7.1.1 Corpus-based Results
In the corpus,I put the 15 selected films’ dual language subtitles; the total number is 19,081 pairs,and the following table shows the frequency of popular expressions that appeared in each of the 15 selected animation films:
Screenshot 15
(A sample calculation in ParaConc)
The above screenshot illustrates the way of calculating the frequency of the use of popular expressions in the 15 selected films.Similar to the method of calculating traditional expressions in the last chapter,I gave the label “PE” (the abbreviation for popular expression) to each of the translated subtitles which involve the use of popular expressions,and then put them into a ParaConc,the frequency is displayed.After getting all the data of the 15 selected films,I make the following table to record all the data:
Table 8
Figure 5(https://www.daowen.com)
In the above figure,firstly,the film Rio 1 indicates the highest frequency of using popular expressions in translation; however,the film The Smurfs 1 shows the lowest frequency of using popular expressions among the 15 selected films.Secondly,the films which have the top five highest frequency of use of popular expressions in their translation have three points in common: a) all of these films have over 1,200 pairs of bilingual subtitles,except one with 954; b) all of these films used popular translation expressions in about 29% of the total number of translated subtitles; c) all of the films are relative newly released films compared with the rest of the selected films.(The Smurfs 2 and Turbo are from 2013; Madagascar 3 is from 2012; Rio 1,Alpha and Omega are from 2011.)
The reasons for applying popular expressions may vary.I checked the data of these films and finds that the original English subtitles are commonly short and simple,so that there will be not much chance to use these typical expressions in translation.However,when I select the series of The Smurfs 1 and 2 to compare,I find that the frequency of using popular expressions in The Smurfs 2 is dramatically increased.
Besides,the tendency of using popular expressions in English-Chinese subtitle translation now exists in three series of released films (including the above mentioned The Smurfs series) out of five in the 15 selected films as:
Table 9
Although the other two series of films Cars 1 and 2,Rio 1 and 2 showed the reverse situation,the difference value of the frequency between them was very small,unlike that of the above three series of films.In the above three series of films,the increasing tendency to use popular expressions in subtitle translation has mostly shown a dramatic increase; this closely reflects the other linguistic phenomena that have appeared in recent years in China.With the development of the high-tech informational media,particularly the Internet,Chinese people create more and more popular expressions in modern Chinese,and widely use these up-to-date expressions in their daily life.In these collected data,I find that the use of this type of expression becomes more and more frequent.In the five series of films,most of the series of films show this tendency,considering the similar characters,story lines and plots.The phenomenon of the increasing frequency of using popular expressions can validate the research hypothesis in this study concerning the extent to which the use of popular expressions in E-C subtitle translation is effective.The online grades in the next section to the series of films can also prove this point.Then,in the rest of four films,Frozen,Alpha and Omega,The Croods and Turbo,there are three out of four films that show a high frequency of using popular expressions in their subtitle translation (around 30%); the common point among them is all of these films are the recent three years’ released films.Concurrently,in the past three years in China,people pay more and more attention to the creation of popular language and prefer to use it in daily life.They regard the use of this kind of language is a kind of fashion and an easier way to communicate with young people.Therefore,the increasing frequency of using popular language in subtitle translation in English-language exported animation films in China can be seen as a kind of attitude to shorten the distance between the film and its target audience; it is,therefore,effective in arousing the audience’s interests in these films.This high-frequency use of popular expressions in the given data also highlights how the choices and preferences of the subtitlers and subtitling companies of these films can keep up with language development.
However,because the content of the narratives is different and the number and type of screen characters is not same,it cannot necessarily be argued that the more culturally loaded expressions (including traditional ones and popular ones) are used,the more expressive and multi-layered a film is.Nevertheless,to use evocative culturally loaded expressions like popular ones wherever appropriate and possible in a given animated film is surely the correct choice,because this language has a stronger resonance for the audience,especially the young audience,because this is the real language they use in daily communication with their friends; these expressions echo what they have regularly heard and used.This sort of language will elicit more of a response from audiences than dryer,more literal and less evocative translation approaches,a perspective reiterated by the responses of the questionnaire respondents.
Taking into account that Rio 1 was the first film in an established franchise and The Smurfs 1 was a relatively unknown quantity to Chinese audiences,this does raise the question of how important the quality of the translated language might be in influencing the acceptance of a film in a foreign market,in particular the extent to which the use of culturally loaded expressions (including the type of traditional expressions discussed in last chapter) in E-C subtitling will affect the popularity of the film.
However,some contradictory phenomena also appear in this graph.Frozen received the highest approval rating from netizens,(on the basis of information from the following three websites in next section); however,the graph shows that its use of popular expressions is the second lowest frequency.Considering other elements such as the storyline,the film type (this is a musical film),the characters (the main characters are two girls),it is arguable that the approval rating by online voters will be influenced by these other elements as well.As far as the subtitling is concerned,I evaluated the Chinese translated subtitles,and there is rarely a problem or inaccuracy in them,the only flaw being the repetitive Chinese phrasing in some places which makes some of the subtitling unnecessarily long.Compared with the film Rio 1,the film which had the highest frequency of using popular expressions,the story line of Frozen is relatively simple; as a musical animated film,nearly every main character has one or two songs to perform in the film.For some audience,frequent episodes may slightly interference in the process of watching a film; Frozen has fewer main characters than those in Rio 1.Furthermore,Rio 1 used popular expressions in over 33% of its subtitles — the highest frequency out of the films featuring this method in their subtitling — it did also occupy first place in the ranking of films as evaluated by Internet users (see the chart in the next section).Its ranking of the most popular film suggests that the quality of the translated language in subtitles is an inevitable criterion in evaluating a film; the quality of the translated language does arguably affect the reception of a film.Regardless of a film’s overall budget,if one of its individual components is demonstrably weak compared with the others,then a viewer’s enjoyment of the film will probably be compromised.Especially in translated films,if the language component — the translated subtitles — are not good enough with many translation mistakes or missed translations in many frames,the popularity of this translated film must be influenced,because some of the audience will not comprehend the film without getting enough information from the translated subtitles.For the audience members who have a certain level of English,it will be exasperating when they watch the inappropriate translations.