Gossip Girl In Dubbing And Subtitling

Estefanía Mayor García
DUBBING AND SUBTITLING: CHARACTERS’ PORTRAYAL IN TV SERIES
One of the most debated issues about audiovisual translation is the so difficult task of choosing between dubbing or subtitling. The objective of this essay is to analyse the importance of this type of decisions when talking about TV series, taking into account to what extent it harms the portrayal of thecharacters. The TV series chosen to develop this work is “Gossip Girl”, based on the novels written by Cecily Von Ziegesar. It is amazing how the series can change so much just because they are dubbed, and the most interesting thing about “Gossip Girl” is the characters’ portrayal. Later on in the essay, we will be able to see all this differences exemplified and explained.

A BRIEF THEORIC INTRODUCTIONTO AUDIOVISUAL TRANSLATION:
In this explanation, we will examine the importance of the human agents in the production of dubbed and subtituled autiovisual texts. In audiovisual translation, as in almost every field of study, there are some norms which need to be followed and investigated, and an important figure for translators and investigators is Even-Zohar, a very significative Israeliinvestigator.
For him, a producer is “an actor, is an individual who produces, by actively operating a repertoire, either repetitively producible, or ‘new’ products” (Even- Zohar, 1990:18). In audiovisual translation, many people need to be involved, in both productions: the subtitled and the dubbed one. This means time-coders, dubbing actors, dubbing directors, spotters, sound technicians, experts invideo, post-editors… and finally, the translator. He is the one who “ suggests the linguistic semiotic signals of a target product”( BUSCAR LA BIBLIOGRAFIAAA). Along with all these people, there are also some other persons who contribute to the final shape of the translation product.
In audiovisual translation, there are many things to take into account when it comes to choose between subtitlingor dubbing. Among them, they are the visual and the aural background. These two factors cannot be reshaped as they should be to be a perfect adaptation. In fact, only the text is the one that can be manipulated because in the end, it has to fit in with them. These features are intrinsic to audiovisual translation and the people working on it cannot do anything. The “translation product” that mustbe obtained at the end, involves all these audiovisual aspects, aural and visual, along with the new text that has been created to adapt the film or the programme to a new language. This is not only taken into account when dubbing, but also when subtitling. Subtitles cannot modify any audiovisual factors in the production, it only consists on texts out of the audiovisual frame.

DUBBING VS.SUBTITLING:
When talking about audiovisual translation, these two terms are the first ones to have in mind. The translator or adaptor, has to choose between using one or the other (or they are simply told to use one or other option) but both of them have their good and bad points.
On the one hand, dubbing films or other type of audiovisual texts, is like “revoicing” the text in a synchronized way,and it involves to use different actors from the ones acting in the original version. These actors should be involved in the text to the extent that they are playing the same role as the actor in the original one, but they are not seen. They just lend their voices to the text and that is it, although they have to do it in an appropriate way. One of the most important advantages of dubbing is thatpeople do not need to read anything on the screen: they just take a sit, relax, and listen while they watch the programme. Speakers find easier this kind of translation because for them, it is more comprehensible and processable, especially when it comes to strong dialogues or meaningful expositions. Another important issue about dubbing is that viewers do involve easily in the program, they...