{"title":"More than words: a multimodal analytical framework for studying the subtitling of swearwords","authors":"Siwen Lu","doi":"10.1080/0907676x.2023.2268126","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"This study aims to adopt existing methodologies to build a Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL)-based multimodal analytical framework capable of analysing swearing and its subtitling in their full multimodal context. The proposed framework offers tools to investigate how the communicative meanings of swearing are constructed through the interaction between different elements in different modes, and the effects of the retention and modification of the intermodal relations on subtitled films. This study finds that swearing is constructed multimodally through three metafunctional levels. Although the original swearwords are mostly omitted or changed to be less offensive in the Chinese subtitles, most communicative meanings of swearing can be inferred from the complementary relation between subtitles and the elements in the spoken and mise-en-scène modes. The study concludes that the focus of subtitle translation analysis should not be on what is lost in the target texts but on the contributions of different elements in different modes and their intermodal relations as well as how individual translation techniques work in a multimodal environment.","PeriodicalId":46466,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives-Studies in Translation Theory and Practice","volume":"33 3","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":1.0000,"publicationDate":"2023-11-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Perspectives-Studies in Translation Theory and Practice","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/0907676x.2023.2268126","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
This study aims to adopt existing methodologies to build a Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL)-based multimodal analytical framework capable of analysing swearing and its subtitling in their full multimodal context. The proposed framework offers tools to investigate how the communicative meanings of swearing are constructed through the interaction between different elements in different modes, and the effects of the retention and modification of the intermodal relations on subtitled films. This study finds that swearing is constructed multimodally through three metafunctional levels. Although the original swearwords are mostly omitted or changed to be less offensive in the Chinese subtitles, most communicative meanings of swearing can be inferred from the complementary relation between subtitles and the elements in the spoken and mise-en-scène modes. The study concludes that the focus of subtitle translation analysis should not be on what is lost in the target texts but on the contributions of different elements in different modes and their intermodal relations as well as how individual translation techniques work in a multimodal environment.
期刊介绍:
Perspectives: Studies in Translatology encourages studies of all types of interlingual transmission, such as translation, interpreting, subtitling etc. The emphasis lies on analyses of authentic translation work, translation practices, procedures and strategies. Based on real-life examples, studies in the journal place their findings in an international perspective from a practical, theoretical or pedagogical angle in order to address important issues in the craft, the methods and the results of translation studies worldwide. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology is published quarterly, each issue consisting of approximately 80 pages. The language of publication is English although the issues discussed involve all languages and language pairs.