MISTAKES IN AUDIOVISUAL TRANSLATION: LINGUISTIC AND DIDACTIC ASPECTS

Abstract

Introduction: Mistakes in audiovisual translation are generally caused by a wide rangeof lingual and extralingual factors. Translators’ unawareness of the nature of these factors hampersthe process of translation and results in misinterpretation of the message by the addressee.With fansubbing and crowdsourcing spreading worldwide, more and more experts are becomingconcerned with poor quality translations sprouting up before or simultaneously with theprofessionally interpreted or dubbed versions. Ukraine seems to have finally overcome the hardlycomprehensible voiceover of pirate DVDs (a sad legacy of the early 1990s). However, Ukrainianaudience is still struggling to understand some of the ‘quick fix’ versions of TV series, whichappear to be too numerous to be properly translated.Purpose: The objective of the article is to analyze typical mistakes that can occurin audiovisual translation and to outline the major causes of these mistakes.Methods: The research is based on randomly selected cases of inadequate voiceovertranslation of English fiction and documentary series into Ukrainian and Russian. The choiceof the films was prompted by the commentaries of Internet-users who indicated insufficientquality of translation of these films. Mistakes found were then analyzed from the point of viewof language and culture-specific constraints, interpreting mode constraints and personal constraintsthat might have affected the translator’s choice.Results: Apart from widely known linguistic phenomena of polysemy, homonymy,lexical lacunas, there are other stumbling blocks to faithful translation, such as lack of attentionto historical and cultural context, inappropriate stylistic toning, thematic irrelevance, and even blunt incoherence of verbal and visual features, etc. Due to the multimode nature of audiovisualtranslations some of the problems could easily be solved if translators actually watched the film,instead of hastily working on the script.Conclusions: Similar analysis of translators’mistakes is suggested as a means of teachingnovice translators to develop efficient tools of overcoming difficult cases while translatingforeign films.