Abstract
Unlike subtitling, the process of dubbing does not give the audience the opportunity to fully perceive the cultural gap between what they hear and see, and their own reality. This takes on a new dimension when the customs and the characters which are being depicted in the foreign film are not the ‘standard’ ones (i. e. those from the US) but those belonging to ‘marginal’ cultures (e.g. European, African or Asian).Let us take the imaginary example of a Moroccan film in which a character representing an Arabic-speaking Tuareg, whose voice has been dubbed into Spanish, uses the same kind of perfect Castilian as audiences usually hear in the mouth of a New York police officer in an American series dubbed into Spanish. The cultural impact of a different language is supposedly lost when the dubbing makes all the voices sound the same.This paper will discuss the influence of dubbing on the audience ’s perception of a range of films in the context of Spain ’s film industry. We will offer an empirical study with the aim of identifying the elements which filmgoers use to situate a film, and even question whether (and to what extent) the process of dubbing effaces the cultural and national origin of a film. The conclusions drawn will contribute to the research on the reception of (audiovisual) translation.
Highlights
Unlike subtitling, the process of dubbing does not give the audience the opportunity to fully perceive the cultural gap between what they hear and see, and their own reality
In the context of today’s world film industry, this means either that ‘marginal’ motion pictures are shown only in a very limited way, or, in an increasing manner, that their authors make an effort to imitate US production values in order to get a wider release. This state of the industry concerning non-US films raises some questions as to whether filmgoers are aware of the national origin of the small number of non-US releases, what leads the audience to identify the nationality of a film in any case, and whether the dubbing of motion pictures from Europe, Africa or Asia for the Spanish market affects the way in which filmgoers receive these works
Even traditionally restricted areas like China, one of the most significant potential markets for films, are no longer a closed territory for international releases, and non-Chinese producers are managing to reach this country’s screens with the help of a variety of commercial strategies. Such a globalised film industry mirrors today’s worldwide financial circumstances, where multinational transactions and alliances focus on global strategies and profits, and “revenues are shared by numerous producers” (Gambier & Suomela-Salmi 1994: 244)
Summary
Dubbing is usually regarded as a domesticating process by means of which the source text’s ‘foreignness’ is concealed from the audience by making the characters in the film speak the viewers’ own language. It is alleged that the filmgoers who see a subtitled film can more identify the elements on screen which do not belong to their culture According to this presupposition, which is widely accepted (Danan 1991; Hart 1994; Mera 1999), dubbing obstructs the recognition of ‘the other’ and prevents the audience, at least partially, from becoming aware of the distinct idiosyncrasies of the people and the places depicted in the screenplay. According to our initial hypothesis, dubbing might have an effect on the reception of films, and this effect could vary depending on the industrial profile of the production translated
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