Title
Pivot translation and direct translation. What’s the difference in quality? An analysis of two renditions of Netflix’s "Paranormal" into Polish
Conference name
Media for All 10 Conference
City
Country
Belgium
Modalities
Date
06/07/2023-07/07/2023
Abstract
Streaming platforms offer more and more non-English content from the cinematography of Spain, Germany, Iceland, Turkey, Norway, and many others. At the same time, a significant percentage of their subscribers also reside in non-English speaking countries. Nevertheless, the English language still holds a dominant position in the translation process due to relay – or pivot – translation, which consists in creating English template files of non-English-language texts, and distributing them to target-language translators, who are not required to know the language of the original.
The paper presents the problems that arise from using such intermediary translations. It compares two Polish translations of the Egyptian series Paranormal (2020) – the relay subtitles prepared on the basis of an English-language template, and a direct voice-over rendition. Both of these renditions are now available on Netflix, each offering a different experience to the viewers. The study compares the two renditions to show how a text which is prepared according to the standardized relay subtitling process is different from a direct translation prepared for the purposes of a voice-over version. The analysis focuses on character-specific language (which is based on the diglossia typical for Arabic languages), the transfer of sense, and the rendition of cultural items. It also investigates whether the errors typically attributed to the process of relay translation are avoidable if the translation is direct. Finally, it compares the English pivot and the Polish voice-over – both of which are direct translations – to reflect on the importance of proper intermediary renditions in a relay.
The main conclusion that can be drawn from the analysis is that the popular dichotomy “relay is inaccurate, direct is accurate” is a very simplistic understanding of a complex issue. In this study, one of the direct translations was far from accurate, and so was the subsequent relay translation. Relay is a system of interconnected vessels, where the quality of later texts is strongly dependent on the quality of the texts earlier in the chain, and the end translator has very little power to identify and correct the diversions introduced by the previous translator(s) if he/she does not speak the original language. The end translation in a relay can potentially be very precise, but this is arguably difficult to achieve – at every stage of the relay, a translator is required who would be attentive enough to identify the distinctive qualities of the original, and skillful enough to recreate them in such a manner that they would be identifiable for the subsequent translator, at the same time introducing as few distortions in the text as possible. Since the distortions and mistranslations are bound to be repeated by the subsequent professionals, the relay translations are less and less accurate down the chain, and the probability of the end text being a successful rendition decreases.
The paper presents the problems that arise from using such intermediary translations. It compares two Polish translations of the Egyptian series Paranormal (2020) – the relay subtitles prepared on the basis of an English-language template, and a direct voice-over rendition. Both of these renditions are now available on Netflix, each offering a different experience to the viewers. The study compares the two renditions to show how a text which is prepared according to the standardized relay subtitling process is different from a direct translation prepared for the purposes of a voice-over version. The analysis focuses on character-specific language (which is based on the diglossia typical for Arabic languages), the transfer of sense, and the rendition of cultural items. It also investigates whether the errors typically attributed to the process of relay translation are avoidable if the translation is direct. Finally, it compares the English pivot and the Polish voice-over – both of which are direct translations – to reflect on the importance of proper intermediary renditions in a relay.
The main conclusion that can be drawn from the analysis is that the popular dichotomy “relay is inaccurate, direct is accurate” is a very simplistic understanding of a complex issue. In this study, one of the direct translations was far from accurate, and so was the subsequent relay translation. Relay is a system of interconnected vessels, where the quality of later texts is strongly dependent on the quality of the texts earlier in the chain, and the end translator has very little power to identify and correct the diversions introduced by the previous translator(s) if he/she does not speak the original language. The end translation in a relay can potentially be very precise, but this is arguably difficult to achieve – at every stage of the relay, a translator is required who would be attentive enough to identify the distinctive qualities of the original, and skillful enough to recreate them in such a manner that they would be identifiable for the subsequent translator, at the same time introducing as few distortions in the text as possible. Since the distortions and mistranslations are bound to be repeated by the subsequent professionals, the relay translations are less and less accurate down the chain, and the probability of the end text being a successful rendition decreases.