Frontiers in Educational Research
ISSN 2522-6398 Vol. 6, Issue 1: 139-143, DOI: 10.25236/FER.2023.060122
Published by Francis Academic Press, UK
-139-
An Analysis of Discourse Markers in the Audiovisual
Translation
Meifang Pei
Shiyuan College of Nanning Normal University, Nanning, 530226, China
Abstract: With the rapid development of globalization and Internet, audiovisual translation plays a vital
role in overcoming linguistic and cultural differences and promoting cross-cultural exchanges.
Audiovisual texts are special text types expressed through images and sounds, which requires the
translation to synchronize with the visual image and sound and to create orality in the dubbed language.
In order to recreate a naturally-occurring and spontaneous-sounding dubbed text, due attention is paid
to the translation of discourse markers. This paper analyzes five translation strategies of discourse
markers in the English-Chinese dubbed version of the animated film The Croods, including change of
personal pronoun, use of sense verbs, conversion to mental process, conversion to specific actions and
syntactic transformation. The translation strategies help reproduce the naturalness and orality of dubbed
dialogues while taking into account the dubbing constraints.
Keywords: Audiovisual Translation, Discourse Markers, Translation Strategies, Dubbing, Naturalness
1. Introduction
With the rapid development of globalization and Internet, people have an easier access to various
films and other audiovisual products from all over the world. Audiovisual translation rises in response to
the need of cross-cultural exchanges and plays an increasingly vital role in overcoming linguistic and
cultural differences.
Generally, there are two modes of audiovisual translation: subtitling translation and dubbing
translation. Audiovisual texts, including films, documentaries or cartoons, are special text types that are
expressed
through images and sounds, which poses a challenge to translators. On the one hand, the
translation has to synchronize with the visual image and sound, instead of focusing on verbal discourse
alone. On
the other hand, for prefabricated nature [1] and pretended spontaneity [2] of the dialogues in
audiovisual texts, it’s translators' top priority to create prefabricated orality in the dubbed language:
spoken and seemingly spontaneous, yet planned and elaborated [3]. In order to recreate a naturally-
occurring and spontaneous-sounding dubbed text, due attention should be paid
to the translation of
discourse markers. Discourse markers are an important device used in fictional language to help produce
coherent conversations and increase the naturalness of dubbed language. However, there is no one-to-
one correspondence between two languages in the field of discourse markers [4]. Discourse markers with
the same meaning may have different pragmatic meanings, resulting in translation difficulties. In recent
years, there is a new trend in film dubbed translation which attaches more importance to the naturalness
of dubbed dialogues by imitating native spoken language. Thus, this paper attempts to deal with the
translation strategies of discourse markers in the English-Chinese dubbed version of the animated film
The Croods, including okay, you know and all right, so as to explore the issue of reproducing the
naturalness and orality of dubbed dialogues.
