EQUIVALENCE IN THE SUBTITLING OF DANISH TELEVISION
NEWS REPORTS FROM NORTHERN IRELAND
Billy O'Shea
Introduction
If TV subtitles are the most read translations in Denmark,1 then subtitles for
television news broadcasts are probably the most read translations of all. They deserve,
therefore, to be treated seriously. In this article, I will argue that subtitles are translations in
their own right - a fact which is occasionally disputed - and therefore, that translation theory
can be properly applied to an analysis of subtitles for television news. Like many emigrés, I
sometimes find it hard to recognise my own country in news broadcasts. My countrymen are
translated into foreigners, who say strange things and whose statements lack coherence. The
world of values which gives meaning to their utterances rarely survives the transition to a
sound bite in another language. I will discuss whether this is inevitable, or whether it is
possible to achieve a greater degree of understanding - the unquantifiable factor that Eugene
Nida calls 'dynamic equivalence' - in transforming Irish speech into Danish news subtitles.
Theoretical perspectives.
Obtaining a qualitive measure of translation has always been problematic.
Translation being a process governed by choice, it is impossible to arrive at the 'correct'
translation of a source text. What, then, is a good translation, what is it that makes one
translation better than another? The idea of fidelity to the source text is clearly insufficient in
itself, in that exaggerated fidelity to souce text semantics distorts at times the author's intended
meaning, making 'la belle infidèle' the better translation -an example being the translation of
idiomatic phrases and culturally specific references, which, if rendered too literally, may prove
incomprehensible to the target audience.2 (Nida (1964) cites such biblical examples as "gird
up the loins of your mind", the meaning of which might be better conveyed for the general
public by a phrase such as "get ready in your thinking".3 For an audience of theologians or
Hebrew scholars, however, it is obvious that the first version is preferable.)
The primary choice faced by the translator, then, is the extent to which the translation
should be free or literal. This question, whether to favour the letter or the spirit of the source
text, has been characterised by some theorists as a choice between 'author-centered' and
'reader-centered' translation strategies. These terms, however, could be considered misleading,
given that both literal and free translations are produced with particular groups of readers in
mind, and that both attempt, in some respect, to communicate the author's intentions. The
actual contrast between the two approaches arises more from structural and connotative
differences between source and target languages than from a simple choice between author or
audience orientation. Peter Newmark therefore prefers the terms semantic and communicative
translation (Newmark 1988:Chap.5). However, this runs into the same objection, since
'semantic' translation is nothing but an attempt to be more communicative to a given audience
(those concerned with legal documents, for example).
In as much as all competent translations ultimately aspire to be faithful to the author's
intentions, the real determining factor concerning the degree to which translations are inclined
to be free or literal must be the audience for which they are intended. The recent tendency,
therefore, has been to move away from the text-centered idea of 'fidelity' (whether to letter or
spirit), towards the more audience-centered concept of 'equivalence of effect'. In the words of
Alexander Souter:
"Our ideal in translation is to produce on the minds of our
readers as nearly as possible the same effect as was produced by
the original on its readers" (quoted in Nida 1964:164).
This translation strategy, roughly corresponding to Newmark's 'communicative translation', is
that which Nida terms dynamic equivalence (Nida 1964:159). It is obviously a relative term: a
translation which approximates dynamically equivalence for one audience will not do so for
another, even within language groups. Despite the flexibility of the concept, however, it
nevertheless presents us with a range of problems. First of all, how can any translator possibly
gauge the effect that the source text had on its readers' minds? In the case of the above-quoted
Hebrew text, for example, a very considerable leap of the imagination is required. Even in
contemporary texts, such an approach, to be successful, presupposes an extremely thorough
knowledge of both subject and target cultures. Secondly, with regard to the target audience,
the task may simply be impossible. Cultures, as well as languages, may be so much at
variance that no such 'similar effect' can be produced. As Hjørnager Pedersen observes:
"Dynamic equivalence is also, however, an awkward thing to
deal with. The difficulty, as Arnold has already pointed out, lies
in ascertaining the effect that was actually produced upon the
source language audience, and, one might add, in establishing in
a sufficiently precise and subtle manner the effect upon the
target language audience. Naturally, one cannot in any strict
sense speak of achieving the same effect in the target language
as in the source language, when both audience and message are
different in source and target language..." (Hjørnager Pedersen
1979:73, my translation)
Even words or phrases that are readily translatable on the semantic level may possess a range
of resonances and associations in the source culture that simply cannot be reproduced in the
target culture. In the context of TV subtitling, Luyken, Reid and Herbst quote as an example
the phrase "You musn't forget: I went to a public school, of course", and remark:
"Even if a suitable translation could be found, no Language
Transfer could ever render all the emotional associations linked
with the idea of the public school in England (single-sex
education, monastic life, separation from parents, sports and, not
so long ago, corporal punishment)" (Luyken, Reid & Herbst
1991).
And indeed, none of the Danish semantic equivalents of 'public school', kostskole,
betalingsskole, privatskole, carries anything like this range of connotative implications.
These objections have led certain theorists to reject the idea of dynamic equivalence and in some cases even formal equivalence - as being impossible.4 Some, like Newmark,
prefer more pragmatic measures of translation quality, such as adequacy or functionality.5
However, it may be that they are being misled by the term equivalence itself, which, as Hatim
and Mason point out:
"...implies that equivalence is an achievable goal, as if there was
such a thing as a formally or dynamically equivalent targetlanguage version of a source-language text" (Hatim & Mason
1990:8).
If the idea of equivalence is to be understood as perfect human communication across a
language barrier, then it is clearly impossible. But, as Steiner - in my view correctly - points
out, all human communication is characterised by the same problem of achieving equivalence
of effect, in that no two persons share exactly the same background or use symbols in
precisely the same way (Steiner 1975:250). If equivalence, therefore, is impossible in
translation, it is equally so in conversation. Human communication is an imperfect process.
These difficulties notwithstanding, translation is both a reality and a necessity of
modern life. Instead of declaring it to be impossible, therefore, we may be better advised to
study translations as de facto cultural artifacts - just as studying the flight of the bumble bee
may prove more fruitful for the biologist than for the engineer. This is the perspective adopted
by Gideon Toury, for whom translations are to be regarded as:
"facts of target cultures; on occasion facts of a special status,
sometimes even constituting identifiable (sub-)systems of their
own, but of the target culture in any event" (Toury 1995:29).
Toury, while retaining the idea of equivalence as a central concept, opts for a qualititive
measure along two axes, with 'adequacy' being the measure of a formally equivalent
translation, while 'acceptability' governs those that are dynamically equivalent, most
translations falling somewhere between the two. With regard to acceptability, Toury points
out that since translations are always artifacts of the target culture, they are governed by norms
operating within that culture. (A translation of the Old Testament stressing the polydeism of
the ancient Hebrews would scarcely find favour in a Christian society, for example.) The
translator, via the feedback he receives from the target culture as to the acceptability of his
work, becomes to some degree socialised into producing translations that fit into the target
culture's world-view. This does however beg the question as to whether norms should be
allowed to exert such an influence. Toury admits of the possibility of 'deviant translations',
and comments:
"The price for selecting this option may be as low as a
(culturally determined) need to submit the end product to
revision. However, it may also be far more severe, to the point of
taking away one's earned recognition as a translator, which is
precisely why non-normative behaviour tends to be the
exception, in actual practice. On the other hand, in retrospect,
deviant instances of behaviour may be found to have effected
changes in the very system. This is why they constitute an
important field of study, as long as they are regarded as what
they have really been and are not put indiscriminately into one's
basket with all the rest. Implied are intriguing questions such as
who is 'allowed' by a culture to introduce changes and under
what circumstances such changes may be expected to occur
and/or be accepted." (Toury 1995:64)
Deviancy is, of course, only possible if the translator is conscious of the operation of such
social norms. In most cases, however, these norms will have been internalised to such a
degree that they merely inform the translator's view of reality. Toury's comment has weighty
implications for, amongst other things, the translation of journalism, and it is an idea that I
will be returning to later in this article.
Bearing in mind the above discussion and, especially, the limitations of the concept
of equivalence, the theoretical perspective which seems to me to be the most cogent and
useful for the issue in hand is that defined by Nida:
"No longer is it sufficient merely to to compare the two forms
M1 (message in the source language) and M2 (message in the
receptor language). rather, one must determine the extent to
which the typical receptors of M2 really understand the message
in a manner substantially equivalent, though never identical,
with the manner in which the original receptors comprehended
the first message (M1). " (Nida 1975:95)
I choose, however, to regard Nida's definition as a guide to analysis rather than as an objective
measure of translational quality, which in my view is unattainable. Nida's definition should
also be modified by Toury's caveat that "it is norms that determine the (type and extent of)
equivalence manifested by actual translations" (Toury 1995:61).
Subtitling for Danish television news
Before we can apply translation theory to the process of subtitling, we have to decide
whether subtitling for TV news is in fact translation. The answer is not as straightforward as it
may appear, given that some subtitlers maintain that subtitling is a skill which is separate and
distinct from that of translation.6 The reasons normally given are:
1. Translation normally concerns written source and target texts. Interlingual subtitling is a
'diagonal' process, from the spoken to the written word (Gottlieb 1994b).
2. Subtitling is part of a polysemiotic communication, in which other visual and aural clues
play an important role. The subtitler must harmonise the words written on the screen with
these other factors in order to produce a total 'message'. Written translation, by contrast, is
monosemiotic, using only one channel of communication (Gottlieb 1996).
3. Subtitling normally involves substantial compression of the original verbal message, with a
consequent information loss or 'information entropy' (Tveit 1994). Compression is not a
necessary or normal facet of written translation.
4. Constraints of subtitle exposure time, together with the absence of footnotes, etc., mean that
the subtitler has very little room for maneuver with regard to explaining unfamiliar or
culturally specific references to the viewer (explicitation). Written translation is not subject to
these constraints (Carstensen 1992:78-84).
I will only attempt to deal with these points insofar as they have a bearing on the subtitling of
television news. Point (1) appears to be little more than a quibble over definitions, there being
no reason why we cannot define 'translation' as any inter-human communication across a
language barrier; including, for example, sign language for the deaf and interpreting. Written
translation and subtitling are thus special categories of translation, but neither, obviously, has
a monopoly on the term. (We may even go as far as Steiner, and extend the definition of
translational activity to encompass all human communication.)
Regarding point (2), while it is true that subtitles normally comprise only one
element in a total visual-aural 'message', subtitles for television news are something of a
special case, in that most of the visual elements, not having been planned in advance by a
director, are mere 'noise' compared to the verbal content, which is consequently given very
high priority. Factors such as body language, background events, etc. are or should be still
relevant, however - if the subtitler has the opportunity to see the video recordings, which is not
always the case, as the subtitler must sometimes work from an audio tape only.7
Points (3) and (4) can be taken together. Given present standards of exposure time (in
Denmark, about six seconds for a full two-line subtitle), some compression of the original
verbal content is unavoidable. In the case of TV news, however, such compression forms, as it
were, a kind of contract between translator and audience. Few viewers would feel themselves
well served if the subtitler were to reproduce all the hesitations and repetions of normal
unrehearsed speech. What the viewer wants is the substance of the message, its most essential
content. The resultant loss of information does not in itself disqualify subtitling as a form of
translation, for, as Nida remarks:
"all types of translation involve loss of information, addition of
information, and/or skewing of information"(Nida 1975:27).
The question of interest is not whether information is lost, but which information, and why.
The news subtitler must decide how much of the original discourse is information and how
much is merely 'noise'. Information is, however, a relative and not an absolute term:
hesitations, for example, would, as mentioned above, normally be considered superfluous, but
there are obviously times when a significant hesitation is information. It should also be noted
that equivalence, or the lack of it, is not necessarily a function of the amount of information
transferred to the target language: a term such as 'guerillas' can for example be translated as
'terrorists' - or vice versa - without any measurable loss of information having taken place.
A valid criticism of subtitling, as opposed to written translation, is the fact that
constraints of subtitle exposure time also severely limit the amount of information that can be
added to the original message in the form of explicitation. The TV news subtitler rarely has
enough exposure time available to be able to make clear the meaning of an unfamiliar term or
acronym. Furthermore, subtitlers may themselves be unacquainted with the situational,
cultural, historical or political background to the utterance (Tveit 1994:2). For explicitation,
the subtitler must rely on the journalists and presenters, who - ideally - will have explained
any unfamiliar material before it appears in the subtitles. However, it should be noted that this
implies that subtitling for TV news is not an entirely independent process of translation, but is
'locked into' the journalistic processing of news as a whole - a point to be discussed later in
this article.
Finally - and perhaps must crucially - the definitions of translation employed by such
theorists as Nida, Toury and Steiner are more than broad enough to encompass the subtitling
of TV news as a translational activity. Ergo: TV news subtitling is translation, and we can
proceed.
The functions of news subtitling in Danish state television
The examples of subtitled news reports which I will be examining here have been
gleaned from the archives of Danmarks Radio, the Danish state national broadcasting station.8
Subtitles in DR TV's news broadcasts serve a dual purpose: to translate items containing
foreign language speech (interlingual subtitling) and as an aid to comprehension for the deaf
and hard of hearing (intralingual subtitling). These two functions are not separated (as is the
case at some other TV-stations), but are presented in parallel, and are produced by the same
subtitlers.9 While the interlingual subtitles are the most relevant for the purposes of this
article, the intralingual subtitling function should be noted, in that it establishes an intimate
link between the various journalists' Danish-language input to their reports, and the subtitling
of any foreign-language sequences those reports may contain. Subtitlers will, for the sake of
consistency, tend to utilise the same terms in both kinds of subtitling, and will thus be
influenced by the journalist's choice of equivalent term. This, together with other
opportunities to consult with the journalists, will tend to influence the translation towards
dynamic equivalence, in that a consensus can, potentially, be arrived at concerning the most
appropriate Danish equivalent expression. Such consensus-seeking practice, however, also
implies that it is here that the operation of any social norms is most likely to become visible.
On the other hand, the practice of consultation with journalists has become somewhat rarer
than it has been in the past, and in addition, subtitlers are sometimes required, often under
great pressure of time, to translate mere isolated fragments of taped speech that have been
pulled out of context. On these occasions, the translation is more likely to assume the
character of formal equivalence, in that the subtitler, not knowing the background to the
situation, will tend to stick to stricter semantic equivalents.
.
Subtitled reports from Northern Ireland during 1996
The source material
Since the concept of equivalence has a cultural as well as a linguistic dimension, I
have chosen to examine news reports from a culture with which I am familiar, namely that of
my own country, Ireland. I have further narrowed the field by confining my research to reports
from Northern Ireland during the period January - December 1996. Reporting from Northern
Ireland, like that from other parts of the world, tends to be sporadic and event-centered,
leading to a clustering effect. During 1996, such 'report clusters' arose during the following
periods:
1. The London Docklands bomb and the end of the IRA ceasefire (9th-12th February).
2. Orange Order marches, riots at Drumcree, and the Enniskillen bombing (8th-15th July).
3. Bombing of Lisburn army base and British government reaction (9th and 10th October).
In all, twenty-two news broadcasts have been examined. I will not attempt to comprehensively
analyse all of the subtitles involved, most of which were uncontroversial, but merely highlight
areas that seem to me to be of interest, or that seem to present difficulties, in the light of
Nida's concept of dynamic equivalence and Toury's perspective on the operation of social
norms. Given the pressures under which news subtitlers must work, it hardly seems fair to
criticise them for occasional imprecision, and indeed that is not my purpose here. What I am
interested in is not the odd 'glitch' but the way in which certain terms and concepts achieve, or
fail to achieve, equivalence when subtitled in Danish.
Nida's definition of equivalence implies that anything that influences the target
audience's understanding of a translation changes, in effect, the translation itself. However, the
question "What can influence the Danish viewers' understanding of these subtitles?" is clearly
a question without boundaries, and since an infinite question begets an infinite answer, I have
confined my analysis to three areas that I feel to be relevant and of interest, namely: frames,
the religious model, and terminological problems.
Frames
We normally think of the subtitling of foreign-language news items as a purely
linguistic process: from language A to language B. But items of foreign news are also
'translated' by a host of other factors: picture and sound editing, music and effects, captions,
commentary and the juxtaposition of other news items all have a bearing on the way that an
item of foreign news is understood, and therefore also influence the way that the subtitles are
interpreted. To give an example from the material at hand: on July 14th, 1996 a subtitled
comment from the Northern Irish political activist David Irvine was broadcast on the 21.00
hrs DR news bulletin; Irvine was described in the presenter's introduction as "den politiske
leder af UVF, det protestantiske modstykke til IRA." [the political leader of the UVF, the
protestant counterpart to the IRA]. On the 8th of October, however, a comment from the same
man was prefaced by the words "Moderate protestanter opfordrer loyalisterne til at lade være
med at gengælde gårsdagens bombeattentat." [Moderate protestants are calling on the
loyalists not to retaliate for yesterday's bomb attack.] What Irvine actually said on the latter
occasion was:
"What I would say to them is : don't do it! Don't do what your
enemies want you to do."
The interpretation of these words by the viewer - however they are translated - obviously
depends greatly on whether Irvine is seen as a political moderate opposed to violence, or as
the leader of a paramilitary organisation! On another occasion (14th July 21.00 hrs), a
subtitled comment from Dick Spring, the Irish foreign minister, was captioned as coming
from 'John Bruton, irsk statsminister' [John Bruton, Irish prime minister]. A small error,
perhaps, but a potentially significant one, given that Bruton and Spring are the leaders of two
separate parties that have often in the past disagreed on the question of Northern Ireland
policy. Captions are normally produced by production assistants or graphic artists, not
subtitlers, but clearly, ascribing a translated statement to the wrong person has the potential to
entirely change the way that it is understood.
The understanding of a translation - and therefore, the translation itself - can thus be
altered by factors exogenous to both the source and target text. In the context of TV news
subtitling, there can therefore only exist a total process of translation - which implies that
subtitling, as a translational activity, cannot be seen in isolation to its frame: the processing
and presentation of the news as a whole. For this reason, I include in the following not only
interlingual subtitles, but occasionally also relevant intralingual subtitles and the introductory
remarks of presenters and journalists.
The religious model -an example of social norms influencing translation?
One of the most striking aspects of the 1996 reports from Northern Ireland is the way
in which terms such as 'nationalists' and 'unionists' are almost always translated as,
respectively, katolikker [catholics] and protestanter [protestants]. Unionister [unionists] does
not appear in interlingual subtitles, but was used once in subtitles for the deaf on the 12th Feb.
(18.00 hrs bulletin), as was republikaner [republicans]. The term nationalister [nationalists]
was used in introductory remarks on the 14th July (21.00 hrs bulletin), though unfortunately
referring to unionists rather than those known in Northern Ireland as nationalists: "De seneste
dages uro blussede op da politiet tillod protestantiske nationalister at marchere gennem
katolske kvarterer" [The unrest of the last few days ignited when police permitted protestant
nationalists to march through catholic areas]. In all other instances, the two sides are
distinguished exclusively in religious terms. This, of course, is a phenomenon that can be
observed not just in Danish television news but everywhere in the Danish media in reports
from Northern Ireland. In Denmark, the conflict in Northern Ireland is viewed as one which
takes place between 'catholics' on one side and 'protestants' on the other. Catholics seek a
united Ireland, because southern Ireland is catholic. Protestants wish to remain part of the
United Kingdom, because Britain is protestant. This perception of the Northern Irish conflict
is so universal that one rarely meets a Dane with any other interpretation. The most obvious
problem with this model is that it is not shared by the two Northern Irish communities
themselves, who perceive the conflict as one that takes place, not between protestants and
catholics but between 'unionists' and 'nationalists'. About 30% of nationalists would also
describe themselves as republicans, meaning that they support the IRA or one of its splinter
groups. The remainder, who do not support the IRA, mostly vote for the Social Democratic
Party. The IRA for their part do not see themselves as being at war with 'protestants', but
rather with the British government and the British Army, in a continuation of the antiimperialist struggle that resulted in independence for what is now the Irish Republic. (The
republican movement which has evolved into the IRA was founded by Wolfe Tone, a
protestant Irish nationalist, and in its early years was dominated by protestant leaders and
intellectuals, many of whom were executed by the British and are now regarded by the IRA as
martyrs to the nationalist cause.) Unionists are all those - catholics as well as protestants - who
want Northern Ireland to remain part of the United Kingdom; their enemies are therefore not
'catholics' but the IRA, whom they see as anti-democratic terrorists. Militant unionists, who
believe that the IRA must be fought by guerilla methods, are known as loyalists. The fact that
most nationalists in Northern Ireland are catholics, while most unionists are protestants, is a
historical accident engendered by, amongst other things, the partitioning of the island in 1922.
It is true that the assumption by some people within Northern Ireland that 'all catholics are
republicans', or 'all protestants are loyalists' has led to sectarian attacks, but these are
comparatively rare, and are generally condemned by politicians as well as paramilitaries from
both sides. It should also be noted that even such sectarian attacks are ultimately motivated by
politics rather than religion. The Northern Ireland conflict, in other words, has in the final
analysis very little - if anything - to do with religion.
Does it matter? After all, using terms like nationalister and unionister would be sure
to cause a certain amount of confusion, and, as Jytte Heine writes: "...it is precisely in the area
of news broadcasting that neutral, easily understood expressions, which the viewer will not
find puzzling, are the most appropriate" (Heine 1994:240, my translation).Using religious,
rather than political, labels makes the conflict easier for Danish viewers to understand, say
subtitlers.10 But the problem with the terms katolikker and protestanter is that they do not
merely distinguish the two communities, they also imply an explanation for the conflict which
in the eyes of most Irish people on both sides of the political divide would be considered
manifestly false, namely that it springs from religious intolerance.11 Using terms such as det
katolske IRA [the catholic IRA] (8th Oct. 18.00 hrs) or UVF, det protestantiske modstykke til
IRA [the UVF, the protestant counterpart to the IRA] (14th July 21.00 hrs) is therefore directly
misleading. By Nida's definition of dynamic equivalence, then, these terms fail the test, in that
they do not convey to the viewers a message which is "substantially equivalent" to the way in
which the terms 'nationalist' and 'unionist' (or 'republican' and 'loyalist') would be understood
in Ireland.
A concrete illustration is available to us in the subtitled comments of the
aforementioned David Irvine of the loyalist UVF, broadcast on the 14th of July. Asked to
comment on the previous days' confrontations, Irvine said:
"The violent republican movement had the choice to light the
touchpaper or not to light the touchpaper. And they chose to
light the touchpaper."
This was subtitled on the 18.00 hrs bulletin as:
"IRA havde muligheden for at vælge
freden, men de valgte volden."
[The IRA had the chance to choose
peace, but they chose violence.]
Apart from the minor criticism that 'the republican movement' encompasses more than just the
IRA, this seems a good, reasonably equivalent, rendering of Irvine's statement. However, on
the 21.00 hrs bulletin, the same comment was subtitled quite differently as:
"De voldelige katolikker havde valget.
Men de valgte at puste til ilden."
[The violent catholics had the choice.
But they chose to blow on the fire.]
At puste til ilden [to blow on the fire] is a good approximation of the English phrase 'to light
the touchpaper', but Irvine's condemnation of a particular political movement has been turned
into an expression of religious bigotry.
Another illustration of the religious model at work is afforded by the reports
following the explosion of a bomb at a hotel in Enniskillen on the 13th July. No organisation
claimed responsibility, and the reason for the attack has remained something of a mystery. A
wedding reception - protestant - had been held in the hotel the day before the attack, but that
fact was not generally considered relevant in the British or Irish media. The Danish presenter's
introductory remarks, however, on the 14th July (18.00 hrs.), stated:
"Volden hærger igen i Nordirland. I nat sprang en bilbombe
udenfor et hotel, hvor en protestantisk familie holdt
bryllupsreception."
[Violence rages again in Northern Ireland. Last night a car bomb
exploded outside a hotel in which a protestant family
were holding a wedding reception.]
The reference to the wedding reception was dropped in later DR reports. The bomb was,
however, presumed to originate from the nationalist side, in that loyalist paramilitaries rarely
use the car-bomb tactic. Following this event, on July 16th, DR's Northern Ireland
correspondent put the following question to Nelson McCausland of the Ulster Unionist party:
"Should we then expect a reaction from the other side, the protestant side?"
Subtitled:
"Skal vi så forvente
at protestanterne gør gengæld?"
[Should we expect, then,
that the protestants will retaliate?]
McCausland's reply was:
"I certainly hope that there will not be a response from the loyalist paramilitaries."
Subtitled:
"Jeg håber ikke de loyalistiske
paramilitære grupper gør gengæld."
[I hope that the loyalist paramilitary
groups will not retaliate.]
The subtitled translations here are entirely competent, but there is a subtext: McCausland's
reply is a correction of the journalist's perception of 'the other side'. The response, says
McCausland, if it comes, will not be from 'the protestants', but from the loyalist paramilitaries.
It is beyond the scope of this article to speculate as to why the religious model is so
widely adopted in the Danish media as an explanation of the Northern Ireland situation. It may
be that it reflects a Danish perception of violent conflicts as essentially hysterical and
incomprehensible. At any rate, its near-universality qualifies it, in my view, as a social norm
of the kind which, as Toury warns, can exert a powerful - if unconscious - influence upon
translations.
Terminological problems
The Northern Ireland conflict abounds in terms for which there is no immediately
obvious Danish equivalent. 'Paramilitaries', meaning the armed republican and loyalist groups,
often seems to give rise to problems. Paramilitære grupper [paramilitary groups], as quoted
above, is formally equivalent, but uninformative, and therefore less equivalent in the dynamic
sense. Halvmilitære [semimilitary] (subtitles for the deaf, 8th Oct. 21.00 hrs) makes one
wonder what the remainder is like. Undergrundshær [underground army] (13th July 21.00
hrs) has been used for the IRA but seems inappropriate for smaller groups. Probably the best
Danish equivalent would be milits [militia], but while this term is often used in reporting from
the Middle East, I have never seen it applied in a Northern Ireland context.
The protestant12 Orange Order is usually rendered as Orangeordenen, but
occasionally as Oranjeordenen (e.g. 12th July 18.00 hrs). The orthographical variation
probably depends on whether the word 'orange' in this context is understood as deriving from
the colour orange, or alternatively from the title of William of Orange (later King William III
of England), who is known as Wilhelm af Oranjen in Danish. While it is true that the Orange
Order was established to commemorate William of Orange, whose title derives from the name
of a town in southern France, the actual colour of orange was adopted by William as the
symbol of his royal house, and has always been closely associated with Irish protestantism.
Hence Orangeordenen is probably the better version.
Some confusion also arises as to whether the inhabitants of Northern Ireland are to be
referred to as British or Irish: although Northern Ireland is referred to as den britiske provins
[the British province] (10th July 18.00 hrs & 12th July 21.00 hrs), the term briterne [the
British] seems to refer only to the inhabitants of the island of Britain, e.g. ifølge
protestanterne har briterne overgivet sig til IRA, [according to the protestants, the British
have surrendered to the IRA] (subtitles for the deaf, 8th July 18.00 hrs). Strictly speaking, all
the inhabitants of Northern Ireland are Irish, whether or not they profess loyalty to Britain.
The official title of the British state is The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland: Northern Ireland is thus a part of the United Kingdom, but not of Britain. Nationalists
in Northern Ireland have always regarded themselves as being Irish without qualification, but
on the other side, the question of identity is more complex. A poll carried out by Richard Rose
of Strathclyde University in 1968 - before the onset of the present troubles - revealed that as
many as 20% of protestants thought of themselves as Irish, while 39% preferred to be called
British, and 32% thought of themselves as citizens of Ulster (i.e. Northern Ireland). By 1989
these figures had shifted considerably, with 68% of protestants now calling themselves
'British', 26% 'Ulster' or 'Northern Irish', and only 3% 'Irish' (Bowyer Bell 1996:117). Probably
the best compromise in Danish, then, as far as political positions are concerned, would be
nordirske unionister/nationalister [Northern Irish unionists/nationalists].
As regards the status of the province itself: if one is referring to the de facto political
situation, then the use of the term den britiske provins [the British province] may be justified,
but translators should be aware that such a choice has political connotations (as does the use
of 'Londonderry' in preference to 'Derry'), and that, in geographical, legal and historical terms,
Northern Ireland is not a British province, but an Irish province under British rule.
Finally, there is the problem of what to call the conflict. Borgerkrig [civil war]
(subtitles for the deaf, 9th July 18.00 hrs) gives the impression of a two-sided internecine
affair, with the British, presumably, acting as passive observers or as peace-seeking mediators.
Few in Northern Ireland -or indeed in Britain- would share this perception. It also, to some
extent, overdramatises the conflict, given that the number of deaths from political violence in
the province has, despite everything, never exceeded the number of people killed in traffic
accidents. I have never seen the term 'civil war' used in the British or Irish media in
connection with Northern Ireland, except as a warning of possible future developments.
Uroligheder [disturbances, riots] is used somewhat more frequently in the source material
(e.g. in virtually every news broadcast from the 8th to the 14th July), presumably as an
analogue to the usual Irish term, 'the troubles'. But 'troubles', in Ireland, has political
connotations which uroligheder does not convey. The term, as used in Ireland, originally
referred to the IRA war of independence, 1918-21, and the southern Irish civil war that
followed. It thus denotes a military guerilla campaign, not civil disorder. This can lead to
misunderstandings, such as in the following statement from David Trimble, leader of the
Ulster Unionist party, broadcast on the 14th of July at 18.00 hrs:
"There is an agenda that's been working here by Sinn Féin-IRA,
to try to plunge Northern Ireland back into the troubles, and
doesn't it underline how foolish the decisions were, that brought
this about?"
This statement was subtitled as follows:
1. Sinn Fein og IRAs dagsorden har
været at kaste Nordirland [Sinn Fein and the IRA's agenda has
been to cast Northern Ireland -]
2. - ud i uroligheder.
[- into riots.]
3. Det understreger hvor tåbeligt
det var med den her beslutning.
[This underlines the foolishness
of this decision.]
Trimble's comment came after a police decision to allow the Orange Order to march through a
nationalist area, a decision which resulted in riots throughout the province. The subtitler
understands Trimble's use of the word 'troubles' to refer to these riots (uroligheder), and
consequently interprets the second half of the statement as a criticism of the police decision.
In fact, Trimble is not criticising the police. On the contrary, he is accusing the IRA and Sinn
Féin (which he sees as one organisation) of cynically using the ceasefire as a political tactic,
before finding an excuse to re-start their military campaign. 'Foolish decisions' refers,
therefore, not to the police decision, but to the various decisions made by the British
government to allow negotiations with Sinn Féin to take place during the peace process, thus
permitting republicans to gain a position of relative influence. For unionists like Trimble, the
IRA are terrorists with whom one should never negotiate. In this instance, insufficient
background knowledge has forced the subtitler to seek refuge in formal, rather than dynamic,
equivalence. The result is a translation which conveys very little of Trimble's intended
meaning.
As to what to call the Northern Irish hostilities, I can only - somewhat lamely suggest strid [strife] or konflikt [conflict], which at least have the advantage of flexibility, and
do not suggest, as does borgerkrig [civil war], that the problem is an internal Northern Irish
affair without active British involvement.
Conclusion
Most of the subtitles I examined in preparing this article were as close to both formal
and dynamic equivalence as one could reasonably expect them to be. These I have of course
not analysed here, for the simple reason that they are nothing like as interesting as those that
are problematic. The latter, on the other hand, have proved a stimulating object of study.
As I stated at the beginning, there is no such thing as a correct translation - although
some may be less incorrect than others - and neither is there any truly objective measure of
translational quality. I have utilised the idea of dynamic equivalence, as developed by Nida
and Toury, to help guide my thinking on the subject, but in the end my assessment of the
degree of equivalence achieved by this selection of DR TV news subtitles cannot be other than
subjective.
Dynamic equivalence is a difficult standard to aspire to the context of Northern
Ireland, a part of the linguistic world where codes and subtexts sometimes make even
apparently transparent statements difficult to interpret. Formal equivalence, however, is not a
sufficient guide to the subtitling of statements of local origin, since even ordinary English
words may in this region have specialised usages or coded meanings. Some knowledge of
the complex cultural background to the conflict and of its historical origin is required, if
subtitles for Danish viewers are to attain approximate dynamic equivalence.
Nida's definition of equivalence also implies that the process of translation is not
merely linguistic, but extends to include a range of factors exogenous to both the source and
the target text. In the context of news subtitling, one of these factors is, I have suggested, the
processing and presentation of the news item itself, which can affect the interpretation of
subtitles to the extent of becoming a part of the translation.
Following Toury, I have also attempted to detect the effect of social norms upon the
translational process. I believe that the 'religious model' which apparently colours the
perceptions of Danish journalists, subtitlers and viewers concerning Northern Ireland, is an
example of one such norm. I do not underestimate the difficulties of avoiding controversial
translations; in an area as sensitive as Northern Ireland, where language is itself political,
any translation will probably give offence to someone. But one should at least try to avoid
translations which are likely to offend all sides. It may be that the religious model, as claimed,
makes the conflict easier for Danes to understand; on the other hand, it is the task of TV news
broadcasts to attempt to explain the world, not to explain it away. As an explanation, the
religious model is untenable; as a guide to translation, it is grossly misleading. It should be
abandoned.
The subtitler, however, cannot know everything about everything. It should be the
responsibility of the relevant journalists to ensure that the subtitler has sufficient background
information to be able to create subtitles which possess some measure of dynamic
equivalence. Without such consultation, the translations produced by subtitlers will tend
towards formal or semantic equivalence, which as we have seen, is sometimes no translation
at all.
Works cited:
Bowyer Bell, J. 1996. Back to the Future: the Protestants and a United Ireland. Dublin:
Poolbeg.
Gottlieb, Henrik. 1994 a. Tekstning: synkron billedemedieoversættelse; Danske
Afhandlinger om Oversættelse nr.5. Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen.
Gottlieb, Henrik. 1994 b. Subtitling: Diagonal Translation, Perspectives. Copenhagen:
Museum Tusculanum Press.
Gottlieb, Henrik. 1996. Tekstning, et polysemiotisk puslespil. In: Frandsen, Finn (Ed.) Medier
og Sprog. Ålborg: Ålborg Universitetsforlag.
Hatim, Basil and Mason, Ian. 1990. Discourse and the Translator. London:Longman.
Heine, Jytte. 1994. TV-tekster til tiden: oversættelse og tekstning af nyheder,
Hermes 13.
Hjørnager Pedersen, Viggo. 1979. Oversættelsesteori. Copenhagen: University of
Copenhagen.
Koller, Werner.1995. The Concept of Equivalence and the Object of Translation Studies,
Target 7:2.
Luyken, G-M., Reid, H. and Herbst, T. 1991. Overcoming Language Barriers in Television.
Manchester: European Institute for the Media.
Newmark, Peter.1988. A Textbook of Translation. Hemel Hempstead: Prentice Hall.
Nida, Eugene A. 1964. Toward a Science of Translating. Leiden: Brill.
Nida, Eugene A. 1975. Language Structure and Translation:Essays. Stanford: Stanford
University Press.
Reid, Helene.1990. Literature on the Screen. In: Westerweel & D'haen (Ed.) Something
Understood: studies in Anglo-Dutch literary translation. Amsterdam: DQR studies in
literature nr.5, Rodopi.
Steiner, George.1975. After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation. London: Oxford
University Press.
Toury, Gideon. 1995. Descriptive Translation Studies and beyond. Amsterdam:John
Betjeman.
Tveit, J.E. 1994. Subtitling and Information Entropy. In: Brikke, Magnar (Ed.) Applications
and Implications of Current LSP Research. Bergen: Proceedings of LSP conference,
Bergen 1993, vol.2.
Whorf, B.L. 1956. Language, Thought and Reality. Cambridge, Mass.:MIT.
Footnotes:
1.. Gottlieb 1996:11.
2.. I use the term 'target audience' here in preference to 'target culture'. Few translations - not
even TV subtitles - are comprehensible to, or accessible by, an entire culture. In most cases
the translator has a specific sub-group in mind.
3.. Nida 1964:170-171.
4.. The most famous example being the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, according to which differing
language structures may in and of themselves preclude the translation of even certain kinds of
factual statement. See Whorf 1956.
5.. Newmark 1988:2
Hjørnager Pedersen 1979:15
6.. Gottlieb 1994a:43-45
Reid 1990:1
7.. Heine 1994:242 : "...in news subtitling the visual elements play a subordinate role, in that
we (subtitlers), as already mentioned, rarely have time to see the video before transmission".
(My translation). This situation has, however, improved somewhat since 1994.
8.. Only the news broadcasts of the principal national, non-commercial channel, Danmarks
Radio channel 1 (DR1), have been examined. For a description of the actual news subtitling
process at Danmarks Radio, see Heine 1994.
9.. On 1st August 1996, intralingual subtitles were moved to teletext and no longer appear on
the normal broadcast screen, although they are still composed by the same subtitlers that
produce interlingual subtitles. The intralingual subtitles (subtitles for the deaf) quoted in this
article are those that appeared before August 1996, and, inasmuch as they essentially represent
a condensed version of the original manuscript, the terms employed in them should be
understood as originating with the journalist concerned rather than the subtitler.
10.. Conversations with Jytte Heine and Henrik Gottlieb.
11.. It is of course perfectly possible to maintain that religion is what the conflict is really
about, even if the participants themselves deny it: a kind of marxist 'false consciousness' could
be at work. But in that case the alternative model should be better able to account for the
actual events than the explanations of the people directly involved. This is not the case with,
for example, the bomb attacks of 1996, which were directed against the London Docklands
area, a hotel in Enniskillen and the Lisburn headquarters of the British Army in Northern
Ireland. Apart from the Enniskillen bombing - which remains unexplained - the choice of
British commercial and military targets reflects the IRA's perception that they are at war with
the British government and its military presence in Northern Ireland.
12.. The Orange Order is - apart from the churches themselves - the only major organisation in
Northern Ireland with a specifically sectarian character. Membership is only available to
protestants.