Abstract:

The aim of this case study is the description of the oral features that charaterize dubbed audiovisual products in Catalan in the Balearic public television channel, IB3. To this end, the oral features of dubbed texts have been compared with those of the spontaneous oral language. Following a descriptive approach, a contemporary translated audiovisual text ("Rantaro, l’al•lot ninja", created by Sobel Amako and directed by Tsutomu Shibayama, broadcast in 2009) was selected, digitalized and analyzed in order to look for linguistic regularities and establish the translational norms (Toury, 1995) that govern dubbed texts in the Balearic context – i.e., those recurrent linguistic patterns that characterize dubbed audiovisual texts.
Audiovisual texts are complex information systems aimed at transmitting a message through two channels (acoustic and visual) in a variety of meaning codes (Chaume, 2003). This net of codes includes the linguistic code, which is characterized by its particular mode of discourse: dialogues are written to be spoken as if not written (Gregory and Carroll, 1978). Thus, the discourse of dubbed products must meet two demands: on the one hand, it must convey verisimilitude, and this is achieved by emulating the linguistic phenomena characteristic of spontaneous oral language. On the other hand, translations for dubbing must observe a series of rules concerning style and correctness (Chaume, 2001). The purpose of this study is to ascertain the way this balance between orality and standard language has been achieved in animation programmes broadcast by IB3.
Empirical studies of this kind involve the creation of electronic corpora. Some remarkable examples of this methodological tool are Forlixt (University of Bologna) and The Pavia Corpus of Film Dialogue (University of Pavia), two ongoing projects committed to the collection and study of data pertaining to film translation. These electronic databases enable researchers to carry out statistical analysis and to discuss the occurrence of specific linguistic features with higher reliability than conventional studies on audiovisual translation.

Keywords:

Audiovisual Translation, Dubbing, Catalan, Norms, Polysystem, Descriptive Studies, Modes of Discourse, Linguistic Model, Electronic Corporation.