translation and mass communication

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Translation and mass-communication: film and T.V. translation as evidence of cultural dynamics

Dirk Delabastita

0. Introduction

0.1. The social sciences have often tended to select their subjects for study on the basis of their high prestige according to the norms of the culture in which they function, or even according to the value system of the cultural paradigm within which the scholars themselves operate. That is one of the underlying reasons why, for example, the scholarly study of popular culture has had such a slow start or why, for that matter, translation has so long been the Cinderella of linguistic and literary studies. Accordingly, it is hardly surprising that phenomena such as trans-lation in mass communication have so far been ignored almost completely, how-ever much the quantitative importance of these phenomena is in evidence, and however much they may be assumed to play a crucial role in the linguistic, artistic, ideological, etc. organisation of our modern societies.

In recent years, however, it has begun to dawn on an ever growing number of scholars that an a priori selective approach towards culture often contributes to the consolidation of certain cultural tendencies, rather than to an adequate analysis. In the field of literary studies, for instance, this insight has found expres-sion in the claim that the student of literature can hope to understand the structure and the evolution of literature and its relation to other linguistic and cultural forms of expression only if he agrees to adopt much more comprehensive schemes of analysis than were ever used before. Thus topics like translation, popular liter-ature, children's literature, epigonic writing, non-literary discourse, criticism, the academic study of literature itself, literary institutions, and so forth, have become no less a part of his research domain than the traditional canonized works. In fact the very mechanisms through which canonization does or does not occur have become the central object of historical scrutiny. From such a point of view, trans-lations turn out to be key texts allowing the scholar to detect the tensions and evolutionary tendencies within literatures and cultures and the mechanisms obtaining between different cultural systems.

In this context I cannot further enlarge upon these developments in literary

Babel 35:4 (1989), 193218. DOI 10.1075/babel.35.4.02del ISSN 05219744 / E-ISSN 15699668 Fdration Internationale des Traducteurs (FIT) Revue Babel

194 Dirk Delabastita

studies; for more information the reader is referred to Even-Zohar & Toury 1981, Hermans 1985, Lambert 1980, etc. I would merely point out the fact that the hypotheses proposed by these and other scholars have not yet realized their descriptive potential outside the domain of literature as fully as seems possible. The present paper, then, aims at showing that the historical-descriptive, struc-tural-semiotic, systemic schemes that have been alluded to in the previous lines provide the scholar with the tools to carry out research into mass communication translation in a more adequate manner than was previously imaginable. I will focus on two specific forms of mass communication film and T.V. while stressing that similar investigations into translation with other forms of mass com-munication such as the press, advertising, popular music, etc., can and should be set up as well. Obviously, I am not claiming that the subtitling and dubbing of films and T.V. programmes have never been seriously studied before; my bibliog-raphy, which is far from complete, testifies to the contrary. However, it appears that the few translation scholars, sociologists, psychologists, film experts and tech-nicians who have so far dealt with our topic have only considered certain aspects of the problem and ignored others, depending on their particular line of approach or practical needs. In addition, the importance of a few particular questions has apparently been recognized by virtually none of them. This paper, therefore, seeks to offer a. systematic outline of the whole field of the problem. It is not a report on extensive previous or ongoing research but it is to be seen as an organized inventory of questions and hypotheses that should direct any future research. I have structured this paper after the tripartite model of translational relationships developed by Gideon Toury (Competence Norms Perfor-mance), since I believe that it provides us with the distinctions necessary for our purpose. For further reading on this model see Toury 1980. By way of introduc-tion, the following schematic characterisation of Toury's theses will perhaps be sufficient.

Toury challenges the formerly predominant opinion that it is the task of trans-lation studies to devise "optimal" methods of translation. The discipline should aim at describing actual translation practices (that is to say, empirical phenomena) rather than developing ideal definitions (that the actual facts do not fail to fall short of). It is accepted that there are many possible ways of translating a text (theoretical level of competence). In particular cultural situations, however, one will often observe certain regular patterns of behaviour (empirical level of perfor-mance). This allows the scholar to assume an intermediate level of norms which denote particular types of translational behaviour as more or less desirable (level of required relationships between S.T.s and T.T.s). The translation scholar is not supposed to identify with any specific norm-governed concept of translation. Rather, Toury insists on the usefulness of interpreting the variety of historical practices in terms of the "systemic" or functional needs of the receiving language, literature and culture. The methodological observation of translation performance

Translation and mass communication 195

and the reconstruction of translation norms should be in continual interplay with the development of the competence component.

0.2. Before I start on the actual analysis, some preliminary terminological notes are called for. Firstly, for the sake of verbal economy I will use the term "film" in a very general sense, so that it also includes T. V. programmes of all kinds. When-ever any of these distinctions are relevant to my argument, they will, of course, be made explicit.

Secondly, the term "translation" will equally be used in an unusually broad sense, albeit for conceptual rather than for practical reasons. I will take "film translation" to stand for the whole set of operations that is to say, including cer-tain operations on the level of non-verbal signs that accompany and make pos-sible the transfer of a film from a source culture A into a target culture B. It is assumed that the processes of interlingual recoding ("translation" in the tradi-tional sense) that mostly characterize such an intercultural transfer cannot be explained if they are isolated from the whole bundle of relations between the orig-inal and the translated film. The rationale behind this terminological usage should become clear in the further course of this paper and it will be given some extra thought in my concluding section.

Thirdly, the notions "translation" (translator, etc.), "source film" and "target film" require additional clarification in view of certain peculiarities relating to the production and distribution of films. It is a well-known fact that films are not just produced for the home market but rather for a wide international market. One can hardly say that, e.g., an American film is originally produced for the Ameri-can film audiences and subsequently translated or made suitable for export. The chain of events which brings a film from an American studio into a Belgian or a Japanese cinema is rather involved and it is sometimes very hard to distinguish between production phenomena (level of text) and reception phenomena (level of metatext). In this context it will be remembered that techniques such as subtitling and dubbing (cf. play-back, postsynchronisation) are also very common in the production of "original" films (and that they have even led to several avant-gardist experimentations). In the Hollywood era certain production houses even had their own local branches in Europe which had to finish the film in accordance with the native language and taste, as well as with the censorship regulations locally in force! Therefore, the term "translator" in this paper is a shorthand term to indi-cate all the instances involved in carrying out the various operations between any two stages in the cross-cultural distribution of a film. Thus, many selections and decisions have been made before the film reaches the team responsible for its actual linguistic adaptation (translation in the narrow sense) and they may still be made afterwards. These facts, however, in no way invalidate our interpretation of the functional dimension (section 3) of these various processes of translation. However, they certainly do imply the need to carry out a careful "text study" in


order to find out what shifts took place at what stage, before any precise hypoth-eses can be ventured concerning the reasons for the various shifts. Incidentally, it should be noted that the scholar of translation sometimes has to reckon with simi-lar complex filiations between source and target texts in the case of "ordinary" translation as well (older texts, strategies of large publishing houses, etc.).

1. Competence: possible relationships

1.1. On the level of translational competence I will have to consider a number of questions that relate to the theoretical translation potential of films. I should first of all attempt to establish the entire set of possible relationships between a "source" film and a "target" film. What are the various possible ways in which a film can be translated? In answering this question, I should of course attempt to avoid being swayed by any normative considerations. The researcher cannot afford, for instance, to ignore those modes of translation which happen to be "un-acceptable" according to his own set of norms. In fact, such "illegitimate" transla-tion strategies may well be acceptable in different cultural situations and it is therefore reasonable to expect that the competence model should be able to "gen-erate" them.

This issue of the possible modes of film translation is greatly complicated by the peculiar semiotic nature of the film sign. Before the problem of film transla-tion methods can be tackled, it should therefore be established what sort of a "text" a film is. At this point we realize the need to consult the experts in film semiotics. It is a well-known fact that film establishes a multi-channel and multi-code type of communication. As opposed to radio communication or communica-tion through books, for instance, film communication takes place through two channels rather than one: both the visual channel (light waves) and the acoustic channel (air vibrations) are simultaneously utilized. An exception might perhaps have to be made here for silent movies, even though piano players or orchestras often provided a musical accompaniment to the film projection. In addition, some films have made use of other channels as well consider the use of the olfactory channel in the so-called smell-o-vision movies of the 1950's, or of the tactile chan-nel in Earthquake (1974) but these remain fairly isolated examples and we are not guilty of serious oversimplification if we omit them.

The acoustic and the visual channels are the means by which the film message reaches its audience. They should not be confused with the codes that are used to produce the film's actual meaning. There is in fact a multitude of codes that gives shape to any film as a meaningful sign and that enables its spectators to make sense of it. The following list contains some of the major sign systems of which film producers and consumers avail themselves;

- the verbal code (which is actually an aggregate of various linguistic and paralin-guistic subcodes: think of the various geographical, temporal, stylistic and social


dialects of a language, etc.); - literary codes and theatrical codes (conventions of plot construction, models for

dialogues, acquaintance with narrative strategies, with argumentation techniques and with literary genres and motives, etc.);

- proxemic codes, kinesic codes, vestimentary codes, make-up codes, politeness codes, moral codes, and so forth (enabling us among other things to understand and assess the non-verbal behaviour of the characters);

- the cinematic code (rules and conventions of the cinema; its techniques, genres, etc.).

Signs from these codes may be combined in a whole range of ways to form the "macro-sign" of the film as a whole. In this important respect film is very similar to theatre. The theatrical performance is not, as Keir Elam puts it, "a single-levelled and homogeneous series of signs or signals that emerges, but rather a weave of radically differentiated modes of expression, each governed by its own selection and combination rules" (Elam 1980:44).

1.2. A film constitutes a complex sign, in a way not unlike the theatrical performance sign. From a different perspective, however, film communication and theatre communication show an important difference which has a direct bearing on the translation potential of a film as opposed to the translation potential of drama texts/theatre texts. The explanation of this difference will take us directly into the heart of the problem of film translation.

One of the major semiotic differences between a theatre performance and a film projection is the fact that the latter confronts the audience with a complex sign, the material structure of which was almost entirely determined beforehand, whereas in the former case the performance sign is on each occasion being materially constituted in the very process of the performance. Any theatre performance is a one-off event and no second performance will be exactly like it in its materially identifiable constituents. A film performance, on the other hand, is perfectly reproducible in material terms. Of course, as Mukaovsk reminds us, one and the same materially fixed "artefact" can lead to the construction of different "aesthetic objects" hence my insistence on the "material" character of the shifts in the ensuing scheme but that point is not relevant to the present discussion. Nor does the existence of certain imperfect reproductions compare the output of a cheap portable T.V. set with what is possible in a modern cinema fundamentally detract from my basic argument. It is precisely by virtue of this feature of material reproducibility that film is commonly regarded as a phenomenon of mass-communication: through mechanical reproduction it is in principle accessible to a large and not previously delimited group of people, irrespective of local barriers. One may be inclined to admit that this differentiation between theatre and film is of a gradual rather than of a binary nature. The example of silent movies accompanied by "live" music, for instance, is clearly an intermediate case


and, more generally, one should certainly not ignore the semiotic relevance of the idiosyncratic conditions of each film projection, nor the fact that modern theatre makes frequent use of mass communication repeatables such as sound-tapes or film fragments, etc.

But in general terms the distinction holds well, and it has major consequences for the translational afterlife of films as opposed to less "fixed" forms of perform-ing arts. The main implication is of course that any translation of a film will be governed by a number of constraints that pertain to the conditions of its material transmission. Early French translators/producers of Shakespeare's Othello, for instance, could replace Desdemona's handkerchief with a crucifix, not only because the classicist theatrical code and the contemporary codes of behaviour would not allow one to show publicly a handkerchief on the stage in a serious play but also because the flexible nature of theatrical communication made it possi-ble for them to carry out the change in the first place. On the other hand, when-ever the modern translator of cinema or T. V. is facing a particular linguistic, cul-tural or aesthetic code-incompatibility between the source system and the target system, his range of possible action will necessarily be restricted by the much more stringent technical constraints of the film medium. In other words, if one wants to study the possible modes of transfer of film signs from a source set of codes to a target set of codes, one might do well to take into account from the outset the material parameters within which any such translation process is necessarily effec-tuated. In the remaining part of subsection 1.2, then, I would like to present a scheme of possible modes of film translation which is accordingly based on the main distinction to be made with regard to the material or technical transmission of film signs, that is to say, the distinction between the sound channel and the vis-ion channel.

Of course, our scheme will have to include a number of other distinctions as well. For one, it should be realized that the distinction "acoustic channel/visual channel" cannot be linked up directly to the distinction "verbal signs/non-verbal signs" as if the two distinctions were parallel. In most films the visual channel is used to transmit verbal signs as well. Examples are framing devices such as the title, the "THE END" indication, or the credit titles; in addition, letters, news-papers or other documents may be visually presented for perusal; and more gener-ally the images of a film are often well-stocked with graphic representations of lin-guistic signs such as in road signs, place names, advertisements and so forth. Con-versely, the acoustic channel can also transmit other than verbal signs, music and background noises being the most obvious examples. These facts should make us wary of confusing the translation of a film's dialogues with the translation of "all the verbal signs" contained in the film; but this issue will be taken up in section 4. At present the distinction between verbal and non-verbal signs will be used to insert an extra differentiation into our initial distinction between the visual chan-nel and the acoustic channel. As a result the following four categories are obtained:


a. visual presentation - verbal signs b. visual presentation - non-verbal signs c. acoustic presentation - verbal signs d. acoustic presentation - non-verbal signs

Reality tends to be less clear-cut than such divisions may suggest but in general this categorization of film signs will be workable. The distinctions between a and b and between c and d respectively are, moreover, upheld by certain technical fea-tures. Dubbing firms, for instance, are often provided with a separate so-called "international tape", which contains all the acoustically transmitted signs of the original film except for the spoken dialogues.

The four categories that have just been distinguished constitute one axis of my film translation scheme, namely the axis specifying the type of film signs upon which the various translation procedures will be performed. The second axis will specify exactly what types of operations are involved. This second set of distinc-tions is in fact readily available to us, as it was provided many centuries ago by the ancient rhetoricians. It comprises: repetitio (the sign is formally reproduced in an identical manner), adiectio (the sign is reproduced with a certain addition), detrac-tio (the reproduction is incomplete, it implies a reduction), transmutatio (the com-

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Fig. 1. Scheme of potential translational relationships between a source film and a target film


ponents of the sign are repeated in a somewhat different internal order, there being an alteration of the sign's textual relations) and substitutio (the sign is replaced with an altogether different sign). The combination of our two axes yields the following scheme: see fig. 1. It will be commented upon in subsection 1.3.

1.3. What matters is not the scheme as such, but rather the concepts that lie behind it. Basically, my scheme aims at encompassing more than the two pos-sibilities which are traditionally identified with film translation, i.e. dubbing and subtitling. In order to avoid certain terminological difficulties cf. the practical problem that our metalanguage does not provide a convenient label for each specific transformation I have preferred to leave all the boxes in my scheme blank. In fact, the scheme contains, inter alia, the following options:

- acoustic verbal signs x substitutio = dubbing: the source film signs are repro-duced but without the acoustic verbal signs, which are replaced by target lan-guage acoustic verbal signs; see also subsection 1.4.1;

- visual verbal signs x adiectio = subtitling: the target film macrosign is an exact copy of the source film sign apart from the addition of new visual verbal signs; see, however, also the latter part of subsection 1.4.2;

- deletio: visual and/or acoustic, and verbal and/or non-verbal signs have been deleted (cuts);

- repetitio: the film is reproduced unchanged with all its original material features (linguistically, this is a case of 'non-translation');

- transmutatio: the various signs of the source film are reproduced identically, but in a different order and formation;

- adiectio: new images, dialogues or sounds have been introduced; - acoustic signs x repetitio: the issue of a soundtrack which (mostly) contains the

musical parts of the film's acoustic signs.

Again, it should be clear that this list is only selective and that the scheme could account for more options than those I have just outlined. Let us now con-sider three further remarks that are crucial for a correct interpretation of my basic competence scheme.

1. The translation procedures specified by the scheme do not necessarily refer to films as complete units, but may also be applied to shorter segments. Therefore, from the perspective of the film as a whole, they can and mostly will be combined in various ways. Example one: the title, the theme song and the credits can be copied directly (repetitio), whereas the dialogues in the narrative itself may be replaced by a synchronized text. Example two: a source film sign in which two lan-guages A and B are used may be translated in such a way that spoken text in lan-guage A is dubbed, whereas spoken text in language B is translated by means of subtitles. Example three: the first and the last words of, say, the account of a wit-ness in a news report may be copied directly (repetitio), whereas the main and cen-


tral part of his speech is replaced by a dubbing commentator's translation. In this manner numerous combinations are possible. Moreover, certain forms of simul-taneous combination have to be included. In example three, for instance, the voice of the source language speaker may still be faintly audible in the background. Example four: dubbing and subtitling may be combined, for instance for the benefit of viewers who are hard of hearing. In this context certain technical innovations such as Teletext and stereo television should be mentioned because they allow the viewer autonomously to make a selection from and/or to combine different modes of film translation at will.

2. A film is an organized whole or "text", the various component signs of which enter into complex sets of relations. By the same token, any translational opera-tion that is performed on a single source film sequence affects the whole of the text structure, and imposes a set of constraints on the translator where other sequences have to be translated. Example one: a scene that has been cut (both sound and vision) may confront the translator with the need to make use elsewhere of certain other reductions or additions in order to safeguard character coherence, plot coherence, etc. Example two: the adoption of a strategy that is repetitive throughout (non-translation) might imply the need to insert an intro-ductory addition in order to facilitate comprehension. Of course, the translator may prefer to neglect these constraints to a certain degree the same holds good for the constraints that will be discussed in section 1.4 but that is dependent on his norms. Example three: on account of the general principle of deixis (see, e.g., Elam 1980:26-27, 72-74, 139-148), by means of which the language is rooted in the filmic action, the non-verbal, visual elements of the film may impose certain con-straints on the rendering of the verbal parts.

3. It is important to note that the scheme is of a purely "quantitative" nature in that it only indicates the patterns of sign-type redistribution that the translator imposes on his source film. It specifies, for instance, that a dub version of a film substitutes target language spoken verbal signs for source language spoken verbal signs, but it does not include any statement regarding the precise linguistic, stylis-tic, etc. relationships between both sets of verbal signs. Similarly, our scheme describes subtitling as the addition of visual verbal signs to the integrally repeated source film without in any way qualifying the actual relationships that may obtain between the source verbal text and the subtitled text. Yet this issue is obviously of enormous importance. We have to conclude, then, that our scheme is only a first step towards the development of a competence model and that each of the possible modes of translation that it contains should be further analysed so as to provide further specifications. In doing so the researcher will obviously have to combine his knowledge of the specific technical and semiotic constraints that each mode involves with what he knows about translation processes in general. The various descriptive categories that the discipline of translation studies has devel-


oped will thus prove indispensable for his purpose; think of categories such as 'exotisation' versus 'naturalisation' of sociocultural references, expressive amplifi-cation or expressive reduction, shifts of register, formal types of equivalence, and so forth. In my second section, which will deal with translation norms, I will give examples of the way in which these additional categories can be relevant.

The previous paragraphs have attempted to outline ways in which the ques-tion of the potential relationships between films and translated films may profita-bly be tackled. Clearly, the scholar who aspires to build up a theory of film trans-lation is facing an up-hill task. However, even a provisional model such as the one sketched above will enable the scholar to deal with the empirical reality of film translation, i.e., with translation norms and translation performance, in a more efficient manner than would be feasible with static definitions and partial approaches. Even in this early state of its development our competence model performs the crucial function of constantly reminding the scholar that no pos-sibilities should be excluded on the basis of normative a priori considerations. Moreover, there is no doubt that our competence scheme is capable of further refinement through the confrontation with actual translation reality.

1.4. I will now conclude this section on the competence component with some brief notes on two specific modes of film translation, namely dubbing and subtitl-ing. Some crucial features of both have been stipulated above: they have been defined through their position in our diagram, and in subsection 1.3 it was pointed out that they should be studied in the context of the film sign as a whole and that the precise formulation of the target dialogues forms an additional problem to be investigated by the translation scholar. I will now consider some further particular points.

1.4.1. Dubbing. The technical procedures of dubbing (or "synchronisation") have been fairly well described in various publications; see, for instance, Delmas 1978, Hesse-Quack 1978: Chapter 3, and so forth. Caill 1967 gives a short historical survey of the technique. It emerges that the dubbing process is very much a matter of teamwork. It evolves in various stages (including the phonetic analysis of the original dialogues, the production of the target language text, verification tests, the recording of the new dialogue, the mixing of the sound tape) which are very considerably interrelated. Inevitably, the cost of a synchronized version is rather high. The production chain often includes a number of interventions by the film distribution companies. The latter actually commission the translation and very often it is they who basically determine the concept of the final product; in those cases the synchronisation firms merely execute a well-defined order.

The replacement of acoustic verbal signs with translated acoustic verbal signs is in varying degrees subject to an important semiotic constraint. Because speak-ing characters in a modern film are conventionally supposed to constitute iconic signs the audience expects the characters in the film to produce spoken language


like people in real life; that is to say, they insist on a greater or lesser degree of synchrony of visual articulatory movements on the one hand and audible sound production on the other. Accordingly, the audience will be disturbed by any degree of disharmony between these two elements. It is important not to restrict this problem of synchrony to the movements of the actors' lips only. Sometimes the whole body of the actor is involved; think of the opposite gestures that people in different cultures may make to accompany the words for "yes" or "no". These aspects of the film translation problem are probably the ones focussed upon most intensely so far (see especially Fodor 1976); the scholars in this field can rely on a certain tradition of research in "visual phonetics" which has developed in the context of logopaedics (cf. techniques of lip reading). Very frequently the prob-lem of dialogue dubbing or even the problem of film translation in general! is in fact reduced to the problem of synchrony. The use of the term "synchroniza-tion" as a synonym for dubbing is a case in point. Such opinions, however, have to be dismissed as oversimplifications, for several reasons. Firstly, the stringency of the constraint of synchrony is dependent on the type of film shot in each individual scene to be translated. Close-up shots of the character speaking may impose heavy demands on the translation team. In this way, the giant close-up view of Orson Welles' lips pronouncing the word "rosebud" at the beginning of Citizen Kane (1941) is an unusually problematic example. On the other hand, in many scenes the character who speaks is not even within view. The angle and the distance of the camera and the general visibility conditions are important factors here. So is the narrative structure of the film; the use of an off-screen narrator in the original film, for instance, drastically simplifies matters from the point of view of syn-chronisation. Secondly, the stringency of the constraint of synchrony in film trans-lation ultimately depends on a semiotic convention of "realism" and it is, there-fore, a norm-governed concept: see section 2. To the extent that the constraint of synchrony effectively does govern the translator's behaviour, it will naturally impose strong restrictions on the degree of semantic and syntactic equivalence between source film dialogue and target film dialogue.

1.4.2. Subtitling. The technical aspects of film subtitling have also been adequately described; see, for instance, Baker et al. 1984 or Warlop et al. 1986. From the technical point of view a distinction has to be made between subtitle production for T.V. and for cinema film. New, computer-controlled systems have recently been worked out for T.V. subtitling. In any case subtitling usually in-volves few people and it is considerably cheaper than producing a dubbed version.

An important problem with subtitling derives from the fact that the film dialogues are usually delivered at a faster speed than a translation that is rendered graphically on the screen can keep up with; consequently, a certain compression or reduction of the text seems to be unavoidable. This constraint is in fact bound up with certain semiotic conventions, since we know from experience that written communication in general tends to proceed faster than spoken communication


rather than slower! A first convention relates to the amount of visual verbal signs that is allowed to "displace" original non-verbal visual signs. Mostly a maximum of some 60 or 70 characters is accepted, which are distributed over one or two lines to be introduced at the bottom of the screen. When this maximum number of characters is adhered to, and double subtitles have to be provided (i.e., bilingual titles), the translators will have to make do with even less space. A second conven-tion pertains to the presentation time of each subtitle. Presentation time should be long enough to allow for what is believed to be an adequate understanding by non-professional readers; moreover, presentation time can be arranged so as to match maximally the stretch of speaking time in order to help the viewer in allotting each phrase to the correct personage.

The field of experimental psychology is in an excellent position to test the effect of the two last-named factors on the cognitive perception of film readers/ viewers. Similar empirical tests (involving an eye-movement registration apparatus) are being undertaken, for instance, under the direction of Prof. Gry d'Ydewalle in the laboratory of experimental psychology of the K.U. Leuven. In this context, however, two things should be borne in mind. Firstly, the reception of subtitled films cannot be entirely explained by quantitative factors, such as the amount of graphic characters on the screen or the length of presentation time. We may assume that it is equally governed by certain "qualitative" factors such as the linguistic/stylistic/cultural translation policy followed. Secondly, if it can be estab-lished within certain qualitative parameters that particular quantitative pro-portions yield better results in terms of audience comprehension, this should not be taken as a warrant to abandon our non-exclusive approach in favour of a search for the "best methods" of film translation. Such a practical orientation is of course perfectly legitimate that is the least one can say but it does not fit easily within our particular descriptive framework. The constraint of the limited text space is also ultimately a norm-governed one; see section 2. To the extent that it is effectively observed by the translator, it gives rise to a major problem of selec-tion, the central question being what source dialogue material has to be transfer-red and what information (stylistic-linguistic information, elements regarding plot or character, cultural references, etc.) can be deleted. This deletion problem is connected with another problem to be solved by the subtitler, namely the asym-metry of spoken language and written language. Is it necessary, or indeed possi-ble, to render the informative value of suprasegmental phonetic features such as intonation, etc. in writing? What is to be done about dialects, colloquial vocabul-ary, taboo language, elliptic syntax, non-grammatical utterances, or defective speech? These are questions which deserve much further research. In the last paragraph of this section on subtitles, however, I must return to an issue of a more general semiotic purport.

Like any translation, the subtitles constitute a "metatext", i.e. a text referring to another text. Their actual semiotic status is dependent upon a set of cultural conventions. If these are operative the subtitles will be accepted as not affecting


the original unity of sound and vision, and they will be regarded as if they were an "invisible" addition to the original film. Their unobtrusiveness might become evi-dent, for instance, by testing the hypothesis that a joke which the viewer reads in the subtitles before it has been completed by the speaker is "really" fired off only when its actual speaker has entirely fulfilled his joking speech act. It is on the basis of similar conventions that one can classify subtitles as an instance of mere "addi-tion". For those who do not share these conventions, the status of subtitles as supplementary and subsidiary "glosses" will be much less evident, and the superimposition of the subtitles on to the original unity of sound and vision will rather be felt to impinge on its (artistic) integrity. Experimental psychology has of course provided ample empirical evidence which would seem to corroborate such an attitude by its demonstration of the relatively high visual and cognitive effort that the reading of subtitles involves. Moreover, even in the purely "material" terms of our scheme above, the classification of subtitles as a "visual addition of verbal signs" is not at all universally valid. If one takes into account the fact that the visual verbal signs of the subtitles are very often introduced within the visual frame of the original film rather than underneath it, subtitling necessarily involves the suppression or displacement of a certain amount of the original visual informa-tion. This "mutilation" of the original image is precisely what the opponents of subtitling object to. In many if not in most cases, then, from the material point of view subtitles actually constitute a case of substitution (visual non-verbal informa-tion is replaced by visual verbal information). A case of translation which is highly relevant in this respect can only be mentioned very briefly, since it involves a series of additional problems: certain T.V. stations optionally provide "subtitles" in the sign-language of the deaf-mute. These are of a visual and non-graphic nature, and they often occupy an entire corner of the screen.

2. Norms: required relationships

2.1. Film translations can potentially be made in various ways. The translation of film, then, constitutes a typical situation where one can expect norms to guide the selection of actual behaviour in each specific historical set of circumstances. As a result of such norms the different possible modes of translation will not all be "in free variation", as some of them will in the given conditions implicitly or explicitly be judged as "better" solutions than the others. Accordingly, the effect of norms can be deduced from particular regularities of behaviour, which means in this case, from the systematic occurrence or non-occurrence of specific strategies in translation. Norms may also find a more "direct" expression in metatexts on the practice of film translation, such as in prescriptive statements but also in scholarly discussions of the subject. An example of the former would be Helene Reid's arti-cle (1978), whose significant title is "Sub-titling, the intelligent solution"; an example of the latter is contained in Fodor's (1976:9) unqualified claim that "the


chief requirements of a satisfactory synchronization involve a faithful and artistic rendering of the original dialogue, an approximately perfect unification of the replacing sounds with the visible lip movements, and bringing the style of delivery in the new version into optimal artistic harmony with the style of acting". As Yann Lardeau (1982: 68) puts it, "les problmes de traduction de cinma conduisent invitablement a une rflexion sur le doublage, avec ce qui semble sa consquence oblige, l'nonciation d'un jugement de valeur, pour ou contre". It is a significant fact that Lardeau himself turns out to be unable to avoid the normative pitfall after having correctly detected it.

In the present section I will provisionally show at what various levels norms may be active and can be analysed in film translation. In doing so I am mapping out the contours of a still virgin area of research. There is, of course, no point in looking for one single norm which supposedly governs "the" translation of films in general. Rather does it appear that we have to attempt to identify a com-plex interactive group of related norms. The reconstruction of these norms can start with a study of the metatexts (critical and scholarly reflection at various moments) but it will finally have to be based on the systematic observation of actual translation behaviour. By studying whole series of phenomena (i.e. on the basis of non-selective corpora) the researcher will discover both consistencies and variations of behaviour. The former will lead him to the formulation of the rele-vant norms. The latter may be interpreted in various ways: the norm may be weak and allow of certain deviations (bordering on "free variation"); the norm may have been disregarded in spite of its stringent character (in which case the devia-tion is likely to be condemned); there may be a hesitation that is indicative of the advent of a new, alternative norm. Perhaps the researcher simply has to look for a deeper underlying explanation (cases of "bound variation").

2.2. The checklist of questions with which the researcher has to approach the empirical facts is predictably very elaborate. For the sake of clarity I will split it up into two parts. The first part is of a purely descriptive nature and it is geared to the identification of the translation type of each individual film translation belonging to the corpus. It follows from the structure of Toury's tripartite model Compe-tence Norm Performance that the questions in the first list can be theoreti-cally deduced from the distinctions that we have put forward in our passages on the competence component. I will only briefly enumerate the most important points and outline the relevance of some of the questions.

Some general questions - What target language has been selected by the translators? Example: the target

society may be multilingual; some of its languages may be culturally peripheral. - If the target language has different major geographical variants, which one has

been selected? Example: the option between a "Dutch" and a "Flemish" variant of Dutch, or between an Australian, British, American, or "mid-Atlantic" vari-


ety of English; this question relates to the important hypothesis that linguistic usage on T.V. has a major modelling impact on the linguistic norms of a speech community.

- What technique is used by the translators in the various types of source text scenes (titles, credit titles, off-screen narrator, dialogues, music, verbal text vis-ually presented, etc.)? What is the dominant technique in the film as a whole? Example: Belgium and the Netherlands have generally a clear preference for subtitling; France, Germany and Italy clearly opt for dubbed versions; still other countries may be of an intermediate type.

- Are there any additions or any reductions? If so, what types of dialogues, scenes, etc., have been introduced or deleted? Example: the deletion of "un-necessary" descriptive or lyrical scenes, of sexually or politically provocative scenes, etc.

- Is more than one translation alternative being offered to the public? Examples: stereo T.V. allows a film to be broadcast both in the original and in a dubbed version so that the viewer can choose either channel; teletext subtitles may be tuned in to or may be left out; the commercial cinema circuit may offer films in dubbed version whereas a smaller circuit for film-lovers projects original ver-sions with or without subtitles.

- In what manner are the translations labelled as non-original texts or as metatexts if at all?

- Is it possible to identify any intermediary translation? Example: films made in little-known languages may be translated via an intermediary version.

- What are the translator's methods if two or more languages are used in the source film?

As to dubbing specifically - To what extent have the translators made an attempt at synchrony of visible

body movements and audible speech? Examples: the account of an expert or a witness in T.V. news broadcasts is often dubbed without any attempt at syn-chrony whatsoever; Cary (1985:70) makes mention of a Hamlet "remarkably" dubbed into French even though synchrony is not heeded; some German trans-lators questioned by Hesse-Quack (1969:99) declare lip-synchrony to be an "anachronistic and unnecessary requirement".

- To what extent do the dubbing voices make an effort to "act" their dialogues in a manner maximally similar to the expressive qualities of the original spoken text? Examples: in certain East European countries entire programmes are dub-bed by one and the same actor, who performs both the male and the female roles and who uses a neutral intonation throughout; in various West-European countries the dubbing actors do perform their lines in an expressive manner, but in doing so they follow an acting code which is proper to the receiving film trans-lation traditions rather than to the source film.


As to subtitling specifically - Are the subtitles in one language, or do the subtitlers offer a bilingual or double

translation? Example: in a bilingual area such as Belgium, the Basque region of Spain, etc. double subtitles are not uncommon. If subtitling is bilingual, which is the order of presentation (e.g., first line versus second line)?

- What are the maximal and the average number of characters in the subtitled text? How long are presentation times?

- What type of source text information has been deleted, if any? - Has an attempt been made to connote the subtitles as "spoken language", or are

they in a standard "realistic" "literary" dialogue?

Some general qualitative aspects - Do syntax and style have a foreign ring? - What has happened to such prosodic features (verse, metre, etc.) as the original

may show? - What is the attitude towards loan words and foreign idioms and expressions? - Have foreign cultural elements been retained, naturalized, deleted? - How have taboo elements been dealt with? - What have the translators done with source film sequences where a polemical

stance is taken vis--vis the target culture? Example: Hesse-Quack (1969) disco-vered that German dubbing versions tend to discard allusions to Germany's "re-cent past"; sometimes, when Germans are being ridiculed in the original film, the joke is made to bear upon another nationality;

- Is it possible to detect the introduction of certain genre-markers, i.e. of conven-tional or even stereotyped elements that conform the target film to the audience expectations? In other words, is the target film a more outspokenly recognizable token of a target culture film genre than a more "faithful" reproduction would have been? If so, what exactly were the translators models? Example: Hesse-Quack (1969) discovered that long foreign-cinema films are systematically trim-med by German dubbing firms so as to prevent them from exceeding a length of 90 minutes, apparently because this length is part of their conception of a "proper" movie.

2.3. The above list of questions pertains to individual film translations. In our examples we have already implicitly suggested that certain patterns are likely to manifest themselves if those questions are put for a whole series of texts, more particularly if different target cultures are compared with each other. Our second set of questions aims precisely at organising such systematic observations. If large-scale application of our first set of questions yields a heterogeneous mass of data, the variables of which the second list consists will enable the scholar to detect the normative mechanisms that have governed the production of the translations in his corpus. Our second list of questions is meant to be as open and hypothetical as


the first one; in fact, the researcher should not preclude the relevance of any new variable, i.e., the possibility of a coherence hitherto undetected. Even so, the var-iables that are listed below are likely to supply a sound basis for his screening, as their pertinence has been well established in the field of literary translation. Here, then, are the questions:

- What is the source language and culture? Example: it is not uncommon to trans-late verbal film signs that are spoken in a non-standard variety of the target lan-guage (e.g. dialect).

- What precisely is the target culture of the translation (linguistic borders and cul-tural borders do not necessarily coincide)? Example: a distinction might have to be made between Dutch subtitles produced in/for Flanders, those produced in/ for the Netherlands, and those produced for both; a similar question applies to translations produced in British, American or Australian English.

- Does the target culture entertain frequent relations with the source culture? Does the latter enjoy a high prestige in the former, or does the source culture rank as a minor or uninteresting culture?

- What is the text type of the source film? Example: film types that mainly serve to communicate information ("facts") are often treated differently from text-types in which entertainment ("fiction") is the primary goal.

- As it is hard to define text types in an a-historical manner, it might be useful to replace the previous question with this one: to which (historical) genre does the source film belong? Example: documentary, interview, reportage, western, car-toon, video-clip, musical, soap opera, and so forth. At this level an important distinction between T.V. (-genres) and cinema (-genres) may arise. The broad question of genre comprises a number of further potentially relevant discrimina-tions:

- Are we dealing with a genre in which the qualities of the vocal performance are believed to be an integral part of the whole artistic sign? Examples: filmed ver-sions of famous theatre performances, opera films, musicals.

- Is a specific audience aimed at in terms of literacy? Example: films for children, elderly people, immigrants, films in the context of literacy campaigns; one of the few T.V. programmes in the Low Countries where dubbing is systematically practised is the children's programme Sesamstraat.

- What is the cultural status of the genre? Example: soap operas as opposed to films that are held in high artistic repute; in Flanders the BBC productions of Shakespeare's plays have not been subtitled by a member of the BRT transla-tion pool but by one of the region's foremost Shakespeare translators (Willy Courteaux).

- Does the source film have a particular status within the genre to which it relates? Example: many of W. Disney's films belong to the genre of the ani-mated cartoon or of children's films, but on account of their special, canonical


status within their genre they might well be given a different translation treat-ment.

- Does the genre to which the source film originally belongs exist in the receiving culture? Do the source film's (linguistic, stylistic, cultural, filmic) models find a counterpart in the target culture?

2.4. If the study of actual translation performance is guided by these and similar questions, the scholar will gradually be enabled to formulate his hypotheses con-cerning the motivations behind the translator's behaviour. It will probably turn out that some of the norms relevant to the corpus under study have in fact nothing to do with translation as such or with film and T.V. as such. That would not be a surprising conclusion since we accept that cultures are complexly structured phenomena (or "systems"). The norms that will emerge can be expected to relate to:

- genre conceptions within the target film and T.V. system: what does a "good" soap opera, news report, etc., look like? What are the norms and current opin-ions regarding the relative value and function of the "image" vs. the "words" in the artistic unity of films?

- the structure of the target literary polysystem: what are the literary categories and models by means of which the target culture organises its experiences?

- the linguistic organisation of the target culture: what varieties, registers, styles does the target language have at its disposal? How do the spoken and written language relate to each other? What are the attitudes towards neighbouring lan-guages (openness vs. purism), and what foreign-language teaching policies are being followed?

- what is the openness of the target culture with regard to other cultures? what relations does it have with various other cultures: dominance, subordination, competition, non-relations? what is the international prestige of the target cul-ture? is it a stable system or is it in a period of rapid change?

- in connection with the previous questions: what is the dominant conception of translations in other fields such as literary translation, Bible translation, techni-cal translation, and so forth?

It is our basic hypothesis that at least some of these variables have an effect in the empirical reality of film translation. Of course, in assessing the extent of that effect, it is also necessary to take into account certain considerations such as the cost of various translation procedures, the financial and technological resources of the target mass-media centres, and so forth. However, one may assume that these practical constraints never have the final word since additional funds can always be provided and technological infrastructure can be created whenever it is felt to be culturally necessary that such measures be taken. Thus our orientation implies that the study of film translation and of any other form


of translation is necessarily part of the larger project of the analysis of the "polysystem" of culture as a whole. This relatedness works both ways. On the one hand, the study of translation contributes to an understanding of our cultures: their internal structures, their interrelations, their historical evolutions. On the other hand, the description of certain phenomena which are at first sight in no way connected with his research topic as such may still supply the student of film trans-lation with insights that are central to his particular research. As a conclusion to this section I will give a very selective list of some of these related themes. The study of these items may not be the first concern of the scholar of film translation, but it will be indispensable when it comes to reconstructing the norms governing his corpus: - Besides translated or "imported" films the total supply of films at a given

moment also consists of newly produced films ("production") and of re-issued older material ("tradition") (see Lambert 1980). What are the relative quantita-tive proportions of production, tradition and import, both in general terms and according to the various genres?

- How do the previous questions have to be answered with respect to other cul-tural domains such as literature, theatre and the like?

- What are the principles guiding the transposition of books into films?

3. Performance: actual relationships

In point of fact, the domain of performance has been dealt with continuously in the previous sections since every real translation relationship between a source film and the target film should fall within the compass of our competence model (section 1), and since its actual occurrence can be explained by reference to a com-plex of target culture norms (section 2). In the present section, then, I propose to proceed from theoretical and methodological matters to a somewhat more pragmatic approach, and to indicate a few domains where practical research can start immediately. The optimal concrete modalities of future research projects cannot be discussed here, but at least one important requirement should be evi-dent from the foregoing pages: an international orientation is quite indispensable. It would seem that a European country like Belgium offers optimal conditions for carrying out and centralizing such research, in that it has a central geographical location and excellent cable-T.V. facilities. In the longer run world-wide satellite connections will probably further increase the accessibility of foreign stations for comparative purposes.

In the following few lines I would like to suggest a few types of research which might be expected to yield worthwhile results more or less immediately.

a. Inventories can be drawn up both nationally and internationally of the various companies, institutions, television stations and all other bodies that concern them-selves with the business of film translation. This work, which must include a sur-


vey of all the economic, commercial and organisational aspects of our problem (material infrastructure), will finally relate film translation to the entire structure of mass media in a given culture and across the boundaries of individual cultures. b. Statistical repertoire studies can be made of the total supply of T. V. broadcast-ing during a certain period (say, an average week). Comparisons can be made between various stations, between various nations, etc. The parameters for statis-tical processing have been discussed in the second section above. They include: relations between import, production and tradition; distribution of translation techniques, and so forth. c. It should be fairly easy to make international comparisons of the different ver-sions of certain programmes which are distributed and translated into various cul-tures. Programmes such as the Eurovision Song Contest, international press issues, major documentary series (Cosmos, etc.) and the various soap operas that roam the world (Dallas, etc.) appear to be suitable subjects for such an analysis. d. The fact that a large majority of films is based on written (literary) sources and that translational activities are taking place in literary communication just as much as in film communication will frequently offer excellent opportunities for interest-ing "square" comparisons involving: the written work both in the source language and in the target language, and the film version both in the source language and in the translated version. The following chart provides a simple representation of the complex relationships involved:

Fig. 2

It should not be hard to find examples which will fit this chart if one selects and systematically compares examples that belong to different genres (literary genres, film genres), to different source and target cultures, to different stages in the evolution of a single target culture, etc., one is likely to find various significant convergences and divergences. By the same token it is obvious that similar com-parisons will shed light on the dynamic relationships between the literary system and the film system in the relevant cultures. Nowadays one finds many books which are based on and posterior to popular T.V. series or films. Translations of such films/books will also offer important evidence concerning the study of these relationships.


e. Tests could be devised for measuring the relationships between multilingual television supply and the average proficiency level in foreign languages of certain population groups. To what degree can we validly suppose that subtitling transla-tion methods have a considerable didactic impact?

4. Further outlook

So far this paper has mainly consisted of theoretical and methodological points, and of hypotheses and questions. The appropriate way to round off such an essay is, unavoidably, to stress the urgent need for further research to be car-ried out along the lines sketched out in the previous pages. In the present case this means that a joint effort on the part of mass-communication experts, of transla-tion scholars, of linguists, sociologists, sociolinguists, psychologists and others is called for and that I have to stress the fact that each of the scholars involved should realise the limited scope of his own contribution rather than claim the whole of the research territory for his own particular branch. I hope to have estab-lished at least the rudiments of a framework within which any such partial, or pre-ferably less partial, research project might proceed with a proper sense of perspec-tive.

Finally, I would like to take up a question which was raised in the early sec-tions of this paper. To what extent is it advisable to make use of the term "transla-tion" at all when dealing with the transfer of films from one linguistic/cultural community to another? One cannot but be struck by the fact that the term "adap-tation" is frequently suggested as an alternative to "translation" in the few schol-arly and not-so-scholarly discussions of film translation that I have been able to collect; there is an unmistakable hesitation among translators, critics and scholars regarding the applicability of the term "translation". One might venture the hypothesis that this same hesitation is responsible for the fact that translation studies of all disciplines have been rather reluctant to include film translation among their subjects of study.

Naturally the answer to this problem depends upon one's conception of what a translation is. If translation is defined as a process of linguistic recoding that should aim at a maximal transfer of source text syntax and semantics into the target language, then clearly film translation is emphatically not a form of genuine translation. It is obvious at first sight that the empirical relationships between source films and target films can hardly be exhaustively described in terms of a maximally faithful linguistic recoding process:

- many verbal elements of the source film are not translated at all; - the constraints of synchrony (dubbing) and of text compression (subtitling) are

often felt to be so stringent that the source-text verbal signs which are effectively translated fail to meet the usual criteria of syntactic or semantic faithfulness to the original;


- more often than not the translation of the dialogues is accompanied by some other operation (mainly cutting) which sometimes even involves the need to "tamper" with the source film dialogues to an even higher degree.

It will be evident that none of these features is compatible with a strict, normative linguistic definition of translation. Hence it could reasonably be argued that "adaptation" would be a better term for what we have so far discussed as "transla-tions"; the latter term would accordingly be confined to indicating only those operations which concern the replacement of source-film verbal material with "equivalent" target-language verbal material. However, such a distinction between adaptation (the whole of the process) and translation (the verbal compo-nent of it) is open to criticism on various counts. Firstly, it is an arbitrary distinc-tion which overlooks the interrelatedness of the various processes that link up a source film and a target film; it is impossible to understand the how and the why of the narrowly verbal translational relationships between a source film and a target film if they are viewed as isolated from the entire range of relationships. Secondly, to the extent that the term translation can be used to denote the final product of the translation process, it will refer to the target film as a whole, and hence also to its "non-translated" and non-verbal parts. The third reason, how-ever, is probably the most important one. In fact, it is not just film translation in the wide sense I have adopted which fails to fit the static "ideal" linguistic defini-tions of translation. One can easily think of literally thousands of texts that we accept as being "translations" and which also fail to come up to the normative definitions of translation.

Indeed, in most cases the translators of poetry, of plays, of novels, of tourist brochures, etc., do not translate mere semantic and syntactic structures either. Rather do they translate texts into texts, and in that process a lot of things may happen which are quite similar to the manifold operations that occur in film trans-lation and which defy any static definition: reductions, additions, stylistic or ideological shifts, adaptation of sociocultural data, changes in the visual (graphic) presentation of the text, and so forth.

The conclusion seems to be that a narrow, normative definition of translation is in danger of being applicable only to very few, well-selected cases, and of being unsuitable for a description of most actual facts. That is why I have rejected a min-imal definition of translation and why I have opted for a highly flexible notion. However, there is admittedly another ambiguity that besets my use of the term translation. If the preceding argument may seem acceptable from the con-ceptual point of view, one could legitimately raise a terminological objection to the fact that the term in my usage can apply both to the object-level of the histor-ical facts (translation as a norm-governed concept) and to the meta-level of schol-arly description. It has to be acknowledged for instance, that certain operations contained in my competence component such as the consistent application of "repetition" on all levels will hardly ever be covered by any historical definition


of translation. This problem, however, is of a terminological nature and if it should prove to be awkward, it can fairly easily be solved by henceforth consider-ing "translation" to be a purely historical category and by deleting it altogether from our scholarly metalanguage. On the latter level it could be replaced by a term such as "transfer" or "transfer text", etc. In a way, this point allows me to end this paper on an optimistic note, by pointing out that such a decision would in fact be in line with certain of the most promising tendencies within the discipline of translation studies: "having once adopted a functional(istic) approach, whereby the object is theory dependent, modern translation theory cannot escape trans-cending "borders". Just as the linguistic "borders" have been transcended, so must the literary ones be transcended. For there are occurrences of a translational nature which call for a semiotics of culture, and, in the context of the latter, it is at least Even-Zohar's expressed belief that transfer/interference theory will no longer be developed detached from translation theory" (Even-Zohar & Toury 1981: X-XI).

About the author

Dirk Delabastita (1960) was a research assistant at the department of literary studies of the KU Leuven (with a grant from the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research) until 1988. He is currently a teaching assistant at the Department of English of the Facults Universitaires Notre-Dame de la Paix, Namur (Belgium). He is one of the co-editors of Van Gorp's Lexicon van Literaire Termen and has written articles and reviews in the field of Translation Studies. He is working on a Ph.D. dissertation on the problem of wordplay translation. Address: Kortrijksestraat 71, B 3200 KESSEL-LO (Belgium)

NOTE

* This paper originates from a seminar session held in the context of the European Institute for Liter-ary and Cultural Studies (A joint programme of the University of Pennsylvania and the Katholieke Uni-versiteit Leuven, 1987 edition) and as such it is to a large extent the result of a collective effort. I grate-fully acknowledge my debts to many people, including Prof. Jos Lambert, Prof. Rik Van Gorp, Prof. Theo Hermans, Dr. Jan Baetens, Dr. Dirk De Geest, Dr. Lieven D'hulst, Jan Flamend, and above all to Patrick Cattrysse. I should also like to thank Julian Ross for checking my English and Johan Nootens (BRT), who kindly provided me with many useful references. Needless to say all remaining defects are my own responsibility.

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RSUM

Tout bien considr, on ne peut que s'tonner de la disproportion entre l'importance vi-dente du phnomne de la traduction dans les mass-media audio-visuels (importance qui peut tre dfinie en termes la fois quantitatifs et qualitatifs) d'une part, et l'attention minimale que la science de la traduction y a accorde d'autre part. Bien qu'il y ait bon nombre de publications ce sujet, la majorit d'entre elles sont d'orientation purement technique; en outre, leur teneur est souvent prscriptive plutt que descriptive.

En passant, cet article traite des causes de cette disproportion remarquable, mais avant tout nous avons l'intention d'indiquer de quelle faon la lacune pourrait tre comble. Le modle que nous proposons est bas sur des schmes de recherche dont l'utilit a amplement t tablie dans le domaine de la traduction littraire. En suivant Gideon Toury, nous prsumons qu'il faut distinguer plusieurs niveaux de relations traductionnelles. Ainsi, la pratique de la traduction dans le domaine du film et de la tlvision l'intrieur d'une situation socioculturelle donne (niveau de la performance) repose sur des choix faits parmi un ensemble d'alternatives assez vaste (niveau de la comptence); cette slection est gouverne par le niveau intermdiaire des normes. Les chercheurs de la traduction audiovisuelle devront se rendre compte de ces distinc-tions. Parmi leurs tches les plus immdiates, nous comptons:

- l'laboration d'un modle de comptence, c'est--dire, d'une thorie de la traduction audiovi-suelle qui soit exempte de toute immixtion normative et qui soit fonde sur des disciplines di-verses (smiotique du film, thorie de la traduction, etc.); notre article essaye de jeter les ba-ses d'une telle thorie;

- l'analyse systmatique et impartiale de la ralit historique des traductions afin de dcouvrir les mcanismes normatifs qui ont orient les stratgies des traducteurs; ce dessein, nous proposons un inventaire comprenant ces paramtres dont la pertinence nous semble fort pro-bable.

translation and mass communication

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