Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies
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- 2.3A Clockwork Orange
- 2.3.3Czech DVD Subtitles
- 2.1.1.3.3.2Subtitle Duration
- 2.1.1.3.3.3Omitting and Shortening
- 2.1.1.3.3.6Nadsat and Compensation
- 2.1.1.3.3.7Manner of Speaking
- 2.1.1.3.3.8Inconsistency of Translation
- 2.1.1.3.3.9Mistranslation
- 2.1.1.3.3.10Other Mistakes and Typos
2.2.4Other Forms of RevoicingApart from dubbing, audiovisual material can be also revoiced by the following methods: voice-over, narration, audio description, free commentary and simultaneous interpreting. These forms of AVT require a lesser degree of synchronization when compared to dubbing, and therefore are cheaper and less time-consuming (Pérez Gonzáles, 1998). Voice-over is explained by Pérez Gonzáles (1998) as "a method that involves pre-recorded revoicing." In this case, the original voice is audible for the first few seconds and then becomes muffled while the target language voice is being played. As it usually presents almost a full translation, it is suited especially for documentaries. Narration is based on the same concept, but provides a summarized (yet faithful) translation. Unlike the pre-recorded methods above, the remaining forms are performed live by interpreters or commentators. Free commentary usually conveys only the content important to the audience. Simultaneous interpreting is chosen when lack of time or money does not allow a more thorough type of audiovisual translation. Such method can most often be seen at film festivals (Pérez Gonzáles 1998). 2.3A Clockwork OrangeAfter an introduction of the film and its distinctive language, the following chapters deal with the execution of the Czech DVD subtitles. What is taken into consideration is whether the subtitles correspond with the subtitling standards described in chapter 2.1.3, particularly subtitle timing, segmentation and punctuation. Also, an attention is paid to the amount of shortening and omitting and if the reduction is actually required and/or allowed to ensure reading comfort. Lastly, this chapter comments on the film translation itself, its peculiarities and mistakes. A Clockwork Orange is a 1962 novella by Anthony Burgess, adapted into film in 1971 by Stanley Kubrick. The film adaptation is relatively faithful to the novella, omitting only the final chapter. As the film has never been dubbed into Czech, the subtitles made by the company Gelula/SDI are the only official Czech audiovisual translation of the film. As for the unofficial Czech subtitles or 'fansubs', the ones found on the internet are the official subtitles only extracted from the DVD and adjusted to different 'releases' of the pirated film available online, implying that the DVD was released before the film became illegally shared online. 2.3.1The FilmThe plot takes place in near-future England where repression and youth violence is on daily basis. The teenage protagonist and also the narrator of the story, Alex, leads a small gang of teenage criminals – Dim, Pete and Georgie – through the streets in the night, robbing and beating men and raping women. After accidentally murdering a woman and being betrayed by his friends, Alex is arrested and sentenced to fourteen years in prison. While serving his sentence, Alex is selected for an experimental treatment called Ludovico’s Technique, which includes brainwashing and associative learning, and then released from prison just two years after his conviction. However, the treatment caused Alex to be not only harmless, but also defenseless and his former victims take revenge on him. This leads to Alex’s suicidal attempt after which he wakes up in a hospital, where the doctors undo Ludovico’s Technique and return Alex to his vicious lifestyle. Nevertheless, he soon begins to tire of violence anyway and decides to live a normal life. 2.3.2NadsatThe novel and the film contain a fictional slang or argot called Nadsat (a Russian suffix equivalent of –teen, translated into Czech as “jazyk Týnů”), spoken by the teenagers. Apart from being a novelist, Burgess was also a linguist and he used this background to invent a new set of vocabulary influenced by Russian and Cockney English. When translating these Nadsat expressions into a language other than English, finding its best target language equivalents proves to be quite challenging. This caused the novel’s 1992 translation into Czech by Ladislav Šenkyřík to be controversial and often criticized. As Petr Janák (2010) says, Burgess edited the words loaned from Russian in a manner that they sound natural, echoic and playful (e.g. horrorshow from Russian хорошó). In the Czech translation, however, many of the Nadsat terms lose the previously mentioned qualities (Janák 2010). Šenkyřík justifies his translation of Nadsat at the end of the novel in the following way: “Anthony Burgess based Nadsat on Russian language. For linguistic and historical reasons, I do not consider this approach suitable for the Czech translation. The solution is, therefore, a combination of English, Russian, German and Romani based words as well as newly created ones.” 1 (translated by MB), but the use of so many languages, in Janák's opinion, results in the incompactness of the translated Nadsat, while the original Nadsat is compact. The film translator does not take the book translation into account at all and translates the same Nadsat expressions differently, this time using mostly already existing Czech slang and Russian words accustomed to Czech as their translations. 2.3.3Czech DVD Subtitles2.1.1.3.3.1Layout and punctuationAs the text segmentation is concerned, several two line subtitles are improperly divided, such as in the following example: Protože každý má právo žít a být šťastný. . .
The subtitler correctly uses hyphens in front of the lines in a two line subtitle, when each line is uttered by a different person. The use of the triple-dot mark at the end of a continued subtitle corresponds with the standards suggested by Karamitroglou (1998), although it appears in two forms, either with or without spaces between each dot, which should be unified. As mentioned before, Pošta (2011) advises against the use of the triple-dot mark for this purpose in the Czech context. 2.1.1.3.3.2Subtitle DurationUsing the error checking feature of VisualSubSync and Subtitle Edit software, the display time of 166 subtitles (10% of all subtitles) was marked as either too short or too long, with the criteria being set to 20 characters per second (cps) maximum and 5 cps minimum. The shortest acceptable display time of a subtitle is set (by default) to 1 second. It should be noted that if the minimal acceptable display time of a subtitle were set to 1.5 seconds, following Karamitroglou's standards, the number of erroneously timed subtitles would rise to 414 (25%). The speed of 16 subtitles exceeds 25 cps, which is difficult to read even by faster readers. An example of such unacceptable display time is shown below: ALEX: How many did I get right? Na kolik otázek jsem odpověděl dobře? (36 characters, 35 cps)
The display time of 43 subtitles is unnecessarily long, which, as mentioned before, can cause automatic re-reading of the subtitle by fast readers. The following example is displayed for 4.8 seconds, which is 3.5 seconds longer than the ideal time: DIM: ...you especially.
(19 characters, 4 cps)
With the use of an error check feature included in most freeware subtitling tools, or simply by reviewing the film after draft subtitles have been created, the number of subtitles with unacceptable display time could have been reduced. 2.1.1.3.3.3Omitting and ShorteningThe Czech subtitles contain cca 84% of characters compared to the film script (they are approximately 47,000 in the subtitles and 56,000 in the script), thus meaning the translator did not simplify the film dialogues to a great extent, like it is shown in chapter 2.1.3.5, considering that conveying the same message in English requires a larger quantity of characters/words than in Czech. In films, where the language plays an important role, the rule to keep the subtitles as brief as possible can be overlooked, as any significant alteration to the original script could cause harm.. This can be observed on the translation of the following utterance: DIM: Bedways is rightways now, so best we go homeways and get a bit of spatchka. Right, right? Na lože rovnou jdem. Lepší jít damoj a kapánek si šlofnout. Dobrý, dobrý? In this case, "Right, right?" is translated as "Dobrý, dobrý?" — although it is a common procedure in subtitling to omit repeated expressions not contributing to the comprehension of the film, translating it only as "Dobrý?" would alter a peculiar expression to a neutral one. As for some of the repeated expressions, where the generally recommended omitting would not cause harm, the subtitler felt free to leave them out, in this case even complete utterances: GEORGIE: Brother, you think and talk sometimes like a little child. DIM: Little child, yes. GEORGIE: Tonight we pull a mansize crast. DIM: Tonight's a mansize crast. Bratře, občas myslíš a gavariš jak mimino. Dneska večer jdem brakovat jako chlapi. If Dim in this case were subtitled as well, it would inevitably shorten the duration of Georgie's subtitles and occupy the viewer with reading longer than necessary. Similarly, the translator omits frequently appearing "Yes, sir" and "No, sir" in a dialogue between Alex and a chief guard, as well as other instances of address throughout the film. Aside from the repeated expressions, the translator also omitted parts of, or whole sentences either voluntarily, such as in: DR. BRANOM: Loosen your pajama pants and pull them halfway down.
It should be noted, however, that these are only exceptions to the rule and that most of the film script is translated and subtitled literally. There are cases where omitting or shortening should have been used to fit the average reading speed, but was not: ALEX: You can rely on me, Fred. Můžete se na mne spolehnout, Frede. (35 characters, 25 cps) This sentence could have been translated, for example, as "Můžete se na mne spolehnout." or "Spolehněte se na mne, Frede." (both 28 characters), which would draw the cps rate closer to the recommended 15-18. 2.1.1.3.3.4NamesThe nicknames of the three members of Alex’s gang, Pete, Georgie and Dim, are translated in the subtitles as Péťa, Žoržík and Dim. Dim, which is the only nickname actually carrying a meaning, paradoxically remains untranslated. Šenkyřík translates the names as Pítrs, Jiřík and Tupoun in the book translation. He is, however, forced to translate Dim as Tupoun also by the presence of the sentence: “Dim being really dim” and translates it accordingly as “Tupoun, kterej je opravdu tupej.” Even though this explanation does not appear in the film, the subtitler should have translated the nickname as well to make it comprehensible to Czech viewers. Also, viewers who read the book and are familiar with the names as Šenkyřík translated them, can be confused by the subtitled names. 2.1.1.3.3.5SongsWhether to translate songs in a film or leave them unsubtitled mostly depends on the client's wish. When the translator is given a free hand, he or she should choose to translate individual songs if the viewer's understanding of the song lyrics would affect the way they perceive the scene or the whole film. It is recommended (by Díaz Cintas and Remael 2007, for example) to translate the songs no matter how slightly or indirectly they contribute to the story, as long as there is enough space in the subtitles. Subtitling songs is often a difficult task, since the translator should try to maintain not only the meaning, but also verse and rhymes. In many cases, the translator has to choose which of these traits to prioritize at the expense of other. In audiovisual translation this task is even more complicated by the constraints of AVT explained in previous chapters, i.e. spatial and temporal limitations. In the official Czech subtitles, all lyrics, except for the songs and parts of songs heard on the background and/or overlapped by a dialogue, are translated. One of the songs appearing in the film is a popular song "Molly Malone", an unofficial anthem of Dublin. As can be seen below, the song has been translated very well, the rhyme and meaning are conserved, and the number of syllables more or less matches the original: In Dublin's fair city Where the girls are so pretty I first set my eyes on sweet Molly Malone As she wheeled her wheelbarrow Through streets wide and narrow... Crying cockless and mussels alive, Alive O... V krásném městě Dublině, kde jsou holky rozmilé, tam jsem viděl poprvé sladkou Molly Malone jak tlačila vozíček, přes město a kopeček. A křičela ''šneci a mušle... '' 2.1.1.3.3.6Nadsat and CompensationAs was mentioned before, the film translator chooses a completely different approach to translating Nadsat than Šenkyřík does. This can be observed right in the first scene of the film, on a sentence appearing in both film and the book: ALEX: We sat in the Korova milkbar trying to make up our rassoodocks what to do with the evening. Pečený, vařený, v mlíčným baru Korova a ždímali jsme si razsudok... co udělat s načatým večerem. The same sentence is translated in the book as: ...,seděli sme v mlíčňáku Korova a decidovali se, co budem ten večer dělat,...
Zírej.
ALEX: Come on. Let's go, the police are coming. DIM: One minoota, droogie. -Padáme. Jedou policajti! -Adnu minutku, druzja! “Minoota”, which sounds similar to Czech “minuta” is translated regularly and compensated by the translation of “One” as “Adnu”. GEORGIE: We go round shop crasting and the like, coming out with a pitiful rooker full of money each. Chodíme brakovat nějaký krámy. . . každej z toho máme jen nějaký drobný děngy. In the case above, both “crast” and “rooker” are resembling the Czech “krást” and “ruka”, so the subtitler compensates this loss by translating “money” as “děngy”. Another similar example of Nadsat compensation in the same sentence can be found here: GEORGIE: And there's Will the English in the Muscleman coffee mesto saying he can fence anything that anything that any malchick tries to crast. A Will Angličan říkal v gorodu v kafárně. . . že může střelit vsjo, co každej malčik kde šlohne. The following sentence lacking any Nadsat expression in the original contains Nadsat in the translation, to compensate a loss of Nadsat in another sentence where such compensation would be complicated or impossible: ALEX: Now then, Dim, what does that great big horsy gape of a grin portend? Co má znamenat ten agromnyj úsměv řehtající se kobyly? Of the total of 126 Nadsat words in the English version, only 91 were given a Nadsat equivalent in the subtitles. The remaining 35 occurrences were either translated as a regular term or omitted in the translation. The lost Nadsat was compensated 27 times. Contrary to the fact that Nadsat was more often lost in translation than compensated, the amount of unique Nadsat words in the subtitles is slightly larger than in the original (54 in English and 57 in Czech). This is caused by the translator's choice to translate some of the Nadsat terms in several different ways throughout the film. For example, the frequently occurring verb "viddy" is translated as "pónjat", "ponimat" or "glaza koukat", depending on context. 2.1.1.3.3.7Manner of SpeakingDespite being a vicious thug, Alex speaks in a distinctive, intellectual language often containing archaisms. However, he loses some of these qualities in the Czech translation of the film and the viewers could perceive Alex's manner of speaking in a way different from the original intention. This can be observed on the following examples: ALEX: Ho, Ho, Ho... Well, if it isn't stinking Billygoat Billyboy in poison. How are thou, thou globby bottle of cheap stinking chip oil? Come and get one in the yarbles, if you have any yarbles, you eunuch jelly thou. Hele, že to je ten tlustej, rozplizlej smradlavej kozel, ohavnej Billy-boy? Jak se daří. . . ty odporná, oleptaná nádobo vyčpělýho oleje? Pojď sem, milánku, ať ti ufiknu koule. . . jestli vůbec nějaký máš. . . ty třaslavej eunuchu. DIM: What did you do that for? ALEX: For being a bastard with no manners and not a dook of an idea how to comport yourself publicwise, O my Brother. DIM: I don't like you should do what you done. And I'm not your brother no more and wouldn't want to be. ALEX: Watch that... Do watch that, O Dim, if to continue to be on live thou dost wish. Proč jsi to udělal? Protože seš bastard bez manýrů. Nemáš kouska šajnu jak se chovat na veřejnosti. Nelíbí se mi, že děláš co jsi dělal. A nejsem tvůj brácha a už nikdy nechci bejt. Dej si bacha. Bacha na to. . . chceš-li se nadále těšit ze života. ALEX: What, then, didst thou in thy mind have? Co se ti vylíhlo v tvý hlavince? It is apparent from these examples that most of the archaisms and obsolete sentence structures in English are not reflected in the translation. Instead, slang and colloquial Czech expressions and suffixes are used, which Alex would probably not use if he spoke Czech. The following example shows the distinctive manner of speaking of Mr. Deltoid, a probation officer questioning Alex: DELTOID: There was a bit of a nastiness last night, yess? Some very extreme nastiness, yess? A few of a certain Billyboy's friends were ambulanced off late last night, yess? A včera v noci se děly pěkný svinstva. Zatraceně Velký svinstva, že? Několik kámošů Billy-boye bylo dopraveno do nemocnice. Again, the subtitler does not capture the curiosity of Mr. Deltoid’s manner of speaking and reduces the repeated “yess?” into only one “že?” in the translation. However, this can be easily explained as an attempt to reduce the time needed to process the subtitles by the viewers. This solution would be preferred by viewers capable of recognizing the distinctive manner of speech solely from the audio, while the others may be deprived of it. According to the low cps rate of all subtitles in this chapter, which ranges from 7 to 17, the subtitles could have been translated more faithfully, in favor of conserving the distinctiveness of certain film characters, even at the price of subtitle extension. 2.1.1.3.3.8Inconsistency of TranslationThere are some expressions appearing frequently in the film, but translated differently each time and thus making the translation inconsistent. One of the examples is the way Alex addresses Georgie – calling him “Georgie Boy”: ALEX: Now tell me what you have in mind, Georgie Boy. A teď mi řekni, Žorži-boy, co jsi nám naprogramoval. ALEX: Well, Georgie Boy. This idea you've got for tonight. Well, tell us all about it then. GEORGIE: Not tonight, not this nochy. ALEX: Come, come, come, Georgie Boy. You're a big strong chelloveck like us all. We're not little children, are we, Georgie Boy? What, then, didst thou in thy mind have? (...) ALEX: Tell me more, Georgie Boy. Tak hochu, Žoržíku. . . ten nápad na dnešní večer. Řekni nám, o co šlo. Dneska ne. Nět etoj noči. No tak, no tak, no tak, Žoržánku. Jsi stejně jako my silnej čelověk. Nejsme přece žádný robátka, Žoržíčku? Co se ti vylíhlo v tvý hlavince? (...) Řekni mi o krapánek víc, Žoržíku. It can be seen that the subtitler unreasonably translates one expression in 4 different ways, 3 of which appear in the same dialogue. Another example of such inconsistency is the translation of “horrorshow”, a Nadsat expression meaning “good”, derived from Russian “khorosho”: ALEX: The Durango-95 purred away real horrorshow – a nice, warm vibraty feeling all through your guttiwuts. (...) Then we headed west, what we were after now was the old surprise visit, that was a real kick and good for laughs and lashing of the ultra-violent. Durango 95 si to pěkně vrněla jak v horor-show. Příjemné, teplounké vibrace nám otřásaly střevníkem. (...) Namířili jsme si to na západ... abychom se pobavili nečekanou návštěvou. Byla to náramná sranda... a příležitost, horrorshow, jak laškovat s ultranásilím. ALEX: I mean, doing it or watching it, I used to feel real horrorshow. Když jsem byl nebo viděl ty druhý, bylo to charašo! The first instance, appearing at the beginning of the film, implies that the subtitler misunderstood the word “horrorshow” at this point and used it as if it had its normal non-Nadsat meaning. Another “horrorshow” is then unreasonably added at the end of the utterance once more, this time even spelled differently and unhyphenated. Other appearances of “horrorshow” in the film are then translated correctly, with regard to its actual Nadsat meaning, but inconsistently either as “horor-show” or “charašo”. Nevertheless, the translator, after learning the true meaning later during the translation, does not return and correct the mistranslated part at the beginning of the film. Šenkyřík eliminates any trace of “horrorshow” in his translation of the book and translates it as an adjective “chorošný”, supposing that the Czech readers would probably not be able to associate “horrorshow” with its Russian meaning. The subtitler’s choice to leave the expression mostly untranslated is justified by the fact that both words it consists of, horror and show, are familiar to the Czech audience. However, when leaving it untranslated, the subtitler should bear in mind that the grammatical gender of “show” is feminine, and adjust the suffixes in the translation accordingly. The following example shows such misuse of an adjectival suffix: GEORGIE: Tonight we pull a mansize crast. ALEX: Good. Real horrorshow. Dneska večer jdem brakovat jako chlapi. Fajn! Skutečný horor-show! 2.1.1.3.3.9MistranslationThe Czech DVD subtitles also contain other mistranslations, which could be eliminated by proofreading and/or watching the film again with the translated subtitles. In the following examples, the subtitles have a meaning more or less different from the original: MOTHER: I'll put your breakfast in the oven. Snídani máš na sporáku. ALEX: You won't ever viddy me no more. Moji glaza vás už nikdy nechtěj koukat. In the following dialogue, Dim is addressing only Alex, thus there is no justification for translating singular “droogie” as plural “druzja”:
-Adnu minutku, druzja! This sentence is spoken by Alex to his victim after he spots a giant phallic sculpture in the victim’s house. “Naughty” is translated as “klídek”, which does not relate to the sculpture at all. ALEX: Naughty, naughty, naughty, you filthy old soomaka. Klídek, klídek, klídek. Ty stará, zvrhlá sumako. Another example of a groundless change of meaning is the translation of “it is believed” as “doufám”: GOVERNOR: It is believed that you will be able to leave State custody in a little over a fortnight. A doufám, že se vám podaří být do dvou týdnů na svobodě. The subtitler also mistranslates a part of the following dialogue between Alex and Mr. Deltoid: ALEX: To what do I owe this extreme pleasure, sir? Anything wrong, sir? DELTOID: Wrong? Why should you think of anything being wrong, have you been doing something you shouldn't. Yes? ALEX: Just a manner of speech, sir. DELTOID: Well, yes, it's just a manner of speech from your Post Corrective Advisor to you that you watch out, little Alex. Čemu vděčím za převzácnou návštěvu, pane? Stalo se něco špatnýho? Špatnýho? Proč proboha, co by se mohlo stát špatnýho? Udělal jsi snad něco, co se nemá? Nebo je to jen způsob vyjadřování. Ano, drahý Alexi, jen způsob vyjadřování. . . dozorce z polepšovny, který má nad tebou dohled. The sentence “Just a manner of speech, sir.” is translated as if it was uttered by Mr. Deltoid and therefore the translated sentence, as well as the rest of the dialogue, is confusing. This mistake is probably caused by the translator translating only the transcript without the use of the video, where it would be obvious by whom the sentence was uttered. Such mistranslations can be also observed in the scene where Alex is brought to the prison reception desk and asked to hand over all clothes and the contents of his pockets: GUARD: One ten penny piece. One white metal wristlet watch, "Timawrist" on a white metal expanding bracelet. Jedna penny. Jedny hodinky z bílého kovu. Náramek Timawrist, z bílého kovu.
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