societal effect of the movie translation ”(Qian Shaochang, 2000). According to a statistic of 12 dubbed movies, the translation of the dialogue accounts for more than 98% of the whole translation of the movies. Therefore, the translation quality of dialogues determines the entire quality of dubbed movies.
2. Basic requirements of movie dialogue translation
Compared with the general translation, the basic requi－
rements of movie dialogue translation are as follows: 1) The translator should fully consider the purpose and effect of the original movie, as well as the dubbed movie audience’s culture and knowledge level; 2) The translation should be a faithful recreation based on the original movie. It should not only retain the characteristics of the source language to approach the effect of the original movie, but also conform to the code of language of the target language. In other words, the effect which is made by dubbed movies should be the same as the effect which is made by the original movies.
3. Problems in current movie dialogue translation
Nowadays, more and more movies are introduced to our country and the commercial operation of the movie is strengthened. But the academic world of translation does not pay enough attention to the movie translation. There are many problems existing in the movie translation, including:
1）neglect of choosing adaptation or alienation causing mistranslation
2）neglect of conveying and reconstructing the cultural images causing the mistranslation
3）too much attention on the lexical meanings, gramma
tical classes rather than the meanings
4）neglect of the tone and voice of the original movies which effect the equivalence of the original movie and the dubbed movie.
This paper centers on the above 4 aspects based on the theory of “functional equivalence”.
4. Applications of Functional Equivalence in English Movie Dialogue Translation
4.1 Adaptation and alienation
Nida’s functional equivalence theory views translation as a cross culture and cross language communication. The purpose of communication is to make the two sides of the communication understand each other. In the movie dialogue translation, the translator should base on “functional equivalence” to choose the adaptation or the alienation, which views conveying information complete and apropos as the final purpose of translation.
For example, there is one dialogue in the English movie “Garfield” like this:
——Excuse me, ma’am, please call 911.
The dubbing voice of Chinese is“对不起，小姐，快打119”.
Although the sentence is very simple, the problem which it has is not simple. It is clear that the translator is trying to take the adaptation principle to translate this dialogue，but the translation is misleading. In the western countries, 911 is the telephone number of the police, it is equal to 110 in the mainland of China but not 119 which is fire-alarm telephone number. It is clear that the translator can not manage to seek a corresponding or similar native cultural phenomenon. This simple dialogue was made beyond recognition. Based on analysis above, it is easy to find that it is better to translate it into “对不起，小姐，快打110”. Although this translation is better than the dubbing voice in the movie as it convey the basic information of the original movie, the problem still exists. The audience of Chinese dubbed movie are not only in mainland but also in Hong Kong, Taiwan and other places. As we all know, the telephone number of police in these places are not 110. Even in the mainland of China, this translation will make some careful audience and some children puzzled: Is the telephone number of police in foreign countries also 110? So it is best to take the strategy of alienation to translate it into “快打911”.This translation is advantageous for China and West culture exchange, and it can help the Chinese audience understand the foreign culture. It has significance in the promotion of culture exchange.
As long as the original meanings can be conveyed completely into the target language, the choice between the alienation and the adaptation strategy depends on audience’s knowledge and the expectations.
4.2 Cultural differences and image transformation
Nida holds that the differences between cultures bring more serious complications to the translator than the differences between the language structures. Cultural differences will lead to misunderstanding. Nida says that the translator must be able to put aside the differences in language and culture to allow readers to see the same meaning of the original text clearly.
For example, there is one dialogue in the English movie “Wuthering Heights” like this:
Isabella: It’s a brother’s duty, dear Edgar, to introduce his sister to some other type than fops and pale young poets.
Edgar: Oh, you want a dragon?
Isabella: Yes, I do. With a fiery mustache.
The translation is:
依莎贝拉：这是一个哥哥的义务，亲爱的埃得加，你总不能把自己的妹妹介绍给那些花花公子或弱不禁风的年轻诗人吧。
埃得加：哦，你该不是想嫁一个龙骑兵吧？
依莎贝拉：是的，还长着火红的大胡子。
In the above translation “dragon” is a key word. In English, “dragon” is associated with “the devil”. Whenever this word is mentioned, it can present a devil with a fierce face immediately in the western person’s ideology, threatening to plunge into the world. So it is not difficult for us to understand now that the word “dragon” in the western language culture conceals derogatory meaning. But the word “dragon” in the Chinese culture symbolizes “noble, supreme” and so on. In the past Chinese people call their emperor “the real dragon emperor”. Therefore, most of the relative words and expressions with “the dragon” have the meaning of respect. Evidently, it is clearly inappropriate to translate “dragon” to “龙骑士”. When Chinese viewers watching movies and hearing “龙骑士”, they will immediately form an image that “he” may be a smart and brave Royal Cavalry. But Isabella’s answer is completely incompatible with the audience’s image. Many of them may have such an issue: how come this handsome and courageous “Royal Cavalry” to be “a red-hot long-bearded”? In traditional Chinese history and culture, only those who have more heads and hands of a terrible monster, have green eyebrows, red bearded face. Thus, in the translation of the movie, there are thorny problems of the dislocation of the two languages’ and culture’s images. At the same time, it cannot express the true meaning of the dialogue, which set up a semantic linking barrier.
4.3 Language differences between Chinese and English
Nida thinks that the structures of language usually reflect some key features of the language. And he believes that the two languages have become two different languages, because there are different surface features of language. Therefore, the form must be broken in order to bring out the original information.
Chinese is a type of ideograph which has the character of diamond shape, as it is called “Chinese character”. It is the synthesis of letter and the idea, most time we can tell the meaning of a word just from the shape. But English is a kind of phonogram which takes the letter as its character. It is abstract and we can hardly tell the meaning of a word just from its shape and structure. Therefore, the following three situations，the lexical and grammatical form must be changed in order to convey the information more completely and to be more flowing in the target language.
4.3.1 Omission
In the English movies, some tags and phatic frequently appeared, they contain very little practical meanings. In fact, it is unnecessary to translate them. For example, in the movie “Chicken run”, there is a sentence which Ginger used to threaten Rocky:
Ginger：I should turn you in right now.
Rocky：You wouldn’t, would you?
Ginger：Give me one reason why I shouldn’t.
The translation is:
金洁：我马上就把你交出去。
洛奇：你不会吧,你会吗?
金洁：给我一个不那么做的理由。
In the last two sentences, the literal translation seems prolixness and long-windedness. It does not conform to the principle of simplify of dialogue translation and the characteristic of spoken language. It will be better to take the trimming strategy to translate it as:
洛奇：你不会吧？
金洁：为什么不呢?
4.3.2 Adding
As knowledge and culture background of the audience are quite different, the movie translators should try their best to help the audience to understand these linguistic phenomena which are closely related to the history, the region culture and the religious custom of a nation. If the translator chooses to translate the movie literal, and does not consider audience’s knowledge background of culture and history, and even does not make any explanation to certain special cultural images, it will be difficult for the audience to understand it as the cultural images and cultural implication are damaged and torn to pieces.
For example, in the movie “Chicken Run”, the mice brothers are drooling over the eggs. When they are watching the hens fall heavily when they are learning to fly, they can not help warning them “Hey! Careful of those eggs!”. The translation without adding “别把蛋摔破了” makes the audience puzzled—does the learning of flying has anything to do with breaking the eggs? The translation should better be changed into “别把肚子里的蛋摔破了!” The addition of “肚子里的” makes the meaning accurate and complete, it removes the obstacle which affects the audience to understand.
4.3.3 Conformity to the action and the body language
For the movies which need dubbing, translators should consider not only the character of the roles, also the mouth’s shape and the time length of one character’s sentence should be measured, and the dubbing translation should be as fit as possible, comparing to the original version, especially when it is in the facial feature scenes, otherwise the characters on the screen might still keep his/her mouth open, but the dubbing ends, or the characters on the screen has been silent for a while, but dubbing voice still goes on. These all will leave obvious flaws, which make the audience feel very unnatural. So in translating the dialogue excellent translators should grasp and carefully study the time length of the two languages, the tone strength, to make it fit with the screen to achieve the best conversion.
According to this principle, the following strategies and techniques are usually adopted by the subtitle translator:
1）adding or omitting
The translator must try the best to express the main ideas of the original dialogue on the premise that reserve the characteristic and meaning of the original dialogues. In order to emphasize the core meaning of the dialogue, the translator could abandon some secondary information. In order to keep the actions and dialogue synchronization change in the same time, the translator can trim some phrases and sentences which are not important information and have no impact on the development of the plot on the premise that it will not lead to absence of meanings. The translator can also add or trim something which will not lead to misunderstanding, such as repetitive statement, complementary words, or sentences of rhetorical questions.
2）rewriting the original dialogue
Rewriting depends on how much supplementary inform－
ation and background information can be provided to the audience by the images on the screen. For example, the names of some characters in the original dialogue can be substituted by the pronouns, such as she, he, they (only for the roles which are familiar to the audience or had appeared on the screen before). The places or the things which are mentioned or pointed by the characters can be substituted by adverbs. In order to get the same effect with the original movie, the translator must comply with the grammar standard of target language and choose the words flexibly to change the sentence and the word order.
For example, in the movie “Vera Drake”, there is a sentence:
Doctor Cooper: I have been Wendy’s family doctor since she was…this high. (The doctor gave body gesture of palm downward at the end of his talking.)
Translation 1:我在文蒂这么高时就是她的家庭医生。
Translation 2: 我开始做文蒂家庭医生时她才……这么高。
The first translation is ended with the character “医生”, it does not act in concert with the actor’s body language. The second translation is ended with the character “高”, it is the same with the original dialogue. This translation is more harmonious and natural as it coincides with the body gesture of the actor. The information which the translation conveys is more appropriate to the information which the original movie conveys.
4.4 Adjusting the language features
Nida holds that the translator should first thoroughly und
erstand original text, and then choose the words flexibly to elaborate the meanings of the original text in the translation. So the translator should choose the voice and the tone flexibly in order to make the receptor of the dubbed movie get the same experience and feeling as the audience of the original movie.
For example, in the movie “Chicken run”, Mrs.Tweedy scolds her husband like this “Poor! Worthless! Nothings!”. The translation is “穷鬼! 一文不值! 一无是处!”. The translation draws a vivid picture of Tweedy who is gnashing her teeth when she spoke these words. And when Rocky bribed the businessman—the mice brothers ,he said “Guys, you are without a doubt the sneakiest, most light ╞ fingered thieving parasites I’ve ever met.” The translation is “兄弟,我完全信任你们,你们是最低级的、鬼鬼祟祟、手指灵巧、偷窃成性的寄生虫”.
5. Conclusion
This paper has discussed the dialogue translation of Eng－
lish movies based on the “functional equivalence” theory of the influential theoretician, Eugene A. Nida. When the translator translates the movie, he or she should fully understand the content of the movie and the desired effects of it, fully consider the psychological expectations of the target language audience, and choose the appropriate strategy to translate under the guidance of equivalence principle. Only in the way, can we make the audience of the dubbed movie obtain the similar feeling and understanding with the audience of the original movie. Only in this way, can we reserve the artistic value and commercial value of the movie.
References：
[1] Eugene A. Nida, Toward a Science of Translating:
With Special Reference to Principles and Involved in Bible Translating [M], Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1964.
[2]Eugene A. Nida, Language, Culture & Translaning [M], Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Education Press, 1993. 118; 129.
[3]Eugene A. Nida, Language and Culture: Contexts in
Translating [M], Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2001.
[4]Perter Newmark, A Textbook of Translation [M],
Hertfordshier: Prentice Hall Intemational(UK), 1988. 48.
[5]钱绍昌，影视翻译—翻译园地中愈来愈重要的领地[J]，中国翻译, 2000,1：13-17.
[6]赵眷梅，论译制片翻译中的四对主要矛盾[J]，中国翻译，2002,4：21-23.
Key words: dialogue translation; functional equivalence; dubbed movie
1. Introduction
The movie is a special cultural artistic form, which is the combination of pictures, sounds, and captions. It has opened a leaf of window for millions of Chinese audience to understand the world. The translation of the movie industry in our country has gone through a period of more than 50 years with glorious history. However, in the academic world, the importance of movie translation is infrequently recognized. The famous scholar in the movie translation Qian Shaochang once said that “The translators pay too little attention to the movie translation and this situation is disproportional with the societal effect of the movie translation ”(Qian Shaochang, 2000). According to a statistic of 12 dubbed movies, the translation of the dialogue accounts for more than 98% of the whole translation of the movies. Therefore, the translation quality of dialogues determines the entire quality of dubbed movies.
2. Basic requirements of movie dialogue translation
Compared with the general translation, the basic requi－
rements of movie dialogue translation are as follows: 1) The translator should fully consider the purpose and effect of the original movie, as well as the dubbed movie audience’s culture and knowledge level; 2) The translation should be a faithful recreation based on the original movie. It should not only retain the characteristics of the source language to approach the effect of the original movie, but also conform to the code of language of the target language. In other words, the effect which is made by dubbed movies should be the same as the effect which is made by the original movies.
3. Problems in current movie dialogue translation
Nowadays, more and more movies are introduced to our country and the commercial operation of the movie is strengthened. But the academic world of translation does not pay enough attention to the movie translation. There are many problems existing in the movie translation, including:
1）neglect of choosing adaptation or alienation causing mistranslation
2）neglect of conveying and reconstructing the cultural images causing the mistranslation
3）too much attention on the lexical meanings, gramma
tical classes rather than the meanings
4）neglect of the tone and voice of the original movies which effect the equivalence of the original movie and the dubbed movie.
This paper centers on the above 4 aspects based on the theory of “functional equivalence”.
4. Applications of Functional Equivalence in English Movie Dialogue Translation
4.1 Adaptation and alienation
Nida’s functional equivalence theory views translation as a cross culture and cross language communication. The purpose of communication is to make the two sides of the communication understand each other. In the movie dialogue translation, the translator should base on “functional equivalence” to choose the adaptation or the alienation, which views conveying information complete and apropos as the final purpose of translation.
For example, there is one dialogue in the English movie “Garfield” like this:
——Excuse me, ma’am, please call 911.
The dubbing voice of Chinese is“对不起，小姐，快打119”.
Although the sentence is very simple, the problem which it has is not simple. It is clear that the translator is trying to take the adaptation principle to translate this dialogue，but the translation is misleading. In the western countries, 911 is the telephone number of the police, it is equal to 110 in the mainland of China but not 119 which is fire-alarm telephone number. It is clear that the translator can not manage to seek a corresponding or similar native cultural phenomenon. This simple dialogue was made beyond recognition. Based on analysis above, it is easy to find that it is better to translate it into “对不起，小姐，快打110”. Although this translation is better than the dubbing voice in the movie as it convey the basic information of the original movie, the problem still exists. The audience of Chinese dubbed movie are not only in mainland but also in Hong Kong, Taiwan and other places. As we all know, the telephone number of police in these places are not 110. Even in the mainland of China, this translation will make some careful audience and some children puzzled: Is the telephone number of police in foreign countries also 110? So it is best to take the strategy of alienation to translate it into “快打911”.This translation is advantageous for China and West culture exchange, and it can help the Chinese audience understand the foreign culture. It has significance in the promotion of culture exchange.
As long as the original meanings can be conveyed completely into the target language, the choice between the alienation and the adaptation strategy depends on audience’s knowledge and the expectations.
4.2 Cultural differences and image transformation
Nida holds that the differences between cultures bring more serious complications to the translator than the differences between the language structures. Cultural differences will lead to misunderstanding. Nida says that the translator must be able to put aside the differences in language and culture to allow readers to see the same meaning of the original text clearly.
For example, there is one dialogue in the English movie “Wuthering Heights” like this:
Isabella: It’s a brother’s duty, dear Edgar, to introduce his sister to some other type than fops and pale young poets.
Edgar: Oh, you want a dragon?
Isabella: Yes, I do. With a fiery mustache.
The translation is:
依莎贝拉：这是一个哥哥的义务，亲爱的埃得加，你总不能把自己的妹妹介绍给那些花花公子或弱不禁风的年轻诗人吧。
埃得加：哦，你该不是想嫁一个龙骑兵吧？
依莎贝拉：是的，还长着火红的大胡子。
In the above translation “dragon” is a key word. In English, “dragon” is associated with “the devil”. Whenever this word is mentioned, it can present a devil with a fierce face immediately in the western person’s ideology, threatening to plunge into the world. So it is not difficult for us to understand now that the word “dragon” in the western language culture conceals derogatory meaning. But the word “dragon” in the Chinese culture symbolizes “noble, supreme” and so on. In the past Chinese people call their emperor “the real dragon emperor”. Therefore, most of the relative words and expressions with “the dragon” have the meaning of respect. Evidently, it is clearly inappropriate to translate “dragon” to “龙骑士”. When Chinese viewers watching movies and hearing “龙骑士”, they will immediately form an image that “he” may be a smart and brave Royal Cavalry. But Isabella’s answer is completely incompatible with the audience’s image. Many of them may have such an issue: how come this handsome and courageous “Royal Cavalry” to be “a red-hot long-bearded”? In traditional Chinese history and culture, only those who have more heads and hands of a terrible monster, have green eyebrows, red bearded face. Thus, in the translation of the movie, there are thorny problems of the dislocation of the two languages’ and culture’s images. At the same time, it cannot express the true meaning of the dialogue, which set up a semantic linking barrier.
4.3 Language differences between Chinese and English
Nida thinks that the structures of language usually reflect some key features of the language. And he believes that the two languages have become two different languages, because there are different surface features of language. Therefore, the form must be broken in order to bring out the original information.
Chinese is a type of ideograph which has the character of diamond shape, as it is called “Chinese character”. It is the synthesis of letter and the idea, most time we can tell the meaning of a word just from the shape. But English is a kind of phonogram which takes the letter as its character. It is abstract and we can hardly tell the meaning of a word just from its shape and structure. Therefore, the following three situations，the lexical and grammatical form must be changed in order to convey the information more completely and to be more flowing in the target language.
4.3.1 Omission
In the English movies, some tags and phatic frequently appeared, they contain very little practical meanings. In fact, it is unnecessary to translate them. For example, in the movie “Chicken run”, there is a sentence which Ginger used to threaten Rocky:
Ginger：I should turn you in right now.
Rocky：You wouldn’t, would you?
Ginger：Give me one reason why I shouldn’t.
The translation is:
金洁：我马上就把你交出去。
洛奇：你不会吧,你会吗?
金洁：给我一个不那么做的理由。
In the last two sentences, the literal translation seems prolixness and long-windedness. It does not conform to the principle of simplify of dialogue translation and the characteristic of spoken language. It will be better to take the trimming strategy to translate it as:
洛奇：你不会吧？
金洁：为什么不呢?
4.3.2 Adding
As knowledge and culture background of the audience are quite different, the movie translators should try their best to help the audience to understand these linguistic phenomena which are closely related to the history, the region culture and the religious custom of a nation. If the translator chooses to translate the movie literal, and does not consider audience’s knowledge background of culture and history, and even does not make any explanation to certain special cultural images, it will be difficult for the audience to understand it as the cultural images and cultural implication are damaged and torn to pieces.
For example, in the movie “Chicken Run”, the mice brothers are drooling over the eggs. When they are watching the hens fall heavily when they are learning to fly, they can not help warning them “Hey! Careful of those eggs!”. The translation without adding “别把蛋摔破了” makes the audience puzzled—does the learning of flying has anything to do with breaking the eggs? The translation should better be changed into “别把肚子里的蛋摔破了!” The addition of “肚子里的” makes the meaning accurate and complete, it removes the obstacle which affects the audience to understand.
4.3.3 Conformity to the action and the body language
For the movies which need dubbing, translators should consider not only the character of the roles, also the mouth’s shape and the time length of one character’s sentence should be measured, and the dubbing translation should be as fit as possible, comparing to the original version, especially when it is in the facial feature scenes, otherwise the characters on the screen might still keep his/her mouth open, but the dubbing ends, or the characters on the screen has been silent for a while, but dubbing voice still goes on. These all will leave obvious flaws, which make the audience feel very unnatural. So in translating the dialogue excellent translators should grasp and carefully study the time length of the two languages, the tone strength, to make it fit with the screen to achieve the best conversion.
According to this principle, the following strategies and techniques are usually adopted by the subtitle translator:
1）adding or omitting
The translator must try the best to express the main ideas of the original dialogue on the premise that reserve the characteristic and meaning of the original dialogues. In order to emphasize the core meaning of the dialogue, the translator could abandon some secondary information. In order to keep the actions and dialogue synchronization change in the same time, the translator can trim some phrases and sentences which are not important information and have no impact on the development of the plot on the premise that it will not lead to absence of meanings. The translator can also add or trim something which will not lead to misunderstanding, such as repetitive statement, complementary words, or sentences of rhetorical questions.
2）rewriting the original dialogue
Rewriting depends on how much supplementary inform－
ation and background information can be provided to the audience by the images on the screen. For example, the names of some characters in the original dialogue can be substituted by the pronouns, such as she, he, they (only for the roles which are familiar to the audience or had appeared on the screen before). The places or the things which are mentioned or pointed by the characters can be substituted by adverbs. In order to get the same effect with the original movie, the translator must comply with the grammar standard of target language and choose the words flexibly to change the sentence and the word order.
For example, in the movie “Vera Drake”, there is a sentence:
Doctor Cooper: I have been Wendy’s family doctor since she was…this high. (The doctor gave body gesture of palm downward at the end of his talking.)
Translation 1:我在文蒂这么高时就是她的家庭医生。
Translation 2: 我开始做文蒂家庭医生时她才……这么高。
The first translation is ended with the character “医生”, it does not act in concert with the actor’s body language. The second translation is ended with the character “高”, it is the same with the original dialogue. This translation is more harmonious and natural as it coincides with the body gesture of the actor. The information which the translation conveys is more appropriate to the information which the original movie conveys.
4.4 Adjusting the language features
Nida holds that the translator should first thoroughly und
erstand original text, and then choose the words flexibly to elaborate the meanings of the original text in the translation. So the translator should choose the voice and the tone flexibly in order to make the receptor of the dubbed movie get the same experience and feeling as the audience of the original movie.
For example, in the movie “Chicken run”, Mrs.Tweedy scolds her husband like this “Poor! Worthless! Nothings!”. The translation is “穷鬼! 一文不值! 一无是处!”. The translation draws a vivid picture of Tweedy who is gnashing her teeth when she spoke these words. And when Rocky bribed the businessman—the mice brothers ,he said “Guys, you are without a doubt the sneakiest, most light ╞ fingered thieving parasites I’ve ever met.” The translation is “兄弟,我完全信任你们,你们是最低级的、鬼鬼祟祟、手指灵巧、偷窃成性的寄生虫”.
5. Conclusion
This paper has discussed the dialogue translation of Eng－
lish movies based on the “functional equivalence” theory of the influential theoretician, Eugene A. Nida. When the translator translates the movie, he or she should fully understand the content of the movie and the desired effects of it, fully consider the psychological expectations of the target language audience, and choose the appropriate strategy to translate under the guidance of equivalence principle. Only in the way, can we make the audience of the dubbed movie obtain the similar feeling and understanding with the audience of the original movie. Only in this way, can we reserve the artistic value and commercial value of the movie.
References：
[1] Eugene A. Nida, Toward a Science of Translating:
With Special Reference to Principles and Involved in Bible Translating [M], Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1964.
[2]Eugene A. Nida, Language, Culture & Translaning [M], Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Education Press, 1993. 118; 129.
[3]Eugene A. Nida, Language and Culture: Contexts in
Translating [M], Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 2001.
[4]Perter Newmark, A Textbook of Translation [M],
Hertfordshier: Prentice Hall Intemational(UK), 1988. 48.
[5]钱绍昌，影视翻译—翻译园地中愈来愈重要的领地[J]，中国翻译, 2000,1：13-17.
[6]赵眷梅，论译制片翻译中的四对主要矛盾[J]，中国翻译，2002,4：21-23.