The Expression of Linguistic Stereotypes on Gender: A Comparison Between the Japanese Animated Movie “Kimi no Na Wa” (君の名は) and the English Dubbed-Translated Movie “Your Name”

This dissertation investigated the occurrence of linguistic stereotypes regarding gender in the Japanese animated movie Kimi no Na Wa (君の名は) compared to the English dubbed-translated movie Your Name. The Japanese audio script functioned as the source text (ST) and the script of the English dub as the target text (TT). Based on previous research of Spiridon (2014), Okamoto (1995), and Lakoff (1973; 2004), stereotypically gendered language was listed for both the ST and the TT. This study researched whether the TT favoured transferring Japanese gender markers (foreignization), conforming to English gender stereotypes (domestication), or omitting ST gender markers (neutralization) as a translation strategy. Based on results from earlier studies (Inoue (2003), González Vera (2012), De Marco (2006), Pettit (2005)) and considering the role of dubbing constraints, it was hypothesized that neutralization would be the favoured option in Your Name and that few new gender markers would be...Show moreThis dissertation investigated the occurrence of linguistic stereotypes regarding gender in the Japanese animated movie Kimi no Na Wa (君の名は) compared to the English dubbed-translated movie Your Name. The Japanese audio script functioned as the source text (ST) and the script of the English dub as the target text (TT). Based on previous research of Spiridon (2014), Okamoto (1995), and Lakoff (1973; 2004), stereotypically gendered language was listed for both the ST and the TT. This study researched whether the TT favoured transferring Japanese gender markers (foreignization), conforming to English gender stereotypes (domestication), or omitting ST gender markers (neutralization) as a translation strategy. Based on results from earlier studies (Inoue (2003), González Vera (2012), De Marco (2006), Pettit (2005)) and considering the role of dubbing constraints, it was hypothesized that neutralization would be the favoured option in Your Name and that few new gender markers would be introduced in the TT. The data analysis consisted of an ST analysis to determine the gender markers in the ST, a TT analysis to determine which translation strategies were applied in the rendering of the ST markers, and a TT analysis to determine whether any new gender markers had been introduced in the TT. The translation procedures of Vinay & Darbelnet (1995) were used to establish how the gendered items had been rendered in the TT. The results suggest that the hypothesis is confirmed, since only 32 out of 386 gender markers were rendered in the TT and 197 were newly introduced, which shows that neutralization was indeed the favoured translation type in the TT. Thereby, sentence-final particles were mostly represented in the ST versus hedging language in the TT. Some possibilities for future research include replicating this study for the subtitled script and investigating the characters’ pitch.Show less

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The Expression of Linguistic Stereotypes on Gender: A Comparison Between the Japanese Animated Movie “Kimi no Na Wa” (君の名は) and the English Dubbed-Translated Movie “Your Name”