election campaign. The words of the president were: We ve created nine and a half million jobs, more than half of them high-wage jobs. The translator, who does not appear to have had access to a manuscript, produced the following translation:
Vi har skapat 9? milj.arbetsplatser,
mer? nh? lften inom motorv? gsarbete.
[We have created nine and a half million jobs, than half of them highway jobs.] phonemes is a common type of decoding mistake, and seems to be what occurred here. The translator must have been convinced that s/he heard highway jobs (motorv? Gsarbete) and not high-wage jobs. In this particular case there is no doubt that decoding was extremely difficult. The two constructions contained very similar sounds. Nevertheless, common sense combined with adequate knowledge of US society and politics would probably have saved the translator from dropping this brick. After all, it would have been rather extraordinary if half of all new jobs had been created in the field of road construction - even in the homeland of Henry Ford.deadlines in combination with decoding problems often present screen translators with difficulties and lead to misunderstandings, errors and inaccuracies. They represent considerable decoding constraints and are bound to have a negative impact on the quality of the translation. And when the audience has access to the Source Language dialogue, a high degree of translation accuracy is required.constraints of dubbing and lip synchronisationwe experience state-of-the-art lip synchronisation, it is not difficult to understand why this method is the favoured screen translation approach in large parts of the world. However, the constraining factors of this approach are very obvious.important consideration is the loss of authenticity. An essential part of a character s personality is their voice, which is closely linked to facial expressions, gestures and body language. Authenticity is undeniably sacrificed when a character is deprived of their voice and instead the audience hears the voice of somebody else. At the Cannes Film Festival in 2003, I interviewed 25 people working in the film industry about their screen translation preferences. All but two said they favoured subtitling. When asked why, most of them answered that they regarded subtitling as the most intelligent and authentic option. For actors to experience what their contribution has been turned into in different Target Language versions must be somewhat startling, and it may seem a bit strange that directors do not put their foot down more often than they do, for example, in cases where dubbing has been favoured and subtitling would have been the preferred option.such linguistic transplantation takes place, it is not only authenticity that is sacrificed but, in addition, credibility, which may be particularly problematic in news and current-affairs programmes when voice-over is used. Reporters seem to be increasingly preoccupied with the dramatic effect subtitled interviews are reputed to have. This probably has to do with the transnational qualities of the human voice. Even if we do not understand the words of a foreign language, the voice itself may convey a great deal of information. Although intonation patterns often vary from language to language, universal features such as the expression of pain, grief and joy should not be ignored: linked to pitch, stress, rhythm and volume, they contribute considerably to conveying information not only about the speakers, but also about the context of which they form a part.reflect the mood and atmosphere of a situation, whether it is at a major sports event, the scene of an accident or the convention of a political party. The effect of a persuasive speech during a presidential or parliamentary election campaign is probably significantly reduced in a voice-over. Since many politicians capitalise on their voices, sound is an important part of their public image. The Northern Ireland politician Gerry Adams is a good example of the significance of the impact of a political voice. For a long period of time the British people did not have the opportunity to hear his voice on radio or television. Whenever Adams made a statement, it could only be broadcast when somebody else read his words, revealing the importance the British authorities attached to the voice of the charismatic politician. It also underlines the significance of letting the audience have access to the original soundtrack.is little doubt in my mind that subtitling has an important educational value. Visitors to the Scandinavian countries are often impressed by the standard of English of the people they meet, most of whom have never lived in an English-speaking country. Rather than reflecting the superior result of differing language teaching standards, it may in fact be the inherent pedagogical value of having access to...
