Are You "Lost in Translation" (when watching a foreign film)? Towards An Alternative Approach to Judging Audiovisual Translation

Abstract

Translating a text or film means transferring it to another context, whose readers or viewers usually do not share same sociocultural background and codes as original receivers. In Translation and Text Transfer, Anthony Pym describes this phenomenon as the of texts: texts/films are embedded in a spatiotemporal context in which they are maximally comprehensible. In film, this embedding is not only evident in language(s) used by characters, but also in indexicality of image itself (geographical and historical locus, dress code, non-verbal communication signs), cinematic conventions adopted, etc. When a film is transferred to a different context, because this degree of shared knowledge between author and original viewers is no longer optimal, verbal and non-verbal signs may not be interpretable by foreign viewers. This difficulty is commonly referred to as cultural discount, denoting idea that a film's linguistic and specificity may jeopardise its success outside its original country of production/reception. The role of audiovisual translator is therefore to find ways to facilitate transfer of film to a new environment (both textual and cultural) in order to loosen bonds of belonging that tie film to its original context of production. The author's contention in this article is that this transfer does not systematically involve losses in translation, as is so often argued by both audiences and researchers. The author illustrates this argument with examples involving specifically translation of culturally bound references, which constitute one of main moments of resistance in a film's process of transfer to a new market.