Slang is a nonstandard informal vocabulary peculiar to a group. In this digital age, the reproduction and evolution of slang words has become faster due to the digital platforms that they are often...Show moreSlang is a nonstandard informal vocabulary peculiar to a group. In this digital age, the reproduction and evolution of slang words has become faster due to the digital platforms that they are often used in. Research has been done on the lexical aspects of slang and slang in general (Sornig (1981); Metcalf (2002)), and on forms of digital slang (McCulloch (2019)), but none view slang as a mode of translation and applied it to to other types of text besides messages on social media. This thesis will address where digital slang terms come from, and if their origins can help explain how likely they are to be understood by someone who speaks regular English. To do so I will annotate a slang translation of Harry Potter, and research the etymological origins of the slang to try to discover - using Metcalf’s (2002) FUDGE theory - which slang terms are more likely to be understood. I expect to find that the slang terms that more closely resemble regular English words are more likely to be understood.Show less
Ever since the introduction of Translation Universals, their existence has been widely debated. Explicitation and implicitation are no exception to this. These Translation Universals, both...Show moreEver since the introduction of Translation Universals, their existence has been widely debated. Explicitation and implicitation are no exception to this. These Translation Universals, both separately and together, have been studied in a variety of genres and text types. This thesis examined explicitation and implicitation in Dutch Patient Information Leaflets (PILs). It looked at how explicit the Dutch PILs were, what the rate of explicitation to implicitation was, and which explicitation and implicitation strategies were used. To study this, a bilingual parallel corpus of English and Dutch PILs of orally taken contraceptives was analysed. The source and target texts were compared side by side and occurrences of explicitation and implicitation were identified, the rate of explicitation to implicitation was calculated and the different implicitation strategies used were determined. The results show a rate of 60% explicitation and 40% implicitation, with 234 explicitation shifts and 156 implicitation shifts identified. Additionally, a wide range of explicitation and implicitation strategies was found, with the most common explicitation strategies being the addition of a connective element, the filling of an elliptical structure and the use of lexical repetition. The most commonly used implicitation strategy, by far, was the use of a hypernym. Overall, Dutch PILs were more explicit than English ones, especially concerning connectives, though English PILs were more explicit in regard to hyponyms. With this research into explicitation and implicitation, we are one step closer to either confirming or disputing these Translation Universals, using the method proposed by Chesterman (2010). Additionally, by researching the explicitness of PILs, we contribute to the existing research on their lay-friendliness.Show less
This thesis examines the translation approach towards the rendering of register in the German children’s novel: Tintenherz by Cornelia Funke (2003) and its translations into Dutch, Hart van Inkt...Show moreThis thesis examines the translation approach towards the rendering of register in the German children’s novel: Tintenherz by Cornelia Funke (2003) and its translations into Dutch, Hart van Inkt translated by Hanneke Beneden and Ab Bertholet, and into English, Inkheart translated by Anthea Bell. A register analysis was carried out on the three novels in two phases: a situational-context analysis and an analysis of the lexicogrammatical realizations of field, tenor and mode. This analysis found that in the Dutch translation the rendering of register was predominantly source-oriented. It furthermore found that the English target text applied more target-oriented renditions of register than the Dutch target text did. However, the overall approach of the English target text was also source-oriented. Thus, this thesis showed that the rendering of register in the Dutch and English translations of Tintenherz was predominantly source-oriented.Show less
This thesis aims to investigate whether the presence of subtitles aids viewer comprehension. Additionally, as a subquestion, this thesis also investigates whether a longer subtitle viewing time...Show moreThis thesis aims to investigate whether the presence of subtitles aids viewer comprehension. Additionally, as a subquestion, this thesis also investigates whether a longer subtitle viewing time would lead to more comprehension. A total of 22 Dutch students watched a randomly assigned a subtitled or a non-subtitled clip from the medical drama Chicago Med while their eye movements were tracked. After the eye tracking process, the participants were post-tested on comprehension and detail questions. The results show that the participants with subtitles perform better on the post-test than their counterparts without subtitles on a statistically significant level. In specific, the subtitle group performs better than the non-subtitle group on detail questions. However, contrary to expectations, subtitle viewing time could not be found to be correlated to the performance of the participants. Taken together, the results from the post- test indicate that the Dual Coding Theory is in effect when viewing subtitled audiovisual material. This means that subtitles positively influence the viewer’s ability to register, recall, and understand information and details.Show less
This study examines the reception by a Dutch target audience of subtitled puns in the American sitcom How I Met Your Mother by expanding on the BA Thesis “Audiovisual Translation: Subtitling of...Show moreThis study examines the reception by a Dutch target audience of subtitled puns in the American sitcom How I Met Your Mother by expanding on the BA Thesis “Audiovisual Translation: Subtitling of Humour in How I Met Your Mother”. For this thesis, a questionnaire is conducted, asking questions about the participants’ viewing habits, their understanding of subtitles and puns, and finally their assessment of four short fragments. The translation strategies that are used in this study are omission, literal translation, and transposition. This reception study is substantiated by previous studies concerning translation strategies, different types of puns, and studies of the reception of subtitles. This is used to prove or disprove the hypothesis that a target audience will experience the most joy in puns that are subtitled using the transposition strategy, since this best conveys humorous instances both creatively and enjoyably. The participants’ answers are analysed and a conclusion is drawn, where recommendations to future subtitlers will be given to improve their subtitling process and enhance the audience’s enjoyment. Lastly, a guide for possible future studies will be implemented.Show less
There exists a significant amount of research on translation strategies regarding the subtitling of humour and wordplay. However, the translation of eggcorns, malapropisms, and other types of...Show moreThere exists a significant amount of research on translation strategies regarding the subtitling of humour and wordplay. However, the translation of eggcorns, malapropisms, and other types of linguistic blunders have been largely ignored. This thesis attempts to fill this research gap by investigating the translation strategies used for linguistic blunders, or ‘Rickyisms’, in the Dutch subtitles of the Netflix mockumentary Trailer Park Boys. The strategies omission, literal translation, and retention, which occur in taxonomies of existing research were identified. A high rate of omission (64.4%) indicates a significant loss of Rickyisms and humour for the following reasons: no suitable Dutch equivalent (21.5%), temporal/spatial restrictions (15.4%), and grammatical errors (33.8%). Additionally, an overlap between temporal/spatial restrictions and grammatical errors (13.8%) and some omissions which are unjustified (15.4%) were identified. A new two-phase model for the strategies where the Rickyism is retained has been developed. Phase one pertains to the translation of the phrase as if it were correct and phase two pertains to the translation of the error. This resulted in the categories Literal-Literal (58.3%), Literal-Substitution (13.9%), and Substitution-Substitution (27.8%). This first strategy seems to be the preferred one when the linguistic properties of the source and target language permit it. Substitution in phase two includes numerous different shifts in terms of type of error.Show less
This study uses the study by Valdez & Vandepitte (2020) as a framework to answer the research question: To what extent are the differences in attitude and expectation of translators and...Show moreThis study uses the study by Valdez & Vandepitte (2020) as a framework to answer the research question: To what extent are the differences in attitude and expectation of translators and reviewers on the Dutch translation market similar to the situation on the Portuguese biomedical translation market, as described in Valdez & Vandepitte (2020)? This is done by distributing a questionnaire to a group of translators and reviewers, who are active on the Dutch translation market with the language combination English and Dutch. Their answers reveal that the situation on the Dutch translation market is very similar to the situation on the Portuguese biomedical translation market: Translators and reviewers agree on the important aspects of translations (fluency and grammatical correctness) and on the degree to which reviewers should make changes to translations (only if actual mistakes are found, while ignoring personal preference). However, translators and reviewers on both the Dutch and Portuguese translation markets are somewhat unsatisfied with the work of their colleagues, because they appear to not follow the standards that they agree on. This dissatisfaction could be resolved by better communication between translators and reviewers, which is another point of dissatisfaction for translators and reviewers. The findings of this study support the recommendation made by Valdez & Vandepitte (2020) to focus more on communication during translator training.Show less
This thesis ventures into the particular climate of Mapudungun translators in Chile and scrutinizes the possibility of translation as an instrument of Mapuche activism. It investigates notions of...Show moreThis thesis ventures into the particular climate of Mapudungun translators in Chile and scrutinizes the possibility of translation as an instrument of Mapuche activism. It investigates notions of political agency, habitus, hybridity, and fluency to establish whether these suit the postcolonial condition of Indigenous Latin America. The study’s theoretical framework builds upon translation theories that consider the ties between transformative practices and political or activist engagement. The literature review explores the transformative elements of translation to deduce how activist translation can be defined. It additionally dissects Bourdieu’s conceptualization of habitus and agency to comprehend and analyze transformative translation practices in the postcolonial condition. This debate on postcolonial and translatorial paradigms is complemented by a consideration of the overarching crucial role of translation in Mapuche literature and the significant link between Indigenous identity and language. This thesis expands upon Bhabha’s hybridity and Venuti’s fluency to examine the viability of Rivera Cusicanqui’s ch’ixi as a framework to study Mapudungun translation. The study relies on semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis to determine the political means of Mapudungun translations. The results provide insight into the different forms of sociopolitical translation undertaken by Mapudungun translators and what can be considered the task of the Mapudungun translator. Most importantly, this work provides incentive for further research into translation practices in Indigenous Latin America and demonstrates why this cultural region should not remain overlooked.Show less
This research is a literature and jurisprudence study into the effect of the differences in legal interpretation between the EU legal system and the US legal system regarding competition law on the...Show moreThis research is a literature and jurisprudence study into the effect of the differences in legal interpretation between the EU legal system and the US legal system regarding competition law on the translation of competition law terminology into Dutch. Both EU and US competition law addresses broadly the same categories of anticompetitive behaviour - agreements, monopolisation, mergers - but the wording and interpretation of the legislative provisions varies. EU competition law is originally based upon US antitrust law, and therefore shares a lot of the same terminology. The US antitrust law has undergone some fundamental changes in its interpretation, which has in turn driven EU and US terminology further apart. Nowadays, there are vast differences in economic interpretation, political interpretation and legal interpretation. These differences in interpretation have influence on the translation of competition law terminology from US English and EU English, respectively, into Dutch. In the jurisprudence it is shown that the ECJ interprets textually and teleologically, where the US Supreme Court uses conservative purposivism. This leads to differences in the meaning of the same term. Generally, the US Supreme Court find an additional proof of inefficiency necessary in order to establish a competition violation. Both EU competition law and Dutch competition law do not need this additional proof. Therefore, the semantic meaning of competition law terminology is narrower in the US than in the EU. For translation into Dutch it must be assessed on a case-to-case basis whether it is necessary to add ‘inefficiënte’ before a US term so that the target text reader has the same understanding of the legal term as the source text reader.Show less
This thesis investigates the juxtaposition of Lawrence Venuti’s theory on translator visibility with the situation of Dutch video game localisers in practice. Venuti argues that translators should...Show moreThis thesis investigates the juxtaposition of Lawrence Venuti’s theory on translator visibility with the situation of Dutch video game localisers in practice. Venuti argues that translators should employ foreignizing translation strategies, lest they erase themselves. Video game localisation, however, is said to rely heavily on domesticating strategies to ensure that a game meets the needs of the target culture. This conflicting phenomenon is investigated by means of an interview study with seven professional translators who translate video games into Dutch. The results suggest that Dutch video game localisers do have a strong preference for domesticating their translations, and that a foreignizing strategy is only rarely used. The results further indicate that while translators do feel invisible, they do not see a direct connection between their strategy and their visibility. It therefore appears that Venuti’s theory is not applicable to this type of translation. However, Venuti believes that the translator’s working environment also influences their visibility, and the results of this thesis further suggest that there are other agents within and beyond the game localisation business that may be capable of improving translator visibility.Show less
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
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 Netherlands is a country with a subtitling tradition. This tradition would suggest that Dutch viewers generally have a more positive attitude towards Dutch subtitling compared to Dutch dubbing....Show moreThe Netherlands is a country with a subtitling tradition. This tradition would suggest that Dutch viewers generally have a more positive attitude towards Dutch subtitling compared to Dutch dubbing. However, this subtitling tradition does not seem to have been established at the hand of the attitudes of Dutch viewers towards both modes, considering these attitudes have received nearly no coverage in academic work. This is problematic, since a lack of data on these attitudes makes it challenging for translators of audiovisual media to create translations that are suitable for a Dutch audience. Therefore, this thesis collected data on the attitudes of 53 Dutch participants towards Dutch subtitling and dubbing in the Netherlands through an online questionnaire. The results show that the participants prefer Dutch subtitles over Dutch dubs, but also rate the overall quality of both modes in a similar manner and even list slightly more disadvantages for Dutch subtitles than Dutch dubs. There also appears to be a consensus amongst the participants that children are the main target audience for Dutch dubs, and most participants indicated that Dutch dubs are the most suitable for children’s programs, cartoons and commercials. Furthermore, 69.8% of the participants believe that there is a negative stigma surrounding Dutch dubs and 88.7% of the participants stated that they do not desire for more audiovisual media to become available with Dutch dubs. Additionally, 49.1% of the participants indicated they do not desire for more audiovisual media to become available with Dutch subtitles either. Although 56.6% of the participants indicated they do not feel restricted by Dutch subtitles, the majority of the participants stated that they frequently disagree with the translation choices in Dutch subtitles. Finally, 66% of the participants indicated that they prefer English subtitles over Dutch subtitles. While these findings only represent the attitudes of 53 Dutch viewers, they can form a starting point for future research regarding attitudes towards both modes in the Netherlands.Show less
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the quality of translations of legal texts produced by DeepL, a neural machine translation system. By consulting relevant laws and legal dictionaries, this...Show moreThe purpose of this paper is to evaluate the quality of translations of legal texts produced by DeepL, a neural machine translation system. By consulting relevant laws and legal dictionaries, this study finds that DeepL's Dutch to English translation of legal texts contains syntactic and terminological errors.Show less
