Winged words : a descriptive and quantitative study of figurative speech in the subtitles of 7de Laan

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study investigates subtitling in 7de Laan, comparing episodes from 2007 to episodes from2010 with a focus on figurative language. It is a quantitative, descriptive study and aims todetermine the overall adequacy or acceptability of the subtitles, the translation strategies used,how figurative language and language varieties are translated and compares findings from 2007to those of 2010 to establish whether there has been a change in approach over this period.The source text, 7de Laan, is discussed in Chapter 1, which also outlines how the study willproceed, the research problem and the research questions. Chapters 2 and 3 are the literaturereview of the relevant theories. Chapter 2 covers Descriptive Translation Studies and thetranslation of figurative language. The challenges particular to subtitling, specifically theconstraints of the medium, are discussed in Chapter 3.The following two chapters are the analysis and each begins with the methodology used for thatanalysis. Chapter 4 is a macrolevel analysis of the corpus and determines theacceptability/adequacy of the subtitles, their governing translation norms and analyses thetranslation strategies used. More specific questions are answered in Chapter 5, which analysesthe translation of figurative language, the representation of language varieties in the subtitlesand the influence catering for a hearing-impaired audience has on translation decisions.The findings indicate that the subtitles of 7de Laan are mostly acceptable and that acceptabilityincreases in 2010. The translation strategies used and their frequency of usage are similar overthe years. However, there are slight changes: in 2010 there is less literal translation, moreomission and fewer figurative-specific translation strategies are used. The findings further showthat there is less figurative language in the subtitles in 2010. Additionally, there is a tendency oflevelling out figurative language in both years which increases in 2010. The analysis oflanguage varieties indicates that for sociolects, age markers influence the subtitles more thanrace markers do. Idiolects are rendered but how much of an idiolect is rendered depends on itsmarkers. The analysis also finds that subtitling for hearing-impaired audiences is a significantfactor in the translation process over and above the spatiotemporal constraint of subtitling.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University