The Dutch television programme Langs de Oevers van de Yangtze (“Alongside the Yangtze Shores”; 2016) was a great success in the Netherlands with a million viewers weekly and a nomination for two...Show moreThe Dutch television programme Langs de Oevers van de Yangtze (“Alongside the Yangtze Shores”; 2016) was a great success in the Netherlands with a million viewers weekly and a nomination for two Dutch television awards (Lips, 2018). The programme concerns Chinese modern lifestyle and it is spoken in both Dutch and Chinese, the latter being subtitled in Dutch. Since this programme has a focus on Chinese culture, it is relevant for the audience to have a full grasp of the meaning of the Extralinguistic Cultural References (ECRs). Preliminary academic research has shown a gap in the study of both written and subtitled translation of ECRs from Chinese into a Germanic language. The aim of this research is therefore to investigate which translation strategies were used for the translation of cultural references in the subtitles of Langs de Oevers van de Yangtze. All the ECRs in the program have been categorized based on the taxonomy of ECRs provided by Nedergaard-Larsen (1993) and the translation strategy for each ECR has been determined according to Pedersen’s taxonomy for ECRs in subtitles (2011). The results showed that for the categories geography, society and culture, most of the used translation strategies are source-oriented, whereas for the history category both source-oriented strategies and target-oriented strategies are used the same number of times. For the categories society and culture the most used strategy is direct translation. Direct translation is also the most used strategy in the category history along with the translation strategy generalization. For the category geography, the most used translation strategy is retention. In addition, the results showed that the subtitler also uses the Dutch commentary as a strategy in translating ECRs.Show less
This thesis explores retranslation in subtitling by analysing and comparing subtitles used by or created for VHS and Netflix. To establish whether Dutch subtitling conventions have changed towards...Show moreThis thesis explores retranslation in subtitling by analysing and comparing subtitles used by or created for VHS and Netflix. To establish whether Dutch subtitling conventions have changed towards a more foreignised and source-oriented approach in the course of the last twenty-five years, extralinguistic cultural references (ECRs) in the films Forrest Gump and Dazed and Confused were analysed and labelled according to translation procedure. Examining two different translations of the same film showed how conventions have indeed changed. In more than one third of the cases, the retranslations appear to be more foreignising than the first translations with regard to their treatment of ECRs. What has caused this change has not been explored in this study, but, as other studies suggested, this may be caused by globalisation, technology, and a better knowledge of the English language and its cultures. One explanation for this, verified by the results, is the many omissions in the VHS versions, which left no room for the retention of ECRs. In contrast, retention is the most common translation procedure in the retranslations. More research into retranslation in subtitling needs to be done to establish whether Dutch subtitles have really become more foreignising.Show less
