Terminological challenges in the translation of science documentaries: A case-study

Abstract

This article aims to describe some of the main terminological problems audiovisual translators have to face when dealing with the translation of science documentaries, specifically in the English-Catalan combination. The first section of the article presents some theoretical concepts which underlie this research and which are taken, for the most part, from Cabré's Communicative Theory of Terminology. Then, specific terminological problems audiovisual translators have to solve are described using the data provided by a corpus of four science documentaries lasting approximately 50 minutes each. These challenges include identifying a term, understanding a term, finding the right equivalent, dealing with the absence of an adequate equivalent, solving denominative variations, choosing between in vivo and in vitro terminology, and overcoming mistranscriptions.

Gazdasági terminológia a játékfilmek fordításában

“…Ha hiányzik a célnyelvi ekvivalens, a dokumentumfilmek fordítóinak terminusalkotással terminológusként is helyt kell állniuk. Matamala (2009aMatamala ( , 2010 korpuszalapú kutatásaiban a terminológiával kapcsolatos konkrét fordítási problémákat veszi szemügyre, úgymint a terminusok azonosítása és megértése, az ekvivalensek megtalálása, a terminusok közötti választás, a szinonimitás, a célnyelvi ekvivalens hiánya, a kétértelműség és a nehezen érthető terminusok kezelése. Ez nagyrészt megegyezik a szakfordításban felmerülő nehézségekkel, azzal a különbséggel, hogy az audiovizuális fordítónak figye-lembe kell vennie a kép és a szöveg közötti szinkronitást.…”

“…A jobb érthetőséget a konkretizálás vagy a specializált terminus köznyelvi megfogalmazása segítheti (Matamala 2009b). Matamala (2009aMatamala ( , 2009bMatamala ( , 2010 Cabré (1999) nyomán különbséget tesz az in vitro és in vivo terminusok között. Az in vitro terminusok a hivatalos terminológiai testületek, adatbázisok, szótárak stb.…”

Dealing with Paratextual Elements in Dubbing: A Pioneering Perspective from Catalonia

“…The quality of scripts can be uneven and incorrect transcriptions, which can confuse the translator, are sometimes found (see, for instance, the examples presented by Matamala (2009), including medullamagada instead of medulla oblongata and defence centre instead of reference centre). Translation scenarios can be quite complex: it is not uncommon, especially when dealing with languages other than English, for the translators to be provided with an international script which is an English translation of the original audiovisual product.…”

Treatment of Realia in the Subtitling of Ekphrastic Texts

“…The study shall focus on the professional Croatian subtitling market and examine a corpus of twelve art documentaries, using a methodological framework partially derived from the work of Jan Pedersen (2011) and Hannah Silvester (2018), as well as the contemporary notions of literary and digital ekphrasis (Brosch, 2018;Lindhé, 2013). The translation of documentaries has been an object of AVT research for a few decades, mostly focusing on domain-specific and scientific documentaries, bilingual glossaries and terminology extraction (Matamala, 2010;Hoste & Remael, 2015b) or the theoretical principles and tenets underlying the translation of documentaries as an individual genre (Franco, 2000;Espasa, 2004). Since translators of documentaries do not specialize in specific domains, but rather in the individual techniques of audiovisual translation, such as subtitling, voice-over or dubbing, documentary translators usually need to be both versatile and adaptable to be able to perform their duties (Hanoulle et al, 2015b, p. 26).…”