Irene de Higues, University Jaume I
Multilingualism, understood as linguistic diversity, is increasingly present in the audiovisual production (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2012). The audiovisual representation of multilingualism is based on the prefabricated orality of the dialogs (Chaume, 2003). As a complement to the images and the history, the dialogs written to be read as if they were spoken try to reflect the existing multilingualism in a multicultural society.
The full-length films presented in this contribution are films of migration and diaspora. These films describe the migration stories of citizens coming from Africa, Central America, South America, Asia and the East of Europe who wish to find “El Dorado” in Europe. More precisely, the audiovisual representation of the processes of migration and diaspora will be examined in five British (co)productions: Beautiful People (Jasmin Dizdar, 2000), Ae Fond Kiss… (Ken Loach, 2005), It’s a Free World… (Ken Loach, 2007), Provoked: A True Story (Jag Mundhra, 2006), Room to Rent (Khaled El-Hagar, 2003).
Firstly, I will take a close look into the production process of multilingual films of migration and diaspora. The interviews to six directors and scriptwriters provide information about their intention when it comes to start a project of such features, what their attitude towards the migration topic is, how the process of writing and execution of a multilingual film is and how the international distribution process evolves.
From a sociolinguistic point of view, differences between the language or languages spoken in the community and the language or languages spoken outside of this community are identified. In other words, the language and culture of origin generally stay at home and, at the same time, a process of linguistic integration into the target society takes place (Fishman, 965/2000; Hua, 2008). Secondly, I will detail how the multilingualism characterising processes of migration and diaspora is depicted in the audiovisual works. Additionally, I will study the translation (in)visibility in the original versions. Not translating multilingualism as a strategy, the inclusion of characters who act as interpreters (either native or professional interpreters) or the usage of partial subtitles have consequences on the evolution of the plot and the perception of the characters.
Finally, I will focus on the aspects determining the international distribution of these products and, specifically, I will focus on the dubbing and subtitling process of this films into Spanish. With the analysis of the dubbed and subtitled versions and the conclusions drawn from the interviews to distributors, translators and dubbing directors, I will explain how the translation strategy used (marking or not marking the multilingualism of the original film, Bartoll, 2006) may be the result of technical handling, but also of ideological manipulation.
References:
Bartoll, E. (2006): «Subtitling multilingual films», in M. Carroll, H. Gerzymisch-Arbogast, y S. Nauert (eds.): Proceedings of the Marie Curie Euroconferences, MuTra: Audiovisual Translation Scenarios, Copenhague, May 1-5, 2006.
Chaume, F. (2003): Doblatge i subtitulació per a la TV, Vic: Eumo.
Díaz Cintas, J. (2012): Clearing the Smoke to See the Screen: Ideological Manipulation in Audiovisual Translation, Meta, 57(2), 279-293.
Fishman, J. A. (2000): «Who speaks what language to whom and when», en W. Li (ed.): The Bilingualism Reader (pp. 89-106), Londres: Routledge. (Original work from 1965)
Hua, Z. (2008): Duelling Languages, Duelling Values: Codeswitching in bilingual intergenerational conflict talk in diasporic families, Journal of Pragmatics, 40, 1799-1816.
UNESCO Institute for Statistics. (2012): From International Blockbusters to National Hits. Analysis of the 2010 UIS Survey on Feature Film Statistics, Information Bulletin, 8. URL: http://www.uis.unesco.org/culture/Documents/ib8-analysis-cinema-production-2012-en2.pdf