4.5.1 Key Points of Carrying Out the Questionnaire
a) Ethical Considerations
Ethical considerations play an inevitable role in all research studies,while all researchers must consider the ethics related to their studies.“In research,the ends do not justify the means,and the researchers must not put their need to carry out a study above their responsibility to maintain the well-being of the study participants.Research studies are built on trust between a researcher and the participants,and researchers has a responsibility to behave in a trustworthy manner,just as they expect participants to” (Gay 2006: 73).
Furthermore,research that is contingent on the contribution of human subjects ought to require even more careful pre-consideration given that research participants may experience stress,anxiety,and a great number of other consequences (Robinson 2011: 194).For this particular research project,it is necessary to ensure that both ethical and legal issues are considered throughout the research process,with particular consideration given to the type of respondents involved (that is,undergraduate students mostly majoring in English).
First of all,the key ethical issues in research are involved with the participants’ right to give informed consent and enjoy freedom from harm (Gay 2006: 74).Otherwise,collecting information from participants is regarded as unethical.Therefore,at the beginning of the research process,I am committed to explaining and informing all the participants of the overall purpose of her study and the stepby-step procedures of participation.The related written documents about the research purpose,the detailed participation process,and the proof of Ethical Approval from the Ethical Research Committee at the University of Salford is to be provided to all participants; all the related documents with official signatures are in Appendix 3.To make sure that all the participants fully understand and are acquainted with the study requirements and purposes,as well as ensure that they avoid any risks,anonymity and confidentiality issues will underpin every stage of the questionnaire process: its completion,its submission,the data analysis and the production of the research findings.This is taken as a basic requirement by ethical research boards and committees as well as the UK’s Data Protection Act (1998).In so doing,I am responsible for keeping participants’ identities anonymous and reminding them not to sign their names on the questionnaire at the beginning or at the end of their answers.In my final report,I generally ought to be able to identify the group of participants,their education background information,age range,etc.Within qualitative research,aspects of the participants’ individuality,such as their likeness and voice,are not critical given the general nature of questionnaires as a quantitative research tool.Therefore,issues regarding anonymity,the explanation of the research,how to keep all data confidential,the use of these data in the step of research findings is explained to all participants at the beginning of the questionnaire so that the research meets the basic requirements of informed consent.
b) Preparation
In order to meet the requirements of the Ethical Research Committee at the University of Salford,as well as the UK’s Data Protection Act (1998),it was necessary to provide the following information to all the respondents before asking them to answer the questionnaire; this was indispensable in order to ensure their comprehension and support.First,it was necessary to outline the research topic and its objectives,and the project’s academic context to the respondents.(https://www.daowen.com)
c) Research Topic
The current research topic is called “A Comparative Analysis of Film Subtitle Translation from English in Chinese:A Case Study of 15 Popular Animation Films”.The research aims to test three research hypotheses,as well as discuss the main issues and effective solutions related to the subtitling of the sample film Despicable Me 1 from the perspective of cultural awareness.
d) Academic Context
AVT is a new area of study within translation studies.Scholars from Western countries were the first to undertake theoretical work regarding translation.Examples include Jorge Diaz-Cintas’s discussion about the application of descriptive translation studies (DTS) and Even-Zohar’s polysystem theory in relation to the field of AVT (2004).In addition,scholars in the field of subtitle translation,such as Henrik Gottlieb,have proposed 10 translation strategies appropriate to AVT.This research project builds on the aforementioned theoretical work by scoping and interrogating further issues and strategic possibilities for movie caption translation between English and Chinese.The research expectations are to define common issues for,and identify,effective translation strategies to improve the quality of translation work in the context of movie subtitles.However,the intrinsic problems that complicate such translation work — given that English and Chinese belong to two different language families — are also taken into account.In other words,arriving at an “equivalent” translation between these two languages may be more difficult to achieve than that between English and a language from the same or similar language family.Moreover,the huge cultural divide between the East and West means that there are always significant challenges in delivering information from the Source Text (ST) to the Target Text (TT).Thus,the realistic contribution of this research project will be to set out the common issues and develop suitable strategies in the English/Chinese movie caption translating process and,more broadly,to extend the theory of subtitle translation into this very specific cultural-linguistic context.Firstly,this research aims to examine the advantages of applying traditional Chinese expressions (idioms,archaisms) and those of applying popular expressions (popular language in networks,new words,loaning words and dialects) as culturally loaded expressions in English-Chinese subtitling.Moreover,the use of these two kinds of expressions while be combined with appropriate translation strategies (four strategies according to Gottlieb),and another two novel strategies used in subtitling in the last five years).Then,as a research result,I will design a measuring scale by referencing the data results from my research study.The measuring scale will be improved and completed by continuously collecting more data for my corpus.Detailed discussion about how to develop this theory by analysing the main issues in the present data and studying effective translation strategies will be provided in a later part of this chapter.
Secondly,it was important to explain to the students that the reason for inviting them to answer a questionnaire was to obtain firsthand information to enable the researcher to shed light on the two questions mentioned above and also,ultimately,to improve the quality of subtitles that millions of other spectators read when they watch a foreign language film.The students were told that their selection as participants was based on the reasonable assumptions that: they form part of the potential audience for these translated films; they possess a good level of knowledge in E-C translation; they would also be familiar with the use of traditional Chinese expressions (such as idioms and archaisms) and popular expressions (such as vernacular and language made popular in networks).In addition,the purpose of the questionnaire was to test whether the discussed translation strategies were more effective in engaging the audience’s visual attention and,furthermore,whether the Chinese language peculiarities of idioms,archaisms and popular expressions were welcomed by the audience.As such,it was explained that the questionnaire would be in three parts: the first part consisted of 15 paired-choice questions about two alternative translations marked as “A” and “B”.The second part consisted of multiple choice questions whose purpose was to calibrate audience preferences towards the use of culturally loaded Chinese words.The last part of the questionnaire was an open question that invited suggestions from the students as spectators for E-C subtitling; here,the participants were invited to write down their own suggestions to improve the translations of these aforementioned films.
Lastly,it was necessary to give the students instructions about the process of answering the questionnaire.The expected time for completing the questionnaire was 30 minutes and it would be completed anonymously.In answering all the questions in this questionnaire,it was anticipated that the students would refer to the experience and knowledge that they had acquired on their translation and interpretation courses over a two-year period,and share their personal viewpoints on the translated subtitles of recently released animation films.The students would personally place their questionnaires into an envelope and put them into a pre-prepared box at the front of the classroom before they left.I would analyse the collected data in the second stage of her work.The electronic data would be password-protected and all hard copies of the completed questionnaire would be stored in a locked filing cabinet.The source of the data would be generically described as “undergraduates from Shanghai University of Sport and Fudan University”.Moreover,I reiterated my appreciation to all the participants and emphasized to them that,with their help,the data from the questionnaires would make an important contribution to the development of this research project.Furthermore,the findings of this research would be made available to film subtitling companies in order to improve the subtitles of films that the participants and many other spectators from different generations watch.