Subtitlers often find themselves choosing between adhering to subtitling constraints and improving the target audience's understanding of the source material. In other words, they make choices...Show moreSubtitlers often find themselves choosing between adhering to subtitling constraints and improving the target audience's understanding of the source material. In other words, they make choices between condensation and accessibility. This thesis examines how references to political discourse are translated in Netflix's series House of Cards, from English to Dutch. These references were categorized by using a translation taxonomy (Pedersen, 2005/2011). This categorization process demonstrated how the Official Equivalent translation strategy can be problematic, and a tendency to choose (cultural) accessibility over condensation in general.Show less
This BA thesis considers the difficulties of assessing translated song texts, as there are few theories suitable for the assessment of this type of translation. Three Dutch translations from the...Show moreThis BA thesis considers the difficulties of assessing translated song texts, as there are few theories suitable for the assessment of this type of translation. Three Dutch translations from the musical All Shook Up were compared to the original English musical lyrics using Peter Low’s Pentathlon Principle. Based on this Principle, it was concluded that most lines develop problems in several of the categories at once, meaning that there is not one specific category in the Dutch translations that is most problematic. Furthermore, it was concluded that the Pentathlon Principle can be useful in the assessment of existing song translations as it provides a clear understanding of which category is flawed. However, it has not become clear how to properly apply the Pentathlon Principle in practice.Show less
This thesis examines the persuasive differences between U.S. President Barack Obama’s war speech on ISIL (2014) and former President George W. Bush’s war speech on Iraq (2003). Obama and Bush Jr....Show moreThis thesis examines the persuasive differences between U.S. President Barack Obama’s war speech on ISIL (2014) and former President George W. Bush’s war speech on Iraq (2003). Obama and Bush Jr. both made use of various language strategies to influence the audience’s perception of their speech. Because Obama needed to gain much more public approval in 2014 than Bush Jr. did in 2003, it is expected that Obama’s speech contains much more persuasive strategies than Bush Jr.’s speech. The stylistic and linguistic analysis in this thesis, however, show that this is not the case. Obama does not make more use of persuasive strategies than Bush Jr. does, but focuses on different strategies instead.Show less
Since the era of the Enlightenment, the future has often been seen as something which is foreseeable and can be planned but, nowadays, the issue of planning is more related to a dystopian future...Show moreSince the era of the Enlightenment, the future has often been seen as something which is foreseeable and can be planned but, nowadays, the issue of planning is more related to a dystopian future than to a utopian one. This thesis examines the current method of future study – scenario planning – and analyses two recent future studies of Dutch retail carried out by two retail industry associations, HBD in 2007 and NRW in 2011. The emphasis is on their discourse in which ‘drastic changes’, ‘trends’ and ‘scenarios’ are important words and phrases. The results of the stylistic analysis indicate that HBD and NRW worry a lot about the future. The formulated scenarios in their future studies nevertheless act as resolutions in a complex policy situation. Although the two retail organisations share their criticism of the national retail policy and their experience of a more market driven retail sector, there remain substantial differences between them in that HBD pursues the use of a professional economic register whereas NRW puts emphasis on marketing language.Show less
