Replotting and recharacterisation in dubbing: Renarration of audiovisual fiction

ABSTRACT

This research takes advantage of Constructive Narrative theory to investigate the strategies of ‘replotting’ and ‘recharacterisation’, as manifestations of renarration in Persian dubbed foreign fictions. To this end, five Persian dubbed foreign fictions were purposefully selected for a contrastive analysis of source text content and their target language renderings. Taking the four core inter-related features of narrativity including temporality, relationality, selective appropriation, and causal emplotment, the study argues how audiovisual (AV) translator(s) participate in the re-construction or reframing of the events and characters in the target audiovisual text, which in turn would both influence the audience’s interpretation and understanding of the narrative and help circulate the desired version of the original. The findings of this research are assumed to contribute to the clarification of the politics of official dubbing and translation in broadcasting in Iran.

KEYWORDS:

• Dubbing
• audiovisual translation
• constructive narrative theory
• replotting
• recharacterisation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. rezaaftabi1976, touraj_mehrzadian, ashkansadeghioriginal, negin.kianfar, p.a.r.i.sa_kabiri, kasrakianigudarzi, alizamiri_93, saradubber.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the Ferdowsi University of Mashhad

Notes on contributors

Masood Khoshsaligheh

Masood Khoshsaligheh is Full Professor at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. His current research focus lies on the intersection of multimedia, translation, and intercultural communication. His interdisciplinary research has appeared in numerous journals including Visual Communication, Games and Culture, Media Practice. Having served as Department Head and Vice Dean, he currently teaches courses and supervises theses in Audiovisual Translation Studies.

Elnaz Pakar

Elnaz Pakar is post-doctoral fellow in Translation Studies at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. She is also assistant professor of Translation Studies at Bahar Institute of Higher Education and lecturer at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, where she teaches theories and practice of translation. She received her PhD in Translation Studies, as certified by Ferdowsi University of Mashhad. Her research focuses on cultural issues in written and audiovisual translation.

Parina Ghomi

Parina Ghomi is assistant professor of translation studies at Alborz University, where she teaches courses related to the theory and practice of translation as the undergraduate and Master's level. She conducted her PhD dissertation on Audiovisual Translation as Renarration at Allameh Tabataba’i University. She publishes on issues related to audiovisual translation theory and is the co-author of Consecutive Interpreting: A Practice Book (2017), which is the outcome of a research project for training consecutive interpreters.