The Translation of Subtitles of Movies

The Translation of Subtitles

Of Movies

A Description of
Its aspects

2.
Euglent ZEQAJ

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 The Translation of Subtitles of Movies

1.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Id like to thank all those people who helped during the development of the thesis, by reviewing
parts of it, by general feedback, or by other assistance. Those people include my friends, my
family and the whole people who always suggested or gave me a hand.
Special thanks go to lecturer Dr. Ilda Kanani for helping me during the whole period of time
that I spent working on thesis of diploma. It is an honour to be assisted by a professional like
you.
I would like to thank also all my lecturers and professors at University of Vlora Ismail Qemali
for their invaluable teaching during all these years and for their sharing of knowledge and
experience with us.
This thesis is dedicated to my parents who have supported me in every decision that I have
made in my life.

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 The Translation of Subtitles of Movies

2.
ABSTRACT
The Translation of Subtitles of Movies:
A Description of Its aspects.
The aim of the study is to show how films from all over the world are translated and subtitled
into Albanian. The process contains a lot of steps that common people do not know. By doing
that, the audience will understand why sometimes they do not see subtitled what they hear.

It will be confirmed also that it is not an easy job to deal with. There are mechanisms that
regulate the way the process works. The idea of only one person needed in translating subtitles
will be seen in another angle. It will be seen as a way of collaborating with other devices to
come up with the result.

The subtitles translation in Albania is made in different ways. They are done by professional
people, or amateur ones. By making a comparison between the two groups and providing
examples, readers will have a guide to what source of film translation they can believe. They
will know better who to trust; internet sites or cinemas?

Furthermore, the translator has a lot of possibilities when translating. The next goal is that of
telling why subtitles sound different, and which the elements that affect it are. How do different
features of language force the subtitler to make changes while translating? Audience will also
get to know closer which Albanians features when translating are.

Key Words: Translation, subtitler, Albanian, subtitles.

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 The Translation of Subtitles of Movies

CONTENTS
1. Acknowledgments..2
2. Abstract..3
3. Introduction5
3.1 Aim of the study...5
3.2 Statements of the problem..5
3.3 Structure of research6
4. Literature Review..7
4.1 What is film translation...7
4.2 Types of film translation.7
4.3 Dubbing as a form of domestication..8
4.4 Subtitling as a form of foreignization.9
4.5 Subtitles interlingual and intralingual translation.9
4.6 The process of subtitles translation..11
5. Difficulties in Translating Subtitles.12
5.1 Introduction12
5.2 Title13
5.3 Proper names..13
5.4 Space..14
5.5 Time...15
5.6 Word-for-word translation doesnt exist17
5.7 Subtitles are a valuable literacy tool..18
5.8 Swearing is often toned down18
5.9 Onomatopoeia19
5.10 Cultural differences..20
5.11 Idioms..21
5.12 Grammatical differences..22
5.13 Translation workflows.23
5.14 Dialects and accent..24
5.15 Humour translation..25
5.16 Some solutions when translating difficult humorous phrases.27
6. Conclusions and Recommendations31
7. References....33

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3.
INTRODUCTION
3.1 Aim of the study

The aim of that study is not only to inform the audience about the subtitles translations
difficulties, but it should also change their way of judging a subtitler and also all the changes
that they probably hear while watching a film.

3.2 Statement of the problem

There is a misconception of films translation process. People understand it as a process that

requires only a professional translator and nothing else. They say that a translator is paid well
enough, and that is why it is an easy job to deal with.

Furthermore, it is considered as a job that requires only an average level of English. Everyone
can do the translator as long as they know English. This is really wrong because people do not
know what it is about. They do not know the difficulties of translating.

First of all, film subtitling deal with two different ways of doing it: Dubbing and Subtitling.
These kinds of translation are totally different from each other. The only thing that they have in
common is that both require a translator and a reviewer. The translator does translate the script,
while the reviewer leaves comments.

Something else to clarify is that the job of film translation is not well paid. Remember that a
translator might spend a week in subtitling it, and is just paid for 5000 Leke. We can understand
now that it is not a profession that makes us rich.

Another problem is that common people think that it is an easy job, and it requires only an
average level of English. It is wrong, because the language used in films is quite selected and
moderated, which means that you need to have a lot of knowledge about that language. We need
to know also the culture of the country, or the expressions that are used only there.

Not everyone can do that, because there are certain elements that a translator should bear in
mind when translating. He should bear in mind the cultural differences, grammatical
differences, humour translation, which is quite difficult, and a lot of other elements that works
as a whole.

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Thus we all can understand that this job is not easy as one-two-three.

3.3 Structure of research

The whole research is structured three chapters. All these chapters include their own specific
idea. They are as follow.

Chapter 1. Literature Review; in this chapter we will see a clear and detailed explanation of
what film translation is. It will explain the process of translation and the people involved in it.
Then later on it will explain the forms of film translation: dubbing and subtitling. Going
deeper, we will understand that there are also interlingual and intralingual film translations.
We will see that dubbing is a form of domestication and subtitling1 is a form of foreignization.

Chapter 2. Difficulties in Translating Subtitles; in this chapter we are going to talk about the
main problems that translators face. We will see that there are a lot of elements that influence
the way subtitles are shown at the bottom of the screen. All these elements are: Title, Proper
names, Space, Time, Cultural differences, Grammatical differences, Idioms, Humour,
Translation workflows.

Chapter 3. Conclusions and Recommendations; in this chapter is going to be discussed the

final remarks and conclusions we have come to by dealing with this research.

1. Foreignization is the strategy of retaining information from the source text, and involves deliberately breaking the conventions of the target language to
preserve its meaning.
2. Domestication is the strategy of making text closely conform to the culture of the language being translated to, which may involve the loss of information
from the source text
3. Interlingual translation is the translation between two or more languages.
4. Intralingual translation is the subtitling of the same language for people who cannot hear.

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4.
LITERATURE REVIEW
4.1 What is film translation?

Film translation is the process of taking the movies and translating them into the language that
the translator is going to work with. In order to explain the process of film translation and its
aspects, I have decided to illustrate using the movies Inception and Deadpool.

4.2 Types of film translation

We have been abroad many times especially in Italy, or Greece, but also in other European
countries. Probably we have seen a lot of movies, or cartoons while staying there. We can see
that in Italy, mostly the producer dub the movies, while in Greece we have seen that the movies
are subtitled. The same thing happens in Albania. The movies that are taken from America are
subtitled .Thus by knowing these examples we clearly can understand that there are two types
of film translation throughout the world; dubbing and subtitling.

Dubbing is the translation of films by reproducing the source language into target language
with native voices. That means that the voices heard in the original movie are replaced by the
target language voices. This is known as a form of domestication as far as it translates all the
dialogues into target language.
Subtitling is the translation of films by taking the spoken source language and transferring it in
the form of synchronized captions usually at the bottom of the screen. It is the form that alters
the source text to the least possible extent and enables the target audience to experience the
foreign, and that is why it is known as a form of foreignization. Here is an example taken from
the movie named Deadpool. This is how subtitles appear in Albanian language:

(01:10:05 - 01:10:10)

E kam par kt vajzn. -Kjo duhet t

jet Vanesa. Kam dgjuar kaq shum pr ty.

They appear in two different forms: a) in a form of written translation of a dialogue in a foreign
language, or b) in a form of a written rendering of the dialogue in the same language to help
viewers with hearing disabilities to follow the dialogue.

Luyken et al. (1991: 31) define them as:

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... condensed written translations of original dialogue which appear as lines of text, usually
positioned towards the foot of the screen. Subtitles appear and disappear to coincide in time
with the corresponding portion of the original dialogue and are almost always added to the
screen image at a later date as a post-production activity.

In the figure 4.2.1 we can see the distribution of film translations methods used in Europe.

Every film is dubbed

Cartoons are dubbed while film are

subtitled

Mixed are: Dubbing and subtitling

are used in different occasions.

Figure 4.2.1 The distribution of film translations methods

4.3 Dubbing as a form of domestication

As is mentioned before the dubbing process deal with the audio transformation from source
language to target language .Domestication is one of the branches of what is known as global
strategy contradicting the other one which is Foreignization. Lawrence Venuti put it as
"translating in a transparent, fluent, 'invisible' style in order to minimise the foreignness of the
target text" (Mundey 2001: 146). The result is that all foreign elements are assimilated into the
dominant target culture, thus depriving the target audience of crucial characteristics of the
source culture, which is also shown in the following quote:

The dominant trend towards domestication in translating from American English over the last
three centuries has had a normalising and neutralising effect, depriving source text producers
of their voice and re-expressing foreign cultural values in terms of what is familiar (and
therefore unchallenging) to the dominant culture(Mundey 2001:147).

It tries to make the viewer feel comfortable while seeing movie by translating sense-for-sense,
by finding dynamic equivalents. Thus by putting the native voices synchronised with the
background video going on it is an excellent way to make the viewer enjoy it by hearing in their
native language. Furthermore the viewer finds it easier hearing what is said rather than reading
the subtitles at the bottom of the screen. Despite that the dubbing process is not a perfect method
because the viewer cannot hear what the original characters say.

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4.4 Subtitling as a form of foreignization

The strategy of foreignization is the second branch of what is known as Global Strategy of
Translation. Foreignization puts emphasis in the source language (English language). It puts
emphasis in target language because the translators that use this strategy want to bring the
translated version to the target languages audience as close as possible to the source language
s elements such as culture, syntax etc. In subtitles translation is used word-for-word
translation and it is maintained during the process of translating them. Also, in many cases while
are seen the translated subtitles at the bottom of the screen we see that the equivalents used are
formal that is another principle of foreignization. Venuti claimed that the method is like
sending the reader abroad" (qtd. by Mundey 2001: 147). It is a method which assumes that the
translated text does not 'pretend' to be an original (as is the case with domestication) and where
the foreign identity of the source text is highlightedwhich makes the ideological dominance
of the target culture impossible. Foreignization privileges the source culture, and it evokes a
sense of 'otherness,' emphasizing the foreign nature of a film.

Amongst the major methods of translating films, subtitling involves the least interference with
the original; in other words, it is the most neutral, minimally mediated method. Therefore, it is
subtitling that contributes to experiencing the flavour of the foreign language, its mood and the
sense of a different culture more than any other translation mode. This is mainly due to the fact
that the original soundtrack and dialogues are not tampered with, as is the case in dubbing.
Moreover, "hearing the real voices of the characters not only facilitates understanding in terms
of the specific dialogue or plot structure, but gives vital clues to status, class and relationship"
(Mera 1999: 75). Although there are significant cuts in the length of the dialogues due to the
intrinsic nature of subtitling, much of what is lost can be compensated for while hearing the
original.

4.5 Subtitles interlingual and intralingual translation

Gottlieb (1992:162) defines subtitling as a 1) written, 2) additive (e.g. new verbal material is
added in the form of subtitles), 3) immediate and 4) synchronous form of translation. He follows
Jakobson in distinguishing between different forms of subtitling: from a linguistic viewpoint,
there is intralingual (within one language) and interlingual (between two languages)
translation; whereas technically speaking, subtitles can be either open (not optional, e.g. shown
with the film) or closed (optional, e.g. shown via teletext). Gottlieb, states that: "Subtitling can

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be both 'intralingual' (or 'vertical'), when the target language is the same as the source language,
and 'interlingual' (or 'diagonal'), when the target language is different from the source language".

We can easily understand in the examples below, which are taken from the film Inception,
the difference between the intralingual and interlingual translation.

Interlingual Type Inception (00:01:33 - 00:01:38)

English Albanian
He was delirious. Ishte pa ndjenja.
But asked for your name. Ama ju krkoi juve.

Here we can understand that it is an interlingual translation from English to Albanian. This kind
of translation is made for interlingual audiences.

Intralingual TypeInception (00:59:34 00:59:37)

English English
You are waiting for a train. You are waiting a train.
A train that will take you far away. It will take you far away.

In that case we see that it an internal translation. This kind of translation is made usually for
people who cannot hear and the only way to understand what a film shows is by subtitles. Their
aim is also to shorten subtitles as much as possible.

Film subtitling is therefore interlingual and open, which means that SL linguistic material
(speech, other linguistic material) is transformed into TL subtitles, and that subtitles are
broadcast simultaneously with the program. According to Shochat and Stam (1985:41), "the
interlingual film experience is perceptually bifurcated: we hear another's language while we
read our own." At our case the movie we are going to talk about is a translation from English
to Albanian that explains the interlingual translation. As for intralingual translation, as is
mentioned before it is about the subtitling of films for the same audience, in the same language.
This method is used for people that are deaf, or have difficulties in hearing and understanding
what is said. It is also known as reading the film that explains constrains to hear and
understand the film.

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4.6 The process of subtitles translation

A lot of people say that it is an easy thing that translators deal with. But I can assure you that it
is not. You have to receive the video, extract the subtitles, convert them into the necessary
format, translate them and then convert them back into the required format and integrate them
into the video with time codes. When we talk about professional subtitle translation, we mean
that it demands team-work: a translator, a reviewer, a project manager and a technical specialist.
How to extract the text from audio/video? One of the common questions companies and their
clients face. Thanks to the World Wide Web, there are dozens of applications that can help you.

Here, we follow a simple rule: the subtitle translation process engages a translator and a
reviewer to guarantee the highest quality. And the reviewer must have the ability to leave
comments within the subtitle translation space. Thus as we can understand it is a complicated
and stressful chain process. But remember this process is used by professionals rather than from
amateur companies. And if that process works well it does also determine the quality of
translation which is something else that is going to be explained later.

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5. Case Study
DIFICULTIES IN
TRANSLATING SUBTITLES
5.1 Introduction
Often, the subtitler is criticized during the film because the audience finds the subtitles quite
irrelevant. Remember that audience is the most important critic of the job that the subtitler does.
But it is not that they do always translate wrongly, because in every film you have to change
some things in order to make it sound more natural to the viewer. Still the translator is criticized
because the audience says that he just was far away from what we heard in source language.
The solution of this problem is that there are limitations or difficulties when translating them.
These limitation are necessary in order to make the whole process work. Some of these
difficulties are orthographic, some are cultural, and some of them are syntactic. The main
problem is not only that, but also the multilingual aspect that the translator should work with. It
is known as translation workflows and deals with translating between several languages.
Furthermore, the problems that makes it difficult to work with, are also related to space and
time, that the viewer needs, to read the subtitles. This is only one side of the medal. The other
one is that the cultural differences do obligate the translator to extend their version in two or
three lines. And all these things influence the way the subtitler works.
Moreover the process requires also grammatical skills but also grammatical restrictions.
Albanian language is quite different from English and this aspect of language forces the subtitler
to find the most relevant structure to use when translating. As a result the equivalent is not
always one-for-one.
It is due to all these different reasons, that the translation of subtitles is an area that requires
specialization, as with many other fields within translation. Above all, it requires much
creativity to be able to translate the message coherently and at the same time shortening the
amount of words to the maximum, and always maintaining the audiences attention. Perhaps,
next time we watch a subtitled film, this information will make us think twice before pointing
out missing words, or how unnatural it reads.

There are differences between the source language dialogue and the subtitles. As mentioned
above translators have to do some changes or adaptions in order to transmit the same thought
or idea. But for a person who wants the subtitles as a reference to learn a foreign language it is
quite frustrating. They hear the background voice and want the translation to be exactly the

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same in the subtitles format. There are some elements that the translator should maintain in
order to translate correctly. These elements are going to be discussed step by step in order to
understand why the subtitles that are shown at the bottom of the screen sound different form the
original dialogue.

5.2 Title

The translation of the title is an important element because beginning with that, the viewer
imagines a certain idea about what is going to happen. Or at the end after the movie has been
shown they say whether the title was the best translation or not.

There are cases that the translation of title is horrible, and there is no relation to what the film
is about. This case happens when the title is translated into Albanian as it is also in our case.
The title of the movie Deadpool was transliterated as Dedpull. This is awful, because people
in a certain way know English, and when translated to Albanian it sounds really strange. The
aim of the translator was to transcribe the title into Albanian, and the result is not good enough.

On the other hand, the second movie, whose name is Inception, is not translated into Albanian.
It is left as it is written in the original, because not only that the equivalent requires a number
of words to express the same idea, but also it sound better to the audience. It is a title that does
not show a complete meaning of something like The fifty shades of Grey. In that case the
solution is to leave it as it is in the source language.

5.3 Proper Names

Another important issue is the translation of proper names. The choice of translating or not the
names is really a big deal. Not everybody wants to see the names of protagonists translated. On
the other hand a part of the audience wants them to be translated because probably they dont
know English very well. In fact, there are two ways of translating proper names.

The first method is known as transcribing. Thus the method as we can understand deals with
translating the names into target language, by reproducing them with native sounds. It is usually

used in literature as everything needs to be authentic, but even in some movies it is used as a
method. In the movies Deadpool and Inception all the names of people, rivers or cities are
transliterated into Albanian. The illustration is below in Table 5.3.1.

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Table 5.3.1 "Inception" (00:44:19 - 00:44:30)

English Albanian
Are you alright mister Cobb? A je mir z. Kob?

Table 5.3.2 Deadpool (01:01:50 01:02:00)

English Albanian
Where is Francis? Ku sht Frensis?

In the two examples the names are transcribed. To me it is a perfect way for those who do not
know English, so as for those people that know English.

The second method is known as transliteration. It is about adding inflectional morphemes at the
end of the name without converting it into Albanian letters. The inflectional morphemes are
added at the end of the word (I, it, it, in, it).

5.4 Space

Subtitles are restricted by the amount of space available on the screen. English subtitles are
generally restricted to two lines of text, with between 32 and 40 characters per line (including
spaces and punctuation). That is an average of about 7 to 8 words per line maximum. To try
and save space, subtitlers often use shorter synonyms. This doesn't always happen, and where
we can, we use a similar word, but this is a common space-saving technique. Just to show how
necessary the space is in subtitles, we are going to illustrate it with Figure 5.4.1 which has been
picked from the movie Inception.

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Figure 5.4.1 "Inception" (00:21:50 - 00:21:60)

Here we can understand the sense of space and its place on screen. It is always a matter of space.
In order to understand what the translator should do to respect the components here is the Table
5.4.2.

Table 5.4.2
English Albanian
Which you are doing it to? Pr k?

The problem here is that the translator should always try to shorten the number of words but at
the same time preserve the same meaning. As we can see from the example the translator has
changed the number of words from six to only two when translated into Albanian. This is the
best thing he could do instead of writing the whole phrase: Pr k po e bn kt gj. And this
work is done not only for short sentences but also long sentences.

5.5 Time

Closely related to the above point is the restriction of time. Most people generally read
(mentally) a text slower than a person can speak in normal conversation. People can
comfortably maintain a speech rate of about 250-300 words per minute without it seeming fast
or hurried. Recommended reading rates for English subtitles average about 180 words per
minute. For that reason, it is often necessary to reduce the spoken text when converting it into
subtitles. To do this, subtitlers have to make choices about what information to keep and what

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can be discarded or omitted. Techniques include using shorter synonyms, paraphrasing, turning
negatives into positive, changing grammar to shorter forms, and omitting some information
completely. We are going to discuss this topic in relation to Figure 5.5.1 which is taken from
the movie Inception.

Figure 5.5.1 "Inception" (01:16:10 - 01:16:20)

In the Fig. 5.5.1 the text has been subtitled. To know how it works we are going to compare the
source languages sentence and its translation in Table 5.5.2.

Table 5.5.2

English Albanian
I just didnt understand the concept that hours Un thjesht nuk e kam kuptuar konceptin q
could turn to years down there. ort mund t kthehen n vite atje.

From the table 5.5.2 we see that the time we need to read the whole phrase in both languages is
almost the same. The time that the viewer needs to read the whole sentence is 5.30 seconds for
the English one and 4.30 seconds for the Albanian version. Now we see that there is a reduction
of time when we read it. People in Albania when reading the subtitles should understand the
information quickly because there are other scenes coming and the subtitles will disappear then.

The version is quite acceptable but I would prefer a further reduction of words or letters. My
version, instead of Un thjesht nuk e kam kuptuar konceptin q ort mund t kthehen n vite
atje would be Nuk e kuptoja se ort mund t ktheheshin n vite. The time a common person

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needs to read that phrase is 3.01 seconds. Here we can make the difference between the first
version and the second version. And if we do reduce a lot of words then it is easier for the
audience to read the text.

5.6 Word-for-word translations don't exist

Very rarely do translators or subtitlers translate a text or film word-for-word. This doesn't mean
a translation is inaccurate. Translators tend to adapt the text to language which is more common
or more easily understood in the target language. The original script cannot be translated word-
for-word because the logical and natural unity would not exist. The words then all are translated
in isolation which means that they do not have cohesion. Thus the translators focus should be
on sense-per-sense translation. This means that the whole text should be seen as a general idea
and the translation should be coherent. This method is used only from beginners and those
translator that are not good at language or linguistic abilities. In order to illustrate the wrong
concept that amateur subtitlers use, we are going to discuss the Table 5.6.1 is an example taken
from the film Deadpool.

Table 5.6.1 "Deadpool" (01:04:40 - 01:04:15)

English Albanian
When it comes to licking wounds, there is Kur vjen puna pr t lpire plaget, nuk ka si
no place better than home. shtpia.

In this table, it is clear that the word-for-word translation makes the text ridiculous. We see that
the phrase licking wound is translated as lpire plaget. This is wrong because probably the
subtitler has translated the text word-for-word. The context is about a guy who has been fighting
for a long period of time and now he needs to recover from the damages and wounds that he
had. The right version of this phrase would be shruar plagt and normally the sentence
When it comes to licking wounds, there is no place better than home should be translated
as:Kur vjen puna pr t shruar plagt nuk ka si shtpia. Thus we can make the difference
between the word-for-word translation of the sentence and the sense-for-sense translation of the
same sentence.

5.7 Subtitles are a valuable literacy tool

It has been argued that subtitles act as a very useful literacy tool, especially in countries with
high illiteracy rates and poor access to education. For this reason, subtitles should not recreate

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non-standard forms of speech, such as "cos" for "because" or "I ain't going" for "I'm not
going". The film Deadpool is full of non-standard language use and this kind of language is
"corrected" to more standard forms of speech. Only when a character's non-standard speech is
a defining feature of their character or when a character's speech differentiates them greatly
from the other characters are these non-standard forms maintained; for example, to show that a
character comes from a different area to where the film is set, or to show that a particular
character is "less intelligent" or "uneducated". In Table 5.7.1 is a sequence from the movie
Deadpool, and it shows how the short form of verbs are translated in their full form as a way
of educating the audience.

Table 5.7.1 Deadpool" (00:31:15 - 00:31:25)

English Albanian
I wanna remember us. Dua t mbaj mend ne t dy.

The example is taken from the movie Deadpool. We can see that the informal structure of
language wanna, which is want to, is translated from the subtitlter in its full form Dua t.
This is correct, and that is what subtitles should do. They need to educate the audience as much
as they can. Thus the informal equivalent could be Du me kujtu, and it is not right. So the
example is quite right and quite educating for the audience.

5.8 Swearing is often toned down

It has also been argued that swearing has a greater impact or shock value when it is read than
when it is heard. As subtitling involves the change of medium from a verbal to a written one,
swearing in films is often toned down when converted into foreign subtitles. So the word
"Joder!" (literally "to fuck"), which is often used to express anger or frustration, may be toned
down to "Damn!" or "Shit!" when subtitled in English, which I think most people would agree
are less strong or offensive than the word "fuck", even though the latter is also equally used in
English to express anger or frustration. Also, swearing is not always crucial to understanding
meaning, and when time and space is restricted, swearing is one of the first things to go. The
debate on whether to tone down profanities or not is a heated debate. Obviously the best thing
is to maintain where possible the language and strength of the source language. The example
below in Table 5.8.1 has been picked up from the movie Inception and it describes the
process.

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Table 5.8.1 Inception" (00:14:43 - 00:14:43)

English Albanian
Asshole! Kaqol!
How you messed up the carpet? Si e katandise qilimin?

It is understood that the power that the phrase has in its own language and context is not the
same as in Albanian. It is more powerful when used in English rather than Albanian. But the
translator should normally moderate the language used there and specialists of translation do
tone down these phrases as they are also seen from children and the whole audience. Thus the
version of the word Asshole into Albanian which is Kaqol is the best one. These method
works throughout all the movie because we can tone down only one scene and then the other
scenes not.

But swearing are not always toned down. There are movies that describe the life of rude boys
or the life of a bad family. In that case swearing should not be toned down because the theme
of the movie is exactly the dirty vocabulary and the dirty life of these groups. This kind of
vocabulary is known also as slang.

5.9 Onomatopoeia

Onomatopoeia refers to the sounds of animals or object such as: crack (breaking something),
mow (cat) etc. If we are talking about literature, onomatopoeia is written as the reader needs to
understand what the text says. While talking about movies the sounds of water, dogs etc. are
not written. Sometimes, the speaker refers to a sound, and it is possible to remove the explicit
reference to the sound, provided that the audio content has been represented in parentheses, e.g.
(Music), (Whistling).

Thus they are not subtitled, because the viewer can hear the sounds itself rather than read them
at the bottom of the screen. But there are amateur translators that do subtitle the onomatopoetic
sounds. This irritates a lot the audience as they can hear the sounds rather than read them. In the
movies Inception and Deadpool onomatopoeia is not subtitled. This is right and as we can
see in the Figure 5.9.1 below there are no subtitles.

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Figure 5.9.1 "Inception" (00:27:50 - 00:27:55)

Here is understood that the sounds of all the objects and the water are not written at the bottom
of the screen. Even dogs or cats sounds are not represented in letters. This is something right
instead of having subtitles like krak, hum hum, mjau. We see now how ridiculous it would
be talking about movies.

5.10 Cultural differences

The hidden meaning or connotations a word has differs from country to country and language
to language. It is also the context that determines the interpretation of a certain word. When the
subtitler translates from one language to another, he has to bear in mind the differences that
exist between the two languages culturally talking. For example, the word ignorant in English
means that the person doesnt have a lot of information about a certain topic, while its use in
Albanian is totally different. If we use the word ignorant to an Albanian, he will consider it
as an offense. This is, because the meaning of this word is different, and it means in Albanian
that you are stupid, idiot and a person to do not hang out with.

Furthermore, there are objects or natural processes that are translated differently. For instance,
in Saharas area exist about 20 kinds of sand. And each sand does have a different name. If we
translate it into Albanian, we will see that we can find one or at least two names corresponding
to these terms. This is how cultural differences affect the subtitling. If there is no equivalent
then we have to use it as it is in source language and then explain at the end. The Figure 5.10.1
illustrates the cultural differences between the English language and Albanian. It is a sequence
picked up from the movie Inception.

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Figure 5.10.1 Inception (00:34:10 00:34:20)

In Figure 5.10.1 we can see the object that is called totem. To better understand the point we
are going to discuss with a reference to Table 5.10.2 that is the comparison between English
and Albanian versions.

Table 5.10.2 Inception" (00:33:40 - 00:33:50)

English Albanian
A totem is a small, personal Nj emblem sht e vogl, personale

As it was mentioned before, the totem was the object described in the Figure 5.10.1 and it is
something typical of Asian countries. In Albanian we do not have a one-to-one equivalent and
obviously the best thing to do is to find the nearest equivalent that somehow describes the object
or the idea. In our case the word totem is translated as emblem. And it is the best equivalent
that the translator could find.

5.11 Idioms

Closely related to humour is the use of idioms and colloquial expressions. Sometimes, we can
use the same one in English, more often than not we can't. The translation of idioms is another
challenge for the translator. The problem is that there might be idioms that do not cross the
boundaries. In this case it is quite difficult to transfer it into target language. There are idioms
that do cross the boundaries and we can find an equivalent in our native language. This is quite
easy for the translator. But, what to do with the non-equivalent idioms?

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There are some solutions that the subtitler can choose. We can find the nearest equivalent in
target language, but remember that it should have somehow the same meaning. Another solution
could be to translate the idiom as a simple sentence. This is not recommended because the power
of the idiom is not the same when translated. In Table 5.11.1 and 5.11.2 we will see how idioms
translation works. There are two extract from the movies Inception and Deadpool.

Table 5.11.1 "Inception" (00:15:05 - 00:15:15)

English Albanian
Everyman for himself! dokush pr veten e tij!

It is an extract from the movie Inception. This is the case when the idiom in source language
has an equivalent when translated. We can easily understand that the sentences power is the
same in both languages. The meaning is also preserved. As is mentioned above this is quite
easy for the subtitler.

Table 5.11.2 "Deadpool" (00:15:20 - 00:15:30)

English Albanian
Not out of the woods yet! Akoma nuk ke dale i palar nga kjo!

It is a sequence from the film Deadpool. If we can see there is not word-for-word translation.
This means that we should understand the meaning of the sentence and then try to find an
equivalent as a whole. There is an equivalent of the phrase as we can see above but if we try to
make a relation between words in isolation we will see that woods has nothing to do with i
palar. This explains the idea that, when there is no direct equivalent we have to find the nearest
one in target language that somehow shows the same idea or thought.

5.12 Grammatical differences

When we are translating from English to Albanian and vice versa, we can easily identify the
grammatical differences. A good translator should know perfectly the source language and
target language, grammatically speaking. English differs in many perspectives with Albanian
language. Albanian language is known as inflectional one. This means that there are a lot of
inflectional morphemes that are added at the end of different parts of speech such as: verbs,
nouns etc. In English there are inflectional morphemes but their use is quite limited. We know
that when conjugating verbs, we add s to third personal singular, or we add ed to regular

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verbs to form past tense or past participle. We know that in English nouns plural is created by
adding s. The tenses that English contains are quite limited about 10 tenses.

If we are talking about Albanian language then things change. The plural of nouns is different
such as: Internal change (djal-djem), a (telefon-telefona) etc. we do have gender differences
grammatically speaking. We do have a lot of tenses that are classified.

Thus we can understand why it is important to know the grammar of two languages. In order to
translate correctly we have to translate the structure correctly too. In the next example below,
is shown the way how grammar determines the way we translate. In Table 5.12.1, we have an
example taken from the movie Inception.

Table 5.12.1 "Inception" (00:23:20 - 00:23:30)

English Albanian
People I believe can fix my charges Njerz t cilt un besoj se mund ti
permanently. rregullojn akuzat e mia prfundimisht.

We can easily see the point that the adaption made from source language to target language is
necessary. We can see that the adaption is made to verbs as Albanian is an inflectional language.
The pronouns and nouns are also adapted into native grammar. And this is what the translator
does throughout the movie. Gender should also be specified differently from the English
language.

5.13 Translation workflows

Translation workflows is a very complicated process that subtitler might need to use when
subtitling. It has to do with translating from English to Albanian by taking into consideration a
secondary language. Thus there are sequence in different films that foreign languages take part.
In this case English subtitles are given at the bottom of the screen while Albanian subtitles are
shown at the top of the screen. So we translated a source language text by translating its subtitles
in another language probably because we do not know that language. The process is shown in
Figure 5.13.1.

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Figure 5.13.1"Inception" (00:01:30 - 00:01:40)

Thus here is the case that the people are talking Korean language. The translator does not know
that language, so that the only way to translate what is said is by translating the English subtitles
that are shown at the bottom of the screen. Thus the final translation that of Albanian subtitles
appear at the top of the screen

5.14 Dialects and accent

Another case which could be related to this one, even if it is slightly different, is the use of
dialects or sociolects. All translators know how difficult it is to render these differences in
subtitles. The problem is that there are a lot of dialects in English. Translators believe that
Scottish is the most difficult accent to translate. There are words that they cannot understand or
words that means something else to what they know.

In subtitles translation it is a challenge because sometimes the dialect is not just a regional
feature. It might also be a special feature of the character and here things become serious. It
might be a special feature of a certain character especially for those humorous films where the
accent and dialect is as an object of kidding or having fun.

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Most of the times the subtitler, does translate the dialect into standard language. Thus when in
source language contains dialectal words, this words are translated to target language in their
standard forms.

But if it is a certain feature of a character then the translator should find an equivalent in target
language such as north dialect in Albania. There is an example below in Table 5.14.1 that has
been taken from the movie Inception.

Table 5.14.1 "Inception" (00:36:35 - 00:36:45)

English (British accent) Albanian (Standard language)
All you have to do is to start the absolute Dhe far duhet t bsh sht t fillosh me
basic. themeloren absolute.

In the example below the phrase in English is said in British accent. If we watch the movie we
can hear the accent. In the translated version the dialect is converted to standard form. This is
because as we mentioned above, subtitles are a tool for education. Thus in this kind of movie
the dialect and accent are translated into standard form.

5.15 Humours Translation

Humour, in its many manifestations, appears to be one of the most defining aspects of humanity.
Probably one of the most difficult things to translate in any language is humour. Some jokes
do cross international boundaries, but many don't. This is especially so when jokes revolve
around puns or pronunciation of words.

Following Vandaele (Vandaele, 2002:150): "humour translation is qualitatively different from

'other types' of translation and, consequently, one cannot write about humour translation in the
same way one writes about other types of translation. Similarly, when it comes on translating
humour, the translator has to deal with the intended effect of humour and its possible
unsuccessful reproduction. There are four elements to be pointed out:

a) Humour, as an intended effect, has an exteriorized manifestation (laughter), which is quite

difficult to render, whereas the meaning of other texts is 'less compelling' in terms of perception.
b) The comprehension and appreciation of humour and humour production are two distinct
skills; although "translators may experience its compelling effect on themselves and others
(laughter), but feel unable to reproduce it.

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Therefore, humour can be considered as a talent-related skill, since it is neither learnable nor
teachable, unlike the skill of writing academic papers and business letters for instance.

c) The appreciation of humour varies individually; it is very much depended on the translator's
sense of humour; that is the translator's recognition of a comic instance.

d) The rhetorical effect of humour on translators may be so overwhelming that it blurs the
specifics of its creation; strong emotions may hinder analytic rationalization.

According to Raphaelson West (1989:130) Humour might be classified as: a) universal

humour/jokes
b) culture-specific humour/jokes
c) language-specific humour/jokes

Thus we can understand that the first one is quite easy to translate as we can find an equivalent
while the last two of them are quite difficult to translate as we can find a direct equivalent.

In the next example in Table 5.15.1 we will see how difficult is to find an equivalent for those
humorous phrases that do not cross the boundaries. It is an extract picked up from the movie
Deadpool.

Table 5.15.1 "Deadpool" (00:29:50 - 00:30:00)

English Albanian
Im about to do to you what Limp Bizkit did Tani do t t bj ty at q Limp Bizkit I bri
to music in the late 90-s. muziks n vitet 1990.

This is an example taken from the movie Deadpool, and we can understand that we as
Albanian people do not understand the sense of humour, because we do not have information
about Limp Bizkit, and what he did to music, unless we check the encyclopaedias, and
understand the aim of joke. This is why it needs an adaption. In this case the translator does not
have much options to choose. 2

The sense of the joke is that the guy who said that is going to shoot the other one.

1. Limp Bizkit is an American nu metal, rap metal, rap rock band, and they are mostly famous for their aggressive style of music.

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On the other hand there are expressions that cross the boundaries and everyone can understand
what is said. These are universal jokes. This perspective is illustrated in Table 5.15.2. It is an
extract again picked up from the movie Deadpool.

Table 5.15.2 "Deadpool" (00:46:45- 00:46:50)

English Albanian
Is his legal name. He got Ajax from the dish Esht emri i tij i vertet. Ai e mori emrin
soap!
Ajaks nga nj mbajtse sapuni.

Thus here the joke is universal because Ajax is a product used for cleaning throughout the globe.
And people know what it is. Thus if we see a joke like this we can understand its funny aim.

5.16 Some solutions when translating difficult humorous phrases

There are some ways that the translator can use in order to translate in the best way possible.
These techniques are widely used by subtitlers. These techniques are as follow:

5.16.1 Wordplay

Wordplay or punning, is defined by Delabastita (Delabastita, 1996: 128) as follows: "Wordplay

is the general name for the various textual phenomena in which structural features of the
language are exploited in order to bring about a communicatively significant confrontation of
two or more linguistic structures with more or less similar forms and more or less different
meanings". This means that there are words which sound alike but have different meanings.

The translation methods of puns are as follow:

a. Pun Pun (pun rendered as pun): the ST pun is translated by a TL pun

b. Pun Non Pun (pun rendered as non-pun): a non-punning phrase which may retain
all the initial senses (non-selective non-pun), or a non-punning phrase which renders
only one of the pertinent senses (selective non-pun), or diffuse paraphrase or a
combination of the above
c. Pun Related Rhetorical Device [pun rendered with another rhetorical device,
or punoid (repetition, alliteration, rhyme, referential vagueness, irony, paradox etc),
which aims to recapture the effect of the ST pun]
d. Pun Zero (pun rendered with zero pun): the pun is simply omitted
e. Pun ST = Pun TT (ST pun copied as TT pun, without being translated)

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f. Non Pun Pun (a new pun introduced): a compensatory pun is inserted, where
there was none in the ST, possibly making up for ST puns lost elsewhere (strategy 4
where no other solution was found), or for any other reason
g. Zero Pun (addition of a new pun): totally new textual material is added,
containing a wordplay as a compensatory device.

We will see again the example that was mentioned above in Table 5.12.

English Albanian
Im about to do to you what Limp Bizkit did Tani do t t bj ty at q Limp Bizkit I bri
to music in the late 90-s. muziks n vitet 1990.

Here we see that pun is translated as a pun in Albanian but it is literal translation. That means
that it is about translating the words as units rather than as a whole. It would be better if the
subtitlers would have translated the source languages pun with another equivalent in target
language. Thus the right version would be:Tani do t t bj ty at qe sta ka br njeri. Here
the meaning is the same and the audience in Albania does understand the point.

Another solution would be to omit the humorous phrase even though the meaning is not 100%
preserved.

5.16.2 Verbal Irony

Verbal irony is the product of a linguistic structure and it is a question of

different meanings rather than interpretations".

Following Tanaka (Tanaka, 1973:46): "the main focus of irony is the relationship between the
two interpretations intended, rather than the content itself".

Additionally, what distinguishes irony from sarcasm is the sense of some contradiction between
the two stages of interpretation; the fact that irony "mal-codes," that is, "it misrepresents the
real content of the message so that the contradiction must be assumed as normal, whereas a
sarcastic statement is ostensibly sincere and provokes no feeling of contradiction at all". There
are some of solutions that subtitlers try in order to get out of trouble with verbal ironies. They
are as follow:

a. ST irony becomes TT irony with literal translation

b. ST irony becomes TT irony with 'equivalent effect' translation

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c. ST irony becomes TT irony by means of different effects from those used in ST

(including the replacement of paralinguistic elements by other ironic cues)
d. ST irony is enhanced in TT with some word / expression
e. ST irony is enhanced in TT with some word / expression
f. ST irony becomes TT sarcasm (i.e. more overt criticism)
g. ST ironic ambiguity has only one of the two meanings translated in TT (there is no
double-entendre or ambiguity in TT therefore)
h. ST irony is replaced by a 'synonym' in TT with no two possible interpretations
i. ST irony is explained in footnote in TT
j. ST irony has literal translation with no irony in TT
k. Ironic ST is completely deleted in TT
l. No irony in ST becomes irony in TT

The whole idea will be illustrated with an example in Table 5.16.1 is taken from the movie
Deadpool.

Table 5.16.1 "Deadpool" (01:02:00 - 01:02:10)

English Albanian
Is it sexist to hit you, or is it more sexist to A sht seksi t t godas ty, apo sht m
not hit you. I mean this is really confusing. shum seksi mos t t godas ty. Esht me t
vrtet turbullir.

First of all there is a misinterpretation from the translator. It seems to me that the translator has
taken the word sexist for sexy. Thus his version was like: Is it sexy to hit you, or is it more
sexy to not hit you. This version is totally wrong because the idea here is different.

The right version would be: Esht maskiliste t t godase ty. Apo sht m shum maskiliste
mos
t t godas ty. We can understand that the point is different, and the second version which
was mine is better. And this is the method of translating ST irony literally.
Other solutions would be to omit the ST irony and just write a normal sentence. It is acceptable
that all the solutions might be used in every case.
Turning back to verbal irony, it is clear that the doer of the action is going to kill the prey. Thus
he is playing with the victim and using irony as a device to tell the viewer from home that I
am going to murder in style.

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The intention of the translator should be to translate the verbal irony with the same powerful
effect. And the language used there should be understandable. The translator should maintain
the punctuation but also the structure of sentence.

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6.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMANDATIONS

We do understand that film translation is not an easy process and it deals with transferring the
sounds within two lines of text. The distinction between dubbing and subtitling as forms of film
translation is quite clear. One is about reproducing audio while the other is converting the audio.
It is understandable that the form of translation determines the way the subtitler works.

Film translation can be interlingual or intralingual. In other words it can be an internal

translation or an interlanguages translation. The result is that it is a useful device for people
who cannot hear as we do have also in Albania.

Moreover, the process of translating is a chain effect as it is a cooperation between the reviewer
and translator. We cannot blame only the translator anymore as we know now that it is a
collaboration with another person known as reviewer.

The socio-cultural perspective is best represented by the process of globalization as was the
comparison between Bollywood and Hollywood. It is clear that different terms do not have an
equivalent in our native language. Albanian language also does not have an equivalent for
different words that are translated from another language. This explains why they sound strange
when translated.

Furthermore, subtitles translation is affected by certain elements. The translator should pay
attention to proper names and the title of the movie in order to find the right equivalent.
Sometimes the transliteration or transcription of words does not work perfectly in target
language. Probably the audience is not used to hearing a certain name written differently.

Space and time determine the options that the subtitler has when translating. Subtitles are
restricted and we do understand now that when we translate from one language ot another we
have to do some limitation.

Word-for-word does not exist as long as sense-for-sense takes place. This is why subtitles need
to be restricted in space. When translating English to Albanian subtitles we cannot translate it
word for word because it is ridiculous while sense for sense is quite correct.

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We also talked about the idioms translation and the possibility in finding the right equivalent or
not. Now we have the response of why sometimes the idioms are not translated or avoided.
They are not always translatable.

The last element was dialect as an element that sometimes determines the language that the
translator should use. We dealt with translation workflows, which is a complicated process that
deal with translating multilingual texts or sequences within a film. Differences regarding culture
and grammar are crucial in determining the right equivalent. Grammar differs from English to
Albanian so does even culture and cultural words. All these elements are tasks that an aspiring
translator should bear in mind.

It is clear that humour is another challenge for the translator as it is not always universal, but
there were mentioned some solutions that subtitlers follow when translating humour s subunits
such as: puns, allusions or verbal irony.

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7.
REFERENCES

1. Agnieszka Szarkowska, (1997), The power of Film Translation, The transmission of

cultural values in screen translation, English Studies, University of Warsaw.
2. Palgrave Macmillan, (2007),Audio-visual Translation, Language Transfer on Screen,
Edited by Jorge Diaz Cintas and Gunilla Anderman.
3. Lawrence Venuti, (1995), The Translator's Invisibility: A History of Translation.
4. Henrik Gottlieb, (2005), Multidimensional Translation: Semantics turned Semiotics,
Challenges of Multidimensional Translation: Conference Proceedings, EU-High-Level
Scientific Conference Series.
5. Christopher Nolan, (2010), Inception, http://www.filma24.tv/inception/.
6. Tim Miller, (2016), Deadpool, http://www.filma24.tv/deadpool-2016/
7. Jonathan Hemming, (2015), Why are subtitles so different from the dialogue in a
foreign language film? A subtitler's perspective..., Translation England Language
Services.
8. Maria Fernanda R, (2013), The Difficult Task of Subtitling.
9. Eduart Bartoll, (2006), Subtitling multilingual films, EU-High-Level Scientific
Conference Series MuTra 2006 Audiovisual Translation Scenarios: Conference
Proceedings.
10. Top five problems companies face with subtitle translation,
http://www.accentnetwork.com/blog/language-news/item/top-5-problems-companies-
face-with-subtitle-translations.
11. Katia Spanakaki, (2007), Translating Humour for Subtitling, University of Central
Lancashire (Preston.
12. Hansjrg Bittner, (2011) The Quality of Translation.
13. Delabastita, D, (1996) Wordplay and Translation, Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing.
14. Tanaka, R. (1973) "The Concept of Irony: Theory and Practice." In Journal of Literary
Semantics II, The Hague-Paris: Mouton, pp. 43-56.
15. Raphaelson-West, Debra S. (1989) "On the Feasibility and Strategies of Translating
Humor." In Meta, Volume 34, Number 1, 1989. Special Issue on Humor and
Translation, pp. 128-141.

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