Lingua e traduzione inglese: Audiovisual text and translation

PLOTTING TEXT ITEMS AND TEXT TYPES

An AV text could not be without an audio component, nor without the visual component. It should include any combination of audio, visual, verbal and non-verbal elements. Basing on the map in the figure above, these combinations may be:

1. Basically verbal
   1. Oral speech with no visual contact or aid, for example on the radio.
   2. Oral speech with the presence of paralinguistic facial expressions or body language.
   3. As of 1B, plus important written material (such as writing on blackboard) or performative acts of reading out sentences or other legally blinding documents that must be heard as well as seen.
   4. Group reading led by someone (for example a teacher or a preacher) reading out loud from a book.
   5. Silent reading of a message where layout and format cannot be altered, so they are not regarded as having any potential meaning.
2. More verbal than non-verbal
   1. Oral speech with some sound effects (as in coughing).

1. Verbal communication only
• Spoken words without any visual aids or written backup, such as a conversation or a speech.
• Spoken words with emphasis on tone, volume, or intonation for greater impact or enjoyment, as in storytelling (especially in audio books).
2. Oral communication with some visual props and aids
• Prototypical stand-up comedy with visual props and aids.
3. Oral communication with a great degree of written backup
• A densely subtitled film or a densely captioned TV news program, where subtitles and captions may or may not involve translation.
4. Information that appears visually written on the screen with sound used as a background or filling
• Money market information television channels.
5. Layout and presentation as meaningful factors, but the information still comes mostly from the words
• Printed newspapers and news magazines.
6. Both verbal and non-verbal communication
• Prototypical jukebox song, where music and words are basically inseparable.
• Classical music radio program, where the introduction is separable from the actual music.

language to enjoy all the non-linguistic parts.

3B - Televised arias where the picture 'illustrate' or explain the music, in which the soundtrack is the main attraction of the AV text.

3C - Opera stage production, in which both the audio and the visual channels are exploited to the full to send verbal and non-verbal signs and messages.

3D - Children's book with press-button sounds.

3E - Prototypical comic book combining words and drawings.

4: Less verbal than non-verbal

4A - Disc jockey radio music, where there is some introductory speaking but is mostly music.

4B - Televised rock music, with rather unimportant lyrics and pictures.

4C - Video-clip music, where both audio and visual are equally important and balanced but not inseparable. Words are not usually the most important feature although they can appear orally or graphemically. Karaoke combines music and captions and the non-verbal picture is separable and less important.

4D - Candid camera,

mostly visual, little presence of sound, except for one or two noises like bumps and screams, and a few words to introduce the trick or a small dialogue to start it off. 4E - Silent film with intertitles, 'train platform' television with no synchronized sound. 5: Only non-verbal 5A – Non-oral, non-written signals that substitute verbal signs and thus cannot be considered non-verbal speaking such as morse bips. Here the signs are not language-specific, such as morse bips. 5B - Televised symphony orchestra, where the music is the main thing but it is also interesting and entertaining to watch the performers, and any noteworthy camera work. 5C- Modern 'silent films', which tend to use sound effects even if there is no talk. 5D - No oral communication and very little writing on the screen, at least in its original format. Here the main attraction is the picture. This is a practical example of separability of the sound from the picture, and, to a large extent, the

picture is separable from all other semiotic sign systems.5E - Silent non-verbal films, fine arts (such as painting, sculpture), nonverbal cartoon strips,photography and especially mime. In the case of mime it is important to distinguish between purenonverbal mime, and the miming of syllables (as in some of the Marx Brothers’ films). Harpo Marx’smiming constitutes a particularly challenging problem for translation because it is obviously verydifficult to translate each syllable as word, or verbal clue, and then make the sum of all the syllable-translations become an equivalent of the original word or phrase.

THE NATURE OF THE AUDIOVISUAL TEXT AND ITS TRANSLATIONIn this scheme it is possible to map types of AV texts. A cline indicates the amount and importanceof verbal communication in proportion to other semiotic forms of expression, while another clinemeasures the relative importance of sound in the audio channel weighted against visual signs. Sowe can distinguish three

Main Areas:

• X:

  Here intentions and meanings are conveyed through both channels and systems all acting together. A scene taken from the British series The Black Adder perfectly illustrates this area. In this scene Lord Black Adder tells his servant to "Get the door, Baldrick". After a while Baldrick comes back with the door under his arm. The difficulty involved in translating this joke arises for those languages that do not have an expression that can be interpreted idiomatically (and plausibly) as "answer the door" and literally (and implausibly) as "fetch the door".

• Y:

  Here the importance of the words heard is favored over the musical score or the picture. An example could be the British series Yes, Minister, which was originally written for the radio and was later adapted to the television due to its tremendous success. The result is that the essential part of the program still remains the dialogue, there are no sound effects and the picture.

could be considered as supportive of the words;

Z: here pictures constitute are the main constituents of the product and less or no importance is given to verbal communication. Some examples could be Charlie Chaplin's silent film performances but also Mr Bean.

During the translating process of a text it is important to know what types of relationships can be established between its items. Some of the types of relationships are:

• Complementarity: when the various elements depend on each other for a full grasp or for their meaning, potential and function;
• Redundancy: involves the total or partial repetitions that are regarded as unnecessary or superfluous. It may appear on the same level involving only words, or sounds, or images, or it may occur on different levels. Repetition doesn't have to be necessarily redundant, but in AV texts it is important because it allows the target audience not to miss anything through lack of attention;
• Contradiction or incongruity: it is a

surprising combination to create such effects as irony, paradox, parody, satire, humor, metaphor or symbolism;

Incoherence: it is the inability to combine elements meaningfully because of failings in the script, the directing, the translation of the script, the sound or the subtitling;

Separability: in consists in elements of a sign system whereby they manage to function independently from the AV text, as when the soundtrack is made into a successful audio recording;

Aesthetic quality: it is the text author's intention to produce something of beauty through the combination of the visual arts with literature, photography and music.

Complementarity is not necessarily unalterable and constituent parts of a complementary relationship may be separated from the whole, generally providing a new meaning. It happens, for example, when a soundtrack ends up living an independent life from the pictures and film it originates from, providing pure audio enjoyment. Further examples of

Le forme di separabilità sono:

• TV "DECORATIVE" come MTV e Fashion TV, ideali per vetrine e bar, dove l'immagine è spesso separabile;
• TELEGIORNALE in cui il presentatore e le didascalie sono ridondanti e talvolta unite dalla ridondanza dell'immagine, in modo che il pubblico possa capire una notizia ascoltando, guardando o leggendo;
• INNI NAZIONALI, in cui la musica è separabile dalle parole perché queste canzoni hanno un significato con o senza di esse. Potrebbe verificarsi un problema di traduzione quando una certa canzone che non è un inno nazionale viene suonata in una versione puramente strumentale perché si presume che il pubblico conosca l'essenza dei testi. Ad esempio, potremmo avere alcuni testi di Yesterday dei Beatles per sottolineare la nostalgia di una determinata scena;
• FILM E CARTONI ANIMATI: per alcuni film, la colonna sonora è separabile dal resto del film. Ad esempio, in Tom e Jerry, le storie visive hanno poco bisogno del componente audio.

LA SEMIOTICA

OF AVThe semiotic dimension of audiovisual communication requires:

• A PHOTOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS OF STILLS to understand the photographic composition, the relationship between film and photography and the use of colour, light and texture;
• A CINEMATIC ANALYSIS OF THE RELATIONSHIPS established by moving pictures and sound, audiovisual narrative techniques, audiovisual cohesion, audiovisual rhetorical devices (repetition, ellipsis, metaphor and metonymy) and the use of the camera.

Each one of these aspects may be intended to carry meaning or to help make the meaning of the words and script more explicit or dynamic.

Now that we've exposed all these concepts, we can finally propose a refinement for the concept of constrained translation, used to account for the translation of films, songs and highly illustrated texts such as comic strips.

So we must start by saying that the text being translated is not restricted to the words only, and that non-verbal elements such as the pictures don't

Constrain the translation. The images are actually received and interpreted differently from one viewer to the next, since they don't focus on the same things, even more so if they are from different socio-cultural settings.

According to this, audiovisual screen translation must create a 'new' script in a different language that can create meaningful relationship with the pictures and sounds that also make their contribution to the 'new' AV text, so that it is coherent and relevant as possible to the new audience.

So an alternative model to constrained translation consists in the creation of a target text where everything fits into place, accounts for the relative importance of the source text words. The translator must be aware, for each scene, of which are the most important and relevant items (verbal or otherwise) so as to make audiovisually-coherent decisions as to the words that will be the most appropriate for the task at hand.

PARAMETERS OF THE AUDIOVISUAL

FACTOR

Audiovisual communication requires careful thought.