USA reality competition television series RuPaul’s Drag Race has seen a rise in popularity since it first aired in 2009 and can be watched in several countries across different platforms. This...Show moreUSA reality competition television series RuPaul’s Drag Race has seen a rise in popularity since it first aired in 2009 and can be watched in several countries across different platforms. This global interest causes the need to translate the series’ English language into other languages. The use of language that is specific to the drag community and gay community, one that is tied to both gender and sexuality, as explored in this thesis, causes the translator to have to deal with community-specific words. A fairly recent phenomenon, the concept of translating this community-specific language and its translation into Dutch has not yet been extensively discussed. This thesis aims to find patterns that are visible in the translation procedures used (based on the concept of translation procedures by Newmark) for the translation of language tied to the drag and gay community, for the Dutch Netflix subtitles of three episodes of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Some of this language is maintained in the audiovisual translation, while other language is modified or removed. This modification or removal might possibly cause a different viewing experience for the Dutch viewer as compared to a viewer who only uses the source text, and causes a loss of meaning of cultural elements related to the drag community.Show less
This thesis aims to find out whether or not the procedures mentioned in Byrne’s Scientific and Technical Translation Explained (2014) are applicable to animal names and scientific nomenclature. A...Show moreThis thesis aims to find out whether or not the procedures mentioned in Byrne’s Scientific and Technical Translation Explained (2014) are applicable to animal names and scientific nomenclature. A secondary goal is to create a list of Dutch names for animals in the Gekkonidae family, following the naming guidelines set by Linnaeus (1758) and the International Code for Zoological Nomenclature (1999). After translating the names for 58 genera and 609 species, it was found that the retaining procedure mentioned by Byrne was highly applicable to zoological nomenclature, and a list of animal names for all species in 21 genera in the Gekkonidae family has been made.Show less
This master thesis attempts to portray the potential benefits of using an MT in the translation of expressive texts, specifically that of the novel The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, as...Show moreThis master thesis attempts to portray the potential benefits of using an MT in the translation of expressive texts, specifically that of the novel The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, as well as the dialogue and song lyrics of the musical Jekyll & Hyde. Three excerpts per genre were translated using Google Translate, and the output was assessed and post-edited with Moorkens’ (2018) method for assessing MT output. This method was adapted for a more specific assessment of style in addition to content by using the four categories of language by Leech & Short (2007), namely lexical categories, grammatical categories, figures of speech, and cohesion and context. Furthermore, the error typology by Farrús et al (2012) was used instead of Moorkens’ own typology, in order to achieve a more specific view on errors made by the MT. From these results, it can be concluded that all three genres show significant quality of their output. Secondly, most errors were either lexical or syntactic errors. It can also be concluded that while the editing effort of song lyrics is significantly higher than that of prose or dialogue, it could still be considered a large aid for beginning translators within the field of musical translation, as it creates a first, literal draft on which can be easier built upon than translating from scratch.Show less
The purpose of this thesis was to find out whether the potentially opposing views of professional translators and project managers on the use of machine translation (MT) might cause tensions in the...Show moreThe purpose of this thesis was to find out whether the potentially opposing views of professional translators and project managers on the use of machine translation (MT) might cause tensions in the industry and disrupt working relations. By conducting two questionnaires, which were altered to fit the profession of project managers and professional translators respectively, on the attitudes and beliefs on the use of MT and machine translation post-editing (MTPE), this thesis offers an analysis of both questionnaires individually and a mutual comparison. This thesis argues that the conflicting views on the use MT of project managers and professional translators is rooted in misunderstandings of the effort it takes translators to perform MTPE. The current study offers new insights into the attitudes and beliefs of both professional translators and project managers on the use of MT and creates a new research space for further research.Show less
Most research on swear word translation so far has been focused on audiovisual translation. This thesis attempts to provide insight in how swear words are translated in literary translation,...Show moreMost research on swear word translation so far has been focused on audiovisual translation. This thesis attempts to provide insight in how swear words are translated in literary translation, specifically Andy Weir's novel 'The Martian' and looks at how the translation of such swear words affect characterization and emotional setting. A literature review provides information of different aspects of swearing such as cultural influences. The case study uses examples from the novel and its Dutch translation of both characters and emotion to show how swear words affect the text and analyses whether the translation successfully translated these.Show less
This thesis examines whether the conditions are right for a codification of a Euro-English. English has emerged as Europe’s undisputed lingua franca (ELF), and much earlier research on ELF...Show moreThis thesis examines whether the conditions are right for a codification of a Euro-English. English has emerged as Europe’s undisputed lingua franca (ELF), and much earlier research on ELF primarily revolved around identifying salient features for the purpose of a codification of ELF. Even though several salient features have been found in ELF, there is also increasing evidence of fluidity and flexibility, which brings the viability of a codification into question. Therefore, this thesis includes a case study, comprised of a corpus-based comparative analysis of English as a Lingua Franca in the professional organizational (PO) and leisure (LE) domains, in order to determine whether there is variability in salient ELF features. The results of the case study did not show any significant variability in the supposed salient ELF features in either domain. However, the features did not appear frequently enough in order to be considered as salient. Nevertheless, some evidence of variation was found in the features used by speakers of different lingual backgrounds, which could indicate that linguistic background plays a role in which particular forms are utilized at a particular point in a given ELF interaction. These findings, even though unexplored, support the observation that there are different ‘local Englishes’ in Europe, which makes the viability of attempting a description of ELF questionable. It can thus be concluded that a codification of Euro-English is unlikely at this point and that it makes more sense for English to continue as a lingua franca or to argue for a multiglossic recognition of Euro-Englishes.Show less
The aging of retranslations has been getting more attention in the last few decades. Yet not much research has been conducted that can easily be replicated. In this study, the method by Van Poucke ...Show moreThe aging of retranslations has been getting more attention in the last few decades. Yet not much research has been conducted that can easily be replicated. In this study, the method by Van Poucke (2017) is used to find out if the first translation of 1984 by George Orwell has aged. 1984 was chosen because of the relevance that it still has and because it can add to the limited research that has been done on retranslating science fiction. Two Dutch translations were analysed, namely the first translation by Kool (1950) and the second and most recent translation by Davids (1984). The first chapter of the two translations was analysed to find out if lexical and stylistic aging could be found. Furthermore, the translations were analysed on the aging of technological concepts. Van Poucke’s method was used, because it is the leading method that operationalizes the research of aging. The findings show that lexical aging could not be determined in the first translation. For stylistic aging, much more evidence was found. After conducting this research, it can be concluded some evidence has been found that the first translation of 1984 has indeed aged and the aging of the first translation could have been a reason for retranslating the novel.Show less
The research undertaken in this thesis was aimed at researching whether “logocentric” subtitles – literal, word-by-word translations – and “musicocentric” subtitles – translations that take rhyme,...Show moreThe research undertaken in this thesis was aimed at researching whether “logocentric” subtitles – literal, word-by-word translations – and “musicocentric” subtitles – translations that take rhyme, rhythm, singability, sense, and naturalness into account – of songs in English-language live action movie musicals would be appreciated equally by Dutch viewers. Because of the “gossiping effect” (Törnqvist, 1995) – which makes viewers react negatively to subtitles that do not show what they hear being said – the expectation was that viewers would appreciate logocentric subtitles more, as musicocentric subtitles would likely be deemed “wrong” by Dutch viewers with a command of the English language as they are not literal translations of the lyrics. The research used Franzon’s (2008) concepts of logocentric and musicocentric translation and Low’s (2003, 2005) “pentathlon principle” to create logocentric and musicocentric subtitles for excerpts from songs of four English-language live action movie musicals: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Burton, 2007), Les Misérables (Hooper, 2012), The Sound of Music (Wise, 1965), and West Side Story (Robbins & Wise, 1961). These excerpts – two of which were subtitled logocentrically and two of which were subtitled musicocentrically – were then shown to a sample of 90 respondents through the use of a survey. The survey asked the respondents to report – for each excerpt – whether they thought the subtitles were good, and how they would rate the subtitles. The respondents overwhelmingly reported that the logocentric subtitles were good, and that the musicocentric subtitles were not good; they also rated the logocentric subtitles high, and the musicocentric subtitles low. Thus, the logocentric and musicocentric subtitles were not appreciated equally: the logocentric subtitles were appreciated more, an outcome the gossiping effect likely influenced. As logocentric subtitles appear to be more appreciated, and easier to create, an implication of this research could be that Dutch subtitlers should create logocentric subtitles for songs in English-language live action movie musicals.Show less
